10 Workplace Violence Prevention TIPs to Manage, Prevent, and Improve the Workplace Safety and Security Culture

Archive for the ‘Felix P. Nater’ Category

10 Workplace Violence Prevention TIPs to Manage, Prevent, and Improve the Workplace Safety and Security Culture

Posted on: May 20th, 2024

Creating a Workplace Culture of Safety and Security grows from within by leaders who set the example. It is not mandated. It is exemplified. It reflects people seeing the organization as “walking the walk and talking the talk.” People care about people. This is when organizational leaders through supervisors and others, lead by example by showing, correcting, and educating before there’s the surprise attack. Now is a better time than ever to review your capability to combat the threat of workplace violence every day. Workplace Violence Prevention is an ongoing process involving multiple intervention strategies. The active shooter is a failed workplace violence prevention program.

 

  1. Provide some level of assessment and evaluation of employee-reported incidents of violence to determine the need to conduct an official investigation. Ineffective responses to employee concerns and complaints erode trust, and confidence and disrupt workplace performance efficiencies. Such practices can lead to employees taking the “law” into their own hands. By that I mean if nothing is done about it, they will do what is necessary to protect themselves.

 

  1. Establish a “Reporting Policy” and provide avenues and opportunities for employees to report safety and security concerns, observations, and victimization. Having a clearly defined, credible reporting, tracking, and monitoring system provides reassurances that their reports and complaints are taken seriously. In other words, not fallen on deaf ears. Organizations can reduce incidents and avoid civil liability allegations in cases of serious injuries or fatalities by engaging in proactive measures that promote accountability and responsibility.

 

  1. Holding supervisors and managers responsible and accountable for responding, managing, and processing initial employee complaints can have an influence. There should not be any discretion at this level to promote an organizational commitment to workforce safety, security, and risk management.

 

  1. Employers must lead from the front. They must ever be mindful that victims are reluctant to step forward if there is credibility in reporting concerns. Essential witnesses withhold their observations out of fear of retaliation. Such instances can become problematic. As problem employees they are identified as troublemakers and problem children, a term commonly used in schools. Students are commonly referred to as “problem children” becoming victims of student bullies and other forms of harassment. At work, however, adult workers are denied vacation choices, requested days off are also denied. Sudden changes in assignments including change of assigned area. Bullying of this nature is always a tool of the “rogue” supervisor-manager who feels the negative attention.

 

  1. Prejudging and undermining employee reports place them at risk by failing to address the information promptly and thoroughly, contributing to perceptions of disparate treatment. Unfair prejudgment of employee disputes and situations results in long-term discord between coworkers and management.

 

  1. Be sensitive to employee working conditions and the impact of established policies, plans, or procedures on employee perceptions of unfairness especially when the employee feels victimized. Learn to recognize and be alert to early warning signs of potential problems because of personnel changes, reorganizations, impending business decisions, mergers, and acquisitions.

 

  1. Make employee encounters with management a dignified process, especially during the disciplinary and termination experiences. Giving employees the benefit of the doubt by treating them with dignity and respect diminishes stress. Know the impact of heavy-handedness. Giving detailed explanations and allowing room for feedback reduces anxiety and tension.

 

  1. Consider the value of forming a workplace violence prevention team or the more formalized threat assessment team to serve as the company incident management teams in monitoring and tracking reports that de-escalate future problems. Create a team that is representative of key members of the organizational leadership team with authority to act.

 

  1. Don’t be afraid to dig for root causes, conducting a root cause analysis or critical vulnerability assessment can yield interesting discoveries before arriving at culpability. The Zero Tolerance Policy should not be used as a “Termination” Weapon. Being ever mindful that acts of workplace violence tend to be emotional and reactionary to events to grievances and perceptions of unfairness. Keep clarity on reality. Stay focused on potential “Triggers” and avoid assumptions.

 

  1. Bring the HR & Security department together as a human resource – security collaborative team in a way of sharing information that hastily mitigates risk and makes exigent decisions. There is no excuse for the disgruntled employee to transition into volatile thoughts of homicidal retaliation. This concept can be a value-added benefit during the initial assessment and evaluation phase of employee reports and complaints. If the police are called, be prepared to manage the support they provide. Avoid turning over the human resource-security matter to local police who might not offer the best advice in every situation. While coordination is recommended, having an Emergency Action Plan for these situations ensures an efficient hand-on in hostile emergency matters until the police are on location.

 

About Felix Nater, CSC President & Chief Security Consultant at Nater Associates Ltd. is a Certified Security Consultant, and trained Workplace Violence Prevention Consultant, Advisor and Coach to manufacturing, processing, production, and utility employers who helps them identify issues that lead to workplace violence. He helps organizations assess and evaluate their workplace violence prevention -security posture, implement and manage workplace security strategy with an emphasis on workplace violence prevention. He has been involved in this work for over 30 years as a Workplace Violence Prevention Specialist, starting out as a U.S. Postal Inspector having diversified expertise in criminal, security, administrative, training and program management experiences. He is the main author of the book with David Van Fleet & Ella Van Fleet entitled: Combating Workplace Violence: Creating & Maintaining Safe Work Environments. bit.ly/3odv3NA

Office: 7040784-0260

Guest Blogger Dawn Marie Westmoreland and Felix P. Nater Discuss the “WHY”, “WHAT” and “How” of Workplace Violence Prevention

Posted on: August 11th, 2021

This edition of News & Tips to Combat Workplace Violence – the Blog highlights Dawn Marie Westmoreland as the Guest Blogger discussing the “WHY”, “WHAT” and “HOW” of workplace violence and workplace violence prevention with Felix P. Nater, CSC, Nater Associates, Ltd.  Dawn celebrates her one-year anniversary of her syndicated radio show, “The Empowered Whistleblower”.  Dawn has featured yours truly on the “The Empowered Whistleblower” Show on previous occasions.

The interview focused on tragic workplace homicides specifically the April 15, 2021, shooting incident at the FedEx plant, Indianapolis, Indiana. This senseless incident resulted in the deaths of 8 coworkers and 5 injured totaling 13 victims who were innocently doing their respective jobs. Though this shooting incident was reported by the media and local police as an active shooter, this shooting was actually classified as a mass shooting.

What’s sad is that by April 2021, April was a deadly month of workplace homicides.  There were about 26 victims of workplace shootings. Unfortunately, that’s not all.  As of July 31, 411 mass shootings fitting the Mass Shooting Tracker project criterion, leaving 437 people dead and 1,688 injured, for a total of 2,125 total victims, some including the shooter(s). So I ask the  question, WHY is there a penchant for violence?

(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2021)

WHY? Most businesses do not report workplace violence that does not result in deaths or serious injuries. That’s due to lack of communication, fear of taking action, and of course, lack of awareness. But the numbers are hard to ignore regardless.

Dawn thought the message was appropriate and applicable in reminding our audience that as employees we all deserve to work in safe and respectful work environments and that proactive measures can be taken to reduce the threat and minimize the risks.

Dawn Marie Westmoreland, who has 30 years’ experience working in HR, is not new to workplace conflict and personnel security threats. So, this edition is ripe in presenting an important opportunity to bring up that while it was Fedex then, it could be any workplace or educational institution that could be victimized in similar fashion tomorrow.

No workplace or educational institution is immune from the threat of workplace violence. How prepared are you really? Is the workplace active shooter an organizational prevention response or an unfortunate reaction to an unforeseen event?

WHAT? OSHA reports that there are about 2 million reported incidents of workplace violence annually. By workplace violence we mean nonviolent acts (verbal abuse, name calling, harassment, bullying, intimidation, and threats) and violent acts (throwing objects with intent to injure, fist fights, sexual assault, lethal force such as armed robbery and active shooter, bomb threats, and terrorist acts).

Dawn’s objective during the radio show, which was also videotaped, was to bring out the value of workplace violence prevention in taking proactive measures that help an organization understand prevention as a philosophy, forging a mindset that understand the approach to take to resolve issues, reduce conflict, deescalate incidents, minimize risk and roll out hasty intervention measures.

We can reduce active shooting incidents and mass shooting fatalities and keep employees safe by taking workplace violence head on. HOW?

By assessing their worksites, employers can identify methods for reducing the likelihood of incidents occurring. OSHA believes that a well-written and implemented workplace violence prevention program, combined with engineering controls, administrative controls, and training can reduce the incidence of workplace violence in both the private sector and federal workplaces.

OSHA encourages employers to develop additional methods as necessary to protect employees in high-risk industries.” Source:  https://lnkd.in/d9mWD38

Click the link to see and listen to Dawn Marie Westmoreland interview Felix P. Nater, CSC, Security Management Consultant.   https://lnkd.in/dh4wr2q