Workplace Safety: Establishing an Effective Violence Prevention Program

By Randall W. Ferris and Daniel Murphy

Workplace Safety: Establishing an Effective Violence Prevention Program includes a powerful model on how to overcome organizational rationalization, objection, and denial when confronted with proposing a workplace violence protection program.

The book offers real-life cases studies on how violence was successfully avoided using the book’s program, and also shows how to recognize and report precursor behaviors that precede violence.

In addition, the book demonstrates proven methods for properly, and effectively, responding to violence should it occur, and tactfully managing the aftermath.

• Includes a powerful model on how to overcome organizational rationalization, objection, and denial when confronted with proposing a workplace violence protection program
• Offers real-life cases studies on how violence was successfully avoided using the book’s program
• Presents best practices on how to recognize and report precursor behaviors that precede violence
• Demonstrates proven methods for properly, and effectively, responding to violence and tactfully managing the aftermath

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Release date: Oct 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9780128027899

Book preview

Workplace Safety

Establishing an Effective Violence Prevention Program

Randall W. Ferris

Daniel Murphy

Table of Contents

Cover

Title page

Copyright

Foreword

Preface

About the Authors

Acknowledgments

Part I: Getting Your Ducks in a Row

Chapter 1: Definitions, Statistics, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration

Abstract

Workplace Violence Is Not a Crime

Reporting at the Federal Level

OSHA’s Role

OSHA Workplace Violence Inspections

OSHA Risk Factors

OSHA Fines and Lawsuits

What Every Company Should Do

Chapter 2: The Need for a Violence Prevention Program

Abstract

Avoidance of Legal Liability

The Cost of an On-Site Homicide

Chapter 3: Overcoming Rationalizations, Objections, and Denials

Abstract

Part II: Getting Everyone Up-to-Speed

Chapter 4: Types of Violence

Abstract

Chapter 5: Relationship Violence

Abstract

Observable Symptoms of Relationship Violence

Discussing Your Concerns with the Associate

Chapter 6: Associate Violence

Abstract

Motive and Behavioral Warning Signs

Chapter 7: External Violence

Abstract

How Much Security Is Appropriate?

Part III: Formulating a Plan and Putting it Into Action

Chapter 8: Seven Components of a Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan

Abstract

The Seven Components of a Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan

Chapter 9: Staff and Management Training

Abstract

Associate Training Plan

Supervisor and Management Training

Chapter 10: The Situational Assessment and Management Team

Abstract

Assembling the Team

Addressing the Immediate Threat

The Investigation

Conducting Threat Assessments

Chapter 11: High-Risk Terminations and Building an Enhanced Security Plan

Abstract

Softening the Landing

After the Termination is Over

The Enhanced Security Plan

Chapter 12: Managing the Aftermath of Violence

Abstract

Victim and Family Care

Employee Care

Police Relations

Interim Business Recovery

Public Communication

Afterword by Dan Murphy

Subject Index

Copyright

Acquiring Editor: Tom Stover

Editorial Project Manager: Hilary Carr

Project Manager: Priya Kumaraguruparan

Cover Designer: Greg Harris

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Notices

Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary.

Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.

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ISBN: 978-0-12-802775-2

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Foreword

Randy

My introduction to violence came in 1962 when I was six years old. It arrived via a television drama called Combat! This weekly one-hour series ran until 1967 and followed a U.S. Army infantry squad as they advanced through France during World War II. It starred Vic Morrow and Rick Jansen with a cast of recurring characters portrayed by a host of different actors, including silent screen heartthrob Ramon Navarro, comedians Shecky Greene and Jack Carter, future Academy Award winner Robert Duvall, and Leonard Nimoy and Walter Koenig, before they attained starring roles on Star Trek. The violence on Combat! was glorious, courageous, and noble, as good triumphed over evil. My childhood buddies and I reenacted scenes in the woods behind our homes, complete with authentic plastic helmets and weapons manufactured by the Mattel toy company.

My introduction to real violence came three years later in 1964. It arrived via an alcoholic, abusive father. We were living above the means of his teacher’s salary, so he took a second job playing the piano in taverns. He began drinking when he was in the eighth grade, and in college he graduated to liquor and participated in promiscuous sexual activity. He did begin to settle into harmonious family life until he began working five to six nights a week in various bars where the liquor flowed and promiscuous sex was readily available. When the abuse started, it was generally aimed toward my mother, but eventually my older sister and I were caught in the crosshairs. You can put any modifier you want next to the word abuse and it eventually visited our family: verbal abuse, physical abuse, and etcetera. Unlike in the TV show, Combat!, this violence was horrific, cowardly, and dishonorable. The truly terrifying portions of the abuse normally took place when my father came home from the bar. To this day I still awaken every night between midnight and 1:00 a.m., as this was usually when he came home. I could tell from the way he closed the door whether or not I could go back to sleep or curl up in the fetal position as the fight or flight physiological responses coursed through my body. During the day I became an expert in assessing his behaviors, which let me know if it was safe to interact with him, or whether I should give him a wide berth. Dinnertime was the second most frequent occurrence of abuse, usually in its verbal format. We never knew which father would be joining us at the table—the charming, gregarious dad or the malicious, vindictive father. When I assessed that it was the latter, I attempted, sometimes successfully and sometimes unsuccessfully, to de-escalate the tension through humor or by diverting the conversation to something I knew was a safer topic.

Although these were not pleasant childhood experiences, they did wise me up fast. Alcoholics develop a talent for deception and manipulation, and learning to see through those traits served me well throughout my career in corporate security.

Dan

As fate would have it, I was raised in a working-class neighborhood in western Queens that bordered both the Long Island City and Sunnyside sections of the borough. The majority of the men in that area were construction workers and tradesmen, or some other version of blue-collar worker: police officers, sanitation workers, or other civil servants, like my father, a Transit Authority electrical worker. New York City at that time, which was the late 1960s and 1970s, was awash in crime and violence. It was not uncommon to see junkies gather in one of the local concrete schoolyards at night to use drugs. It also was not uncommon to be the victim of some form of violence, whether that was in a schoolyard fight with a classmate or while riding the ever-dangerous New York City subway system. I recall seeing more than one homicide victim on the streets and witnessing the police response and media attention that naturally follows such a discovery. I was mugged at age 13 and my sister was assaulted by a gang while on her way home from high school, both while on the subway. I also recall our home being burglarized when I was a child. Perhaps the most memorable violence-related event was the night that the police interrupted our slumber to follow a blood trail up the stairs to the small second-floor apartment my father rented to two fledgling Mafia members. The wannabe mobsters had already grabbed what they wanted and fled into the night. The next day, they were machine-gunned to death in a gas station—so it went back then in that place. Violence was all around me, including in my home where my older brother Jim and I used to spar with each other over the slightest of transgressions. More than one of these fights resulted in broken walls, furniture, and bones. My former Marine father was not amused. I look back now and think that the Ali–Frazier fights were nothing in comparison to my brother and me.

Despite my upbringing and familiarity with violence, I was still unprepared for what I would see and deal with on joining the New York Police Department in 1984 at the age of 21. My eyes were opened widely to the brutal violence that seemed to be a daily occurence in the poverty-, drug-, and desperation-filled neighborhoods in which I would work during my 20-year career.

As any experienced street cop or detective knows, you frequently come into contact with people moving toward violence. As such, and in an effort to minimize the number of fights and physical altercations you have to engage in, you develop an ability to de-escalate the violent person. This is an art that is learned by watching more experienced officers handle such people. Once you learn how to do this, it is the equivalent of a master’s degree in psychology. I found this skill to be invaluable when dealing with potentially violent people in my corporate and consulting roles.

In time I began to see past the act and its aftermath and to learn to focus on what was behind the violence. To be a successful police detective, you must understand human beings and what makes them do what they do to each other. What causes a person to take another person’s life or torture, strangle, rape, and abuse another human being? I soon saw that it was a variety of things, but most of it had to do with external influences. I truly believe that almost no one is a born killer, but that a lifetime of abuse and violence can form a person to act out violently with no hesitation. I also have seen countless cases where the only motivator was greed. The most curious to me, however, were the unfortunate souls who could not contain their emotions, caused by broken hearts or jealous streaks, and flew into rages, causing death and destruction. Theirs was a temporary mental condition with lifelong repercussions—a permanent and terribly incorrect answer to a temporary problem.

Preface

This book has been written for the practitioner – the peacekeeper or referee – within an organization. In other words this book was written for the person who is responsible for the safety and security of the associates as well as the guests. You may come from many different disciplines, such as loss prevention, risk management, security, safety, human resources, employee relations, operations management, facilities management, and so forth. We welcome you all, we share the anxiety you have about being responsible for the lives of the people within your facility, and we applaud you for your decision to learn about violence prevention and how to apply it within your organization. The anxiety you feel will greatly dissipate once you have a viable violence prevention plan in place.

This book was written for your benefit. Our tome is not an in-depth psychological study of those who have become ordained in violence, although there will be succinct discussions of the motivations and symptoms of those who engage in threats, harassment, assaults, and rampage-driven homicide.

We entered this endeavor with two guiding principles: (1) to give you the tools you need to get a violence prevention plan up and running and (2) to provide concise and impactful information that is backed up by facts and just enough case studies to prove our points.

The information contained herein is presented in 12 chapters sectioned into three parts. Part I is entitled Getting Your Ducks in a Row and contains three chapters:

1. Definitions, Statistics, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration

2. The Need for a Violence Prevention Plan

3. Overcoming Rationalizations, Objections, and Denials

This part provides the evidence you need to prove your case for a violence prevention plan and gives you the tools to overcome the roadblocks that might be thrown in your way. Part II, entitled Getting Everyone Up-to-Speed, contains the next four chapters:

4. The Root Sources of Workplace Violence

5. Relationship Violence

6. Employee Violence

7. External Violence

These chapters discuss the real risks and the likelihood of you having to face them. Part II also contains the symptomatic behaviors indicative of someone who is troubled and may be moving toward violence.

Part III, entitled Formulating a Plan and Putting It Into Action, comprises the final four chapters of the book:

8. The Seven Components of a Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan

9. Staff and Management Training

10. Putting Together Your Situational Assessment and Management Team

11. Managing Threats and Disturbing Behavior

12. Managing the Aftermath of Violence

Part III lays out sample violence prevention plan, the training components for your staff and management teams, and how to put together a situational assessment and management team. Finally, this section takes you through the intricacies of building threat management plans and gives you an in-depth look at managing the aftermath of violence.

It was our deliberate plan to produce a book that was concise and impactful so that you can gain an understanding of the concepts quickly. We know that some readers may read the chapters out of order or skip others entirely as they want to get to the topics that cover the most pressing issues for their organization. As such, we will occasionally repeat information from prior chapters or refer the reader to a previous section when there is important information that precedes a new topic.

The primary market for this book is businesses and as such, we tend to use the words business and employee quite frequently. However, the concepts presented herein can also be applied to schools, houses of worship, healthcare facilities, nonprofit organizations, shopping malls, or other places where people come together and interact, even a household. Because of this, we also intermittently use the words organization and associate.

We hope you find this book easy to digest, and we know that the information contained in the upcoming chapters will be helpful in protecting the employees and associates in your business or organization. Be alert, be responsive, and be safe.

About the Authors

Randall W. Ferris

Randy Ferris spent 31 years in proprietary security working for several large organizations. In 1996, after having to deal with three serious incidents involving domestic and workplace violence, he began searching for methods by which his company could identify situations that had the potential to become violent and mitigate them before a serious incident occurred. After conducting his own independent research and receiving training from several nationally renowned experts, he put together violence prevention programs for three Fortune 100 companies.

Since then Randy has provided training for a number of large organizations and helped them develop policies & processes related to violence prevention, violence response, and the aftermath of violence. He is also a sought after speaker and has addressed various subjects related to domestic and workplace violence for the Minnesota Crime Prevention Association, the Food Marketing Institute’s Risk Management Conference, and the International Association of Financial Crimes Investigators.

Randy is also a proud member of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals.

Randy Ferris and Dan Murphy can be contacted through their website, www.violencepreventionstrategies.org for:

• Speaking engagements

• Assistance in the development of training, policies and processes

• Assessment of a current threat

• Assistance developing threat management plans

• Other requests as appropriate

Daniel Murphy M.A., CFE, CFCI

Dan Murphy is a retired Detective-Sergeant from the New York City Police Department, where he served for twenty years. His accomplishments there include 16 years as either a Detective or Detective-Sergeant serving in units such as the Narcotics Division, the Organized Crime Investigation Division, the Major Case Squad, the Bronx Gang Investigations Squad, and ultimately the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), after 9-11. His areas of expertise included Federal RICO investigations of violent gangs, kidnapping, human trafficking, bank robbery, and counterterrorism.

Dan has received numerous awards for outstanding patrol and detective work, including the 2003 National Association of Police Organizations (NAPO) TOP COP Award, given by John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted in Washington, DC.

Dan was a first responder to the terror attacks of both February 26, 1993, and September 11, 2001 on the World Trade Center. He has also performed undercover work in Southeast Asia while working in a task force with the U.S. Drug Enforcement