Proactive Strategies for Preventing Workplace Violence

by Carie McMichael | Feb 20, 2024 | Corporate Culture, Harassment & Discrimination Evergreen, Human Resources, Resources, Threat & Violence, Workplace

Proactive Strategies for Preventing Workplace Violence

Picture this: a workplace where employees feel respected, safe, and valued. Sounds good, right! Unfortunately, this is not always an ideal situation. The study by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) revealed that workplace violence affects about 2 million people every year in the United States alone. These figures may be scary and mitigate your determination to conduct business. Fear not, as there are well-proven strategies that you can implement to safeguard your employees and organization. This article will discuss five effective methods to create a working environment where safety reigns supreme.

Establishing a Comprehensive Prevention Policy

Imagine a castle without robust walls; it will be prone to attacks. Similarly, the organization and employees are at risk without a workable prevention policy in the workplace. Policies are internally created and customized to fit the nature of your business. It is important to note that there is no one-size-fits-all policies, as different organizations engage in activities with varied levels of risk. Studies have shown that workplaces with clear violence policies report lower incidences. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine indicates that companies with violence policies experience 40% fewer cases than those without such guidelines.

The policy should define terms such as harassment, verbal abuse, and physical violence, which employees experience in the workplace. Notably, this policy document should also clearly indicate the reporting procedure, the disciplinary action to be taken, and the supportive mechanism for the victims. While some human resource directors might consider this a lot of work, it improves productivity. We, as Lauth, will conduct a proper violence assessment to give you insight into how well-prepared you are for incidences of violence.

Training and Creating Awareness among the Employees

It is self-fulfilling for a business owner to have a vigilant team that can detect threats. Employee training equips them with the necessary skills, such as interpersonal skills and conflict management, which makes them handle issues that could result in violence. The leading cause of violence within the workplace is a lack of understanding among the workforce, and appreciating diversity lessens violence. Investing in training saves time that could have been used to solve the conflict. For example, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) study showed that companies that invested in workplace violence training experienced a 70% reduction in workplace violence. Arm your team with knowledge!

Conducting Rigorous Risk Assessment

Perhaps you cannot perceive the inherent risk that violence can bring to your business because it has never happened. Or better put, take into consideration an employee who gets injured while at work due to an incidence of violence, such as a physical altercation. Picture that regarding litigations related to work injury benefit claims, and I am sure you will appreciate the need to fortify your defense. A regular risk assessment identifies the vulnerabilities within your business. Through our experienced risk assessment investigator, we identify weak points in your system and provide a comprehensive report on improvements.

Establishing Workplace Violence Prevention Teams

Having a dedicated team of guardians for preventing workplace violence is the best thing you can gift your business this year. This team is instrumental in ensuring petty issues resulting from violence are handled out immediately before they escalate. A small problem, such as miscommunication, can snowball into physical or verbal abuse. It is prudent to establish a workplace violence prevention team consisting of experts from different departments, and their primary role would be to develop and implement violence prevention strategies.

Organizations with a workable workplace violence prevention team are good at establishing potential threats before they happen. This is supported by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), which indicated that 80% of the companies with violence prevention teams reported a decrease in workplace violence incidences. As a starting point, develop a violence prevention team and track the cases within the first year. The outcome will be appealing, and for you to achieve this, we suggest helping you with a corporate culture audit to serve as a mirror of exactly how prepared you are in regard to workplace violence.

Promoting a Culture of Respect and Support

Build solidarity among your employees. Being united is a compact pillar in mitigating violence in the workplace. Successful organizations foster a culture of respect and support, which essentially prevents violence in the workforce. This is because the employees feel valued, and they tend to propagate the value of respect to the advantage of the business. How do you cultivate a culture of support and respect? This happens through encouraging open communication and enforcing a zero-tolerance policy for harassment or discrimination. These approaches create a sense of belonging, preventing conflict from escalating into violence.

Conclusion

It is undeniably true that workplace violence impedes an organization’s growth and lowers productivity. As the workforce continues to become more diverse, the chances of conflicts, hence violence, would continue in the workplace. Therefore, it is wrong to sit and wait until an incident happens in order to act. This article has highlighted the different strategies you can adopt for your enterprise and stand out in averting the repercussions that tag along with violence. Lauth can help you with your violence assessment, risk assessment, and corporate audit to mitigate violence.

Violence and Threat Assessments: Dos and Don’ts in the Workplace to Prevent Further Damage

by Carie McMichael | Apr 4, 2023 | Threat & Violence, Threat Violence Assessment Evergreen

If yours is one of the countless businesses across the United States who wasn’t prepared to deal with workplace violence and got caught out, you’re sadly—but certainly—not alone. Statistics reveal that as many as 90% of organizations do not comply with federal OSHA reporting regulations and record-keeping in this area. Meanwhile, 55% of American employees report being unaware or unsure of their employer’s emergency preparedness plans.

Sure, many businesses skate along relatively unscathed by this oversight. That is, until an unforeseen sequence of events brings it into shocking focus. If you have recently become aware of workplace violence or threatening behavior going unchecked on your watch, then this article is for you. As an employer, you can’t correct any past lack of readiness, but you can act responsibly today. Read on to discover the steps that you need to take next to prevent further damage, including human resource oversight, diligent investigations, corporate culture importance, and much more.

The Potential Cost of Being Blasé About Workplace Violence

If you’ve always imagined that worrying about things like workplace violence doesn’t need to be on your priority list, think again. Failing to take the issue seriously can result in a hefty price tag for American businesses. In fact, the average out-of-court settlement for workplace violence incidents runs at approximately $500,000, while a jury award settlement can painfully run into the millions. Yes, while you as an employer may not be the perpetrator, you can still be left with a business-sinking bill to settle.

Even on the lesser end of the spectrum, workplace violence on any scale can be a symptom of a toxic workplace culture that serves as a breeding ground for employee theft and even white-collar criminality. With abusive workplace behavior comes decreased productivity, employee absence, and runaway turnover. Business reputations can suffer, and ultimately lawsuits can ensue.

As an employer, you may find yourself held responsible for the actions of others as a respondent superior who failed to step in, under the terms of premises liability, or through negligence in hiring or retention. In immediate strides of damage mitigation, you can not only respond to present reports of threats or violence at work decisively, but you can also take immediate steps to rectify your state of preparedness for the future.

Damage Control for Threatening Behavior and Violence at Work

As someone with corporate or human resource oversight, you have a duty to develop an effective violence prevention policy and program and communicate it effectively to employees. This will include conducting accurate violence and threat assessments, incorporating threat screening into your recruitment policies, providing effective training to your leadership team, and having clear procedural guidelines in place to deal with both dangerous situations and their initiators.

To give an example, although 62% of companies view an active shooter as a top threat, around 79% report feeling unprepared for an incident of this kind. Resolution can be found in an expert threat and violence assessment from Lauth Investigations International.

In another instance, a leader may have allowed a toxic workplace culture to fester, only to see bullying escalate into violence. A swift and efficient corporate culture audit can quickly redress this imbalance, while comprehensive background checks can prevent the arrival of more bad actors in the future.
Do you need help with launching impartial workplace investigations following reports of threatening or violent behavior in the workplace? Would you like expert guidance on how to make your place of employment safe, secure, and robust against the threat of nefarious employees moving forwards? If so, the Lauth Investigations team is here and ready to assist. We support businesses across America every day in their quest for strong corporate culture and ultimate prosperity. Don’t let workplace violence derail your progress—instead, reach out to our team today.

Possible motive for San Jose mass shooting revealed

by Carie McMichael | May 28, 2021 | Threat & Violence

The nation was rocked once again by the news of yet another mass shooting in San Jose, California. The San Jose shooting is now being described by law enforcement officials as the actions of a disgruntled employee in an act of violence perpetrated against his coworkers. Samuel Cassidy, 57, entered his worksite, a rail facility for the Valley Transportation Authority at 6:30 in the morning with a duffle bag full of semi-automatic firearms with high-capacity magazines. Cassidy shot and killed 9 people who left behind families and loved ones in the aftermath of another tragedy in what has become a devastating state of normalcy.

Because there were no surveillance cameras in the rail yard, investigators have relied on witness testimony to fill in the blanks. Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith told the media that the San Jose shooting had the earmarks of serious premeditation, “ It appears to us at this point that he said to one of the people there, ‘I’m not going to shoot you.’ And then he shot other people. So, I imagine there was some kind of though on who he wanted to shoot.”

Possible motives for the San Jose shooting have only begun to emerge in the days following the violence. Cecilia Nelms, Cassidy’s ex-wife, told the Associated Press that Cassidy had ideations of homicidal violence against his coworkers as far back as 2012, when she recalled him saying he wanted to kill people at work. “I never believed him, and it never happened. Until now.” Nelms went on to state that Cassidy frequently expressed frustration or anger regarding his treatment at work, complaining of “unfair assignments.” The investigation into the San Jose shooting is still ongoing as law enforcement continue to piece together the pieces that lead to this violence. All the while, the families of the nine victims are left reeling, demanding answers as to how this could have been prevented.

As instances of mass shootings in the workplace continue to grow as a trending form of violence, employers and business owners continue to seek solutions to prevent it. While bolstering a workplace or worksite’s physical security measures are certainly a great way to protect employees, it can only go so far, as seen in the case of the San Jose shooting. The Valley Transportation Authority’s railyard was outdoors, and there are limits to how many checkpoints can be monitored and secured. Though security measure provide peace of mind, they cannot mitigate the systemic problems that toxic work environments cause. No evidence has emerged that the Valley Transportation Authority was a toxic employer, but the same cannot be said of all employers that have experienced mass shootings in their workplace. Toxic corporate cultures can potentially warp an employee into the sort who would open fire on his coworkers, and that’s why employers are more interested than ever in improving that culture.

Regardless of the motive for his deplorable actions, nothing would justify the senseless taking of nine lives and losses felt by hundreds more. The victims were Alex Ward Fritch, 49; Paul Delacruz Megia, 42; Taptejdeep Singh, 36; Adrian Balleza, 29; Jose Dejesus Hernandez, 35; Timothy Michael Romo, 49; Michael Joseph Rudometkin, 40; Abdolvahab Alaghmandan, 63, and Lars Kepler Lane, 63.

Corporate Culture in the Moloson Coors shooting

by admin_lauth | Mar 4, 2020 | Corporate Investigations, News and Media, Threat & Violence, Workplace

Just after lunch last Wednesday, violence erupted in Milwaukee, WI at the famous Molson Coors factory, when an employee walked in with a loaded firearm and began shooting, leaving 5 victims and the shooter deceased. The violence is another in a string of shootings in the workplace that has corporate leadership wondering what their role is in limiting these acts of violence.

The victims in the Milwaukee Molson Coors shooting were identified as Jesus Valle Jr., 33; Gennady Levshetz, 61; Trevor Wetselaar, 33; Dana Walk, 57; and Dale Hudson, 60. The shooter, electrician Anthony N. Ferrill, 51, is deceased as well. Those victims, Ferrill’s coworkers, are remembered by the dozens of friends and family they left behind, as well as a community rocked by violence. Molson Coors chief executive Gavin Hattersley said in a news conference, “They were husbands, they were fathers, and they were friends. They were a part of the fabric of our company and our community, and we will miss them terribly.”

While many acts of violence in the workplace are perpetrated by former employees, Anthony Ferrill was a current employee of Molson Coors. Ferrill worked in the building’s utilities department. While authorities have not established a clear motive for the shooting, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Ferrill had a history of dispute with his coworkers that many have speculated finally came to a head in the events leading up to last week’s shooting. The dispute may have had racial overtones, with Ferrill accusing other employees of discriminating against him in the workplace. He had suspicions that other employees were trespassing at his home, bugging his electronic devices, and disturbing his property. With the exception of one man, Ferrill had previous confrontations with all the victims, yet police have declined to comment on how the shooting occurred.

When shocking incidents of violence like this occur in the workplace, it’s not uncommon to hear from leadership in the organization that they are ‘shocked,’ or ‘astonished’ at the events that have taken place, or that the violence was perpetrated by a member of their organization. The reality is that active shooter events and other forms of violence in the workplace can usually be anticipated and prevented if leadership is not asleep at the wheel.

Most workplace crises, from violence to theft, can be traced back to faulty internal operations. That’s why so many corporations are seeking to have their daily operations evaluated by independent investigators and risk assessment firms. These investigators come into your business and begin examining hiring processes, onboarding materials, employee engagement, and the turnover rate in an attempt to identify the problems that cause frustration within the organization. In the unfortunate example of Molsen Coors, there was obviously room for more supervision with regards to intra-employee conflict. If the alleged intra-employee conflict had been given more attention, it might not have ended in violence.

Corporate Culture Audit investigators can provide leadership with the insight they need to improve their daily operations. Investigators can review hiring protocol, identifying risk factors and lack of oversight. They can review security systems, both in cyberspace, and at brick-and-mortar locations to identify weaknesses that would leave the company vulnerable to attack. These are measures that could have prevented the violence that broke out at Molson Coors, and they can protect your company, too.

If your corporation or organization needs a corporate culture audit, call Lauth Investigations International today for a free quote on our corporate culture audit program. Our program is built to fit businesses of any size and is customizable to fit you investigative needs. Call 317-951-1100 or visit us online at www.lauthinveststg.wpengine.com

Active Shooter Training in the Workplace

by admin_lauth | Nov 2, 2018 | Resources, Technology, Threat & Violence, Threat Violence Assessment Evergreen, Tips & Facts

Active Shooter Training in the Workplace

So far this year, there have been 297 mass shootings in the United States. Seeing as how November 1^st is the 305^th day in the calendar year, it would appear that the spike in active shooter events in recent years will not slow down any time soon. While schools redefine their safety protocols and implement programs that prepare students for these events, employers throughout the United States are also beginning to understand the importance of preparing their workforce for an active shooter event. The year of 2017 broke the record for the most mass-shooting deaths every recorded—112 deaths, well exceeding the amount in any other year in recorded history. In 2018, the Bureau of Labor Statistics published a report that showed another spike in workplace homicides. According to them, there were 83 workplace homicides in 2015, a number that skyrocketed to 500 for the year of 2018 alone. A terrifying 79% of those cases were the result of an active shooter. As a result, the desire for employee active shooter training has never been higher, with NPR reporting that as of 2016, 75-80% of employers are seeking qualified active shooter training to protect their workforce. The Department of Homeland Security has a myriad of resources on their website for dealing with active shooters. One of them is a pocket-card that outlines the characteristics of an active shooter event, “Victims are selected at random. The event is unpredictable and evolves quickly. Law enforcement is usually required to end an active shooter situation.” Active shooters may fire at random, using no discernible criteria for their victims, but that arbitration should not be misunderstood. Perpetrators are deliberate, focused, and simultaneously detached from their task, creating a fatal perfect storm.

The Department of Homeland Security also have their own guidelines to how private citizens should react during an active shooter event: Run—hide—fight. Run At the onset of an active shooter event, individuals should immediately identify an escape route, most likely a fire exit. While keeping their hands visible, they should leave their belongings behind and run to safety as quick as possible, assisting others if needed. Hide Once they’ve reached safety (or if escape is impossible) the Department of Homeland Security recommends hiding immediately in a location out of the shooter’s line of sight. Individuals should block the door or manner of entry into their hiding spot and silence their cell phones and pagers. Sit very quietly and wait for first-responders to find you. Fight The Department of Homeland Security lists this option as an absolute last resort in the event of an active shooter in the workplace. Your life should be in immediate danger, and you should be well-positioned to act with physical aggression and incapacitate the shooter. Many third-party security companies also endorse the methods of Homeland Security, but there are others that take a different approach. Laurence Barton, a workplace violence expert, recommends employers seek training programs that promote a culture of safety and preparedness—not fear. In lieu of careful research regarding active shooter training, many employers opt for the simple, cost-effective route by showing employees the prolific training video produced by the city of Houston, which features graphic depictions of employees being shot. “When some companies have created these videos that show blood and guts—that’s not in any way the kind of learning that stays with people. In fact, it repulses them…employees get scared,” Barton says, “I just don’t believe scaring people is the way to teach them. It just promotes anxiety.” Aric Mutchnick, the president of a risk management firm called the Experior Group, agrees with Barton, “Cops or military guys like to have it very realistic because they think the more real it is, the more they can find out. That is true if you’re a tactical team, but you can’t apply tactical training to a civilian population.” Mutchnick points out that the equal distribution of choice laid down by the Department of Homeland Security—run, hide, or fight—is not only dangerous, but unrealistic, “It should be 90 percent run, 8 percent hide until you can run, and then as for fight, really? Are you kidding? I don’t know how you would even train on that.” Companies like Experior Group also recommend that a base knowledge of firearms should also be part of the training, not so employees can operate firearms, but so their knowledge can inform their escape. Civilians who are ignorant of basic firearm operations can easily be paralyzed by fear because they are uncertain of a weapons range or magazine size. This gives an active shooter ample opportunity to change their position and reload without fear of retaliation.

Frozen with fear—it’s something we can all relate to. After all, many working people today are not acclimated to the viable, potential threat of an active shooter in the workplace. Aggressive, hyper-realistic training can compound the anxiety triggered by the increased probability of being involved in an active shooter event. That’s why Barton and other like-minded professionals epitomize on a feeling of safety, with straightforward and honest training that will leave any employee feeling prepared. “The chief learning officer has a huge opportunity to lead a discussion about workplace safety. [Employees] are yearning to be informed about how the world is changing and how threats get processed at work…You want to have a subject matter expert who works with law enforcement and can speak the language of all employees.” One thing that employers often overlook when considering active shooter training programs is a company that curtails the training to their individual brick and mortar location. As part of what they call “red ball drills,” Experior Group will evaluate the property to identify the specific issues that might present during an active shooter event. “The problems of a commercial building are not the problems of a hospital or a school,” Mutchnick says. “Run, hide, fight is s giant blanket they throw over the problem as a response, but it doesn’t deal with any site-specific issues.” All training dispensed by Experior Group is tailor-made for the culture and physical context of any business. When these issues have been identified, the instructor can direct employees the best manner of exit, should they have that option.

The last thing to consider when choosing an active shooter training program is the credibility behind the operations. Some of the most prolific risk management and security companies are headed by former members of law enforcement or the military. This experience with weapons and chaos not only validates the content for many employers, but also leaves employees empowered with credible knowledge. However, former navy seals and swat team leaders are not the only option when it comes to the instructor. Lauren Perry, the vice president of operations for Trident Shield, often addresses training groups. Her specific style and feminine touch opens the dialogue in any room, allowing individuals who might not respond to an aggressive, alpha males to remain engaged in the training, retaining the information that might one day save their lives. Many employers often grapple with the cost of active shooter training for their employees. With many training programs averaging in the realm of thousands of dollars, employers often question whether or not active shooter training is even necessary. The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 says, “Employers have the responsibility to provide a safe and healthful workplace that is free from serious recognized hazards.” The rise of active shooter events in the United States is most certainly recognized, with every event further inflaming the political world and conversations surrounding gun control. Given the statistics we’ve seen here, it appears as though it’s not a matter of if an active shooter even will occur, but when. Carie McMichael is the Communication and Media Specialist for Lauth Investigations International. She regularly writes on private investigation and missing persons topics. For more information, please visit our website.

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