ORLANDO, Fla. — It’s not easy for HR professionals to ponder that workplace violence could happen at their organizations, Jennifer Shaw, founder of Shaw Law Group, said during a SHRM26 presentation Tuesday. Yet, the reality is that such violence may occur in any work environment.
“Frankly, everyone at this conference should be in this room, because this stuff is so important,” Shaw said.
In addition to its psychological toll, workplace violence carries a staggering economic cost, estimated at $121 billion annually, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Acknowledging both psychology and legal compliance is key to preparing an organization for that possibility, said Dennis Davis, national director of client training at Ogletree Deakins.
“A lot of people are afraid of this topic,” Davis said. “What do we do when we’re afraid? We just go into denial; we don’t pay attention.”
In an effort to drive conversations on violence prevention, Shaw and Davis presented attendees with a six-step strategy for developing an effective response plan at the session, titled “Don’t be scared. Be prepared.”
1. Have a written plan
Some U.S. jurisdictions require employers to maintain a workplace violence policy. But even if employers don’t operate in such locations, they should maintain a policy anyway and ensure it is available in writing, according to Davis.
“If it isn’t written down, then it doesn’t exist,” Davis said, adding that employers should strongly consider making a violence prevention policy that is separate from other sections of its handbook. “When a policy stands on its own, you’re saying this matters. This is important to us.”
The policy should be generally available and accessible to all employees, he continued, though portions of it may be kept confidential, such as those pertaining to how the organization responds to threats or violence against C-suite executives or senior leaders.
Separate from a broad, general policy, Davis said employers also should prepare individualized response plans that are specific to certain jobsites that clearly outline who employees should contact in the event of the incident as well as the party in charge of administering the plan.
These kinds of specifications are necessary toward meeting an employer’s obligations under the Occupational Safety and Health Act’s general duty clause, Shaw said. Generic plans also create risks in that they may not be effectively tailored to specific employee populations or leave the organization open to liability, she noted.
2. Evaluate hazards
In order for a policy to be effective, it must account for the specific hazards that employees may face. These may differ depending on the worker’s industry or occupation, Shaw said. For instance, whereas a finance employee may face the greatest risk of violence from co-workers or clients, a nurse may be particularly at risk of violence from a patient.
Federal agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have identified four categories of workplace violence: criminal intent; customer- or client-related; worker-on-worker; and personal relationship. These categories can help further delineate risk, Shaw and Davis said.
Specificity also means identifying which forms violence could take. It’s not always the case, for instance, that violence will involve the use of a weapon. Words can be considered violent, too, Shaw noted, and employees must understand this.
“You have to be able to have everybody in the organization on the same page or watching out for what’s going on,” she said. “If you knew that patients were going to be interacting with your nursing staff and you didn’t give them the tools to address it, you’re going to have more liability.”
3. Provide detailed training, but avoid being too graphic
It’s not enough to tell employees the old standby of “see something, say something,” Davis said. HR must clearly state what staff should be on the lookout for and what actions must be taken in response.
Davis also noted the importance of developing all-encompassing active incident training rather than modules tailored solely to active shooter training, which describes only one form of violence that can occur.
Here, too, HR has to be specific. Court cases involving workplace violence often go to trial, Shaw said, and juries are generally unimpressed with employers who utilize off-the-shelf, generic prevention training programs.
Training doesn’t need to be gratuitously violent in nature to be effective — in fact, this can often have a detrimental effect, per Shaw — but Davis said employers should avoid being overly concerned about “triggering” employees. He distinguished between “necessary” and “needless” triggering, with the latter being in reference to especially graphic content.
4. Document incidents in a detailed manner
As with other areas of compliance, thorough documentation of workplace violence is critical. Shaw advised attendees to record details, including the who, what, where, when, why and how of the situation.
Ideally, this is done in a way that tells a story about what a violent actor did and how the employer responded, she said, and every employee should know that it is their duty to write down what has happened.
“That documentation is contemporaneous,” Shaw said. “It’s happening at the same time, so it’s very powerful. It also helps us identify patterns, and it also can be discoverable, which you want most of the time in a lawsuit.”
5. Make room for continuous improvement and evaluation
Employers should always be looking to reevaluate and tweak their plans should the need arise, Davis said. Part of this work involves listening to employees’ concerns and feedback.
For instance, if a store clerk voices concerns about certain doors or entrances being accessible to customers late at night, HR should listen and address those concerns in their policies and plans accordingly.
It’s not always the case that employees will like the solution that the employer has chosen, Shaw said, but it’s not necessary for the employer to gain such approval. Instead, the employer simply must inform employees what steps they are taking in response.
6. Ensure legal compliance and psychology go hand in hand
A good prevention policy is psychologically savvy, Davis said, and makes note of events that have occurred in the local community, state and country to ensure employees are paying attention. These can be important jumping off points to remind employees of both the existence of basic safety protocols as well as the purpose of those protocols.
“Remind your people that the security measures you have in place are not designed to get on their nerves,” Davis added. “They’re designed to keep each of you individually safe.”
Meanwhile, legally sound policies not only exist but are also consistently enforced, according to Shaw.
“What you have to imagine is that you’re on that stand in the courtroom and defending what you did,” she said. “And if you can defend it with a straight face, knowing you did what you were supposed to do, it doesn’t matter if people agree.”
