One is too Many: Recognizing and preventing Workplac violence

Copyright © 2014 by Robert D. Sollars.

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One is too many: Recognizing and preventing workplace violence/Robert Dd. Sollars. —1st ed.

ISBN 978-0-0000000-0-0

eISBN: 9781483528748

Table of Contents

SECTION I – The Problem

Diary of a Plot

Acknowledgments

Introduction

What is Workplace Violence?

Types of Workplace Violence

Statistics

Cold Hard Statistics

Attitudes that Encourage Violence

Profile of the Average Perpetrator

SECTION II- WARNING SIGNS

Introduction

Attendance Problems

Bullying

Continual Excuses

Concentration Problems

Cruelty to Animals

Drug and Alcohol Abuse

Fascination with Weapons

Free Expression

Impact on Supervisory Time

Inconsistent Work Habits/Decreased Productivity

Poor Health and Hygiene

Poor Relationship Skills

Serious Stress

Threats

Unshakable Depression

Unusual or Changed Behavior

Violent Music, Movies and Video games

Conclusion or Can You Connect the Dots?

SECTION III - PREVENTION

Policies & Procedures

Zero Tolerance

Pre-Employment Screening

Defusing the Human Bomb

Health & Wellness

Physical Security

Creating a CMT and DRP

Conclusion

Appendix

About Robert D. Sollars ‘The Blind Security Guy’

Resources

Other Sources Not Cited in Book

Diary of a Plot

This is a fictionalized account of one possible workplace violence incident. The incidents and people have been taken from the hundreds of reports that I’ve read and heard. None of the people or places in this account actually exists.

From the work diary of Sandra Roberta Morris, 3rd shift supervisor at Morris Plastics – West St. Joseph, Ks.

March 20 - Tonight is my first night as a supervisor. Wow, finally moving up the ladder. Third shift won’t be easy here, but it’ll work for now. I’ve been told that I have a shift of squirrely workers so I best get out there and start meeting them.

March 23 - The plant manager wasn’t kidding, these are a bunch of squirrely workers. It is definitely a bit eclectic. It’ll take some getting used to these personalities, business school definitely didn’t tell me about this.

March 30 - Getting used to the crew finally, after a week. Most of them are just a little bit squirrely, others well.... There are only one or two people that really kind of bother me. Richard Reilly and Sandra Boil; they’re both a bit close to the edge if you ask me, but I’m not a psychologist. Got to get the bottles moving sooner or later.

April 10 - It’s has sure been hectic the past week or so. Machines breaking down and putting us so far behind that dad had to call the customer and tell them we’d be about a week behind in delivery. Boy were they mad, almost canceled the entire order. It didn’t help that Reilly has really started acting weird lately. Don Jackson told me he muttered a threat to him under his breath. I’ll have to keep an eye on him.

April 16 - We are finally back up to full production. As long as the machines hold out, we should be able to make the shipment on time — I hope. Reilly is keeping to himself a lot now. His head is always down and he’s constantly acting like he’s going to fall asleep. I think I’ll have a talk with him after the shift is over.

April 30 - Things are really going well. I’ve learned a lot about almost everyone here except Boil and Reilly. Boil still sits alone most of the time and Reilly is starting to get on my nerves about stuff. Also his production is becoming increasingly erratic.

May 10 - Well I just had a long talk with Boil. I didn’t realize that things were so bad with her and her husband. It took a bit of coaxing and candid talk about her work performance but I got it out of her. Her husband abuses the shit out her every night. It’s sad, but he literally beats on her and trashes her and everything about her. She was crying when she left here. He’s accusing her of having an affair with someone here at the plant. I saw the bruises on her arm and the blood blister on her back. I referred her to HR and hopefully they can help. As it is, until it gets resolved I’ll give her a break — as long as I can.

May 13 - Riley is putting things in bad shape for us. He’s is constantly making stupid little mistakes on the line. This morning he pushed the wrong computation into the computer and we lost more than an hour’s worth of quart bottles. They are now 32.3 ounces, and the lids are too big for the necks. That’s going to cost us big.

May 15 - I sat Riley down and tried to talk to him about his work issues. His concentration is off and he is constantly walking into and tripping over things, like he’s drunk! I checked him and he’s not. Sent him for a drug test yesterday and it came back negative for anything but caffeine and nicotine. Coffee and cigs. I told him if he didn’t straighten up quick — real quick — I’d have to suspend or terminate him. All he did was shrug and mumble something. I’ll talk to HR in the morning about it and ask them what the hell to do.

May 26 - Riley is back to work after the suspension. 10 days didn’t seem to help much. He’s back to his old tricks again. And it looks like he hasn’t slept in days. Eyes are red, he slurs when he talks and doesn’t speak very coherently anyway! I think I’ll have to drug test him again.

May 29 - I had to fire Riley this morning. He came in so drunk that you could smell him from a mile away. There was no way I was going to let him anywhere near that machine. We are already behind on our current order due to his past mistakes. We argued and he literally stomped off and out in a huff. I couldn’t hear everything but I thought I heard him mumbling something about everyone was out to get him and he’d take care of the problem later.

June 3 – When I came in tonight and there were security guards everywhere! Dad said that Riley had called and said that he was going to shoot up the place. Scary stuff to be sure. I’m glad that dad has ordered a lock-down of the factory, but man it’s going to get hot in here without the doors open!

Oh my God, I hear gun shots. There he is and he’s got a gun! He’s shooting everyone in sight. He just walked by Boyle and Hoolihan. He’s coming this way! Oh N...

Gunman kills 3 wounds 2 at

plastics plant

Compiled by: Trent Margolies

Today’s News On-line

Monday 8:54 a.m.

Any Town and state – A gunman walked into the Morris Modern Plastics manufacturing plant this morning and shot 5 people. Initial reports are that 3 are dead, including the daughter of the plant owner and the gunman.

The alleged shooter has been tentatively identified as Richard Riley, 43, a former employee of the plant. He was supposedly fired a week ago.

‘This is all so sudden and we never expected it! said one worker who didn’t want to be identified. Another employee, Garret Preston, stated that There were security guards everywhere for the past couple of days, but no one expected Riley to do this.

Acknowledgments

I have a whole list of people that I want to thank in this book. They all helped me in writing it, in one fashion or another.

I will start with one of my oldest and dearest friends. Mindy Mitzner has helped me immensely in the 12 years we’ve known each other. She was the office manager at First Response, Inc. in Mission Kansas. While we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot when we met, she became my closest and best friend over the years. She was my friend and confidant in many respects. I couldn’t have published this book or done anything I did working for First Response if it wasn’t for her.

Rosie Johnson is another very close friend that I’ve also known for more than 12 years. She has been a confidant and friend for all those years. She gave me feedback from an East Coast (Maryland) and line employee (a medical data entry clerk) point of view.

JJ is Rosie’s daughter and I couldn’t have done the research without her. She did a lot of the hard work of researching and finding my facts and typing in a mountain of data for me to sift through. And she did it fast and furious and with an abundance of enthusiasm.

Jerry Ramos is literally my oldest friend on the planet. I have known Jerry for over 20 years. I met him at an ASIS luncheon back in 1991 when I first joined. He has been a cheerleader and motivational inspiration. He has helped me in many ways, including hiring me on several occasions when I needed something better. He’s now with Allied-Barton as the manager, talent acquisition/military liaison.

These other people that I will list here, read this book, offered their suggestions and generally helped make sure it was readable and that nothing was left out. I have a tendency to leave pertinent parts at times, simply because I know them and just forget to include them. I won’t go into the details like I have on Mindy & Jerry, but all of you I couldn’t have written and finished this without your help;

Ryan Eldridge - Managing Partner Eagle Eye Security- Glendale, Az.

Frank Vance - Director of Rehabilitation Arizona Center for the Blind & Visually Impaired – Phoenix,

Michael Young - Michael Young Consulting- Phoenix, AZ.

Rota Venners – Vice President Operations/Destination Management at Arizona Creative Events

Bernard J. Lishinsky - Glj Consulting, LLC- Phoenix, AZ

I must thank my editor, Jen Wolfe of Wolfe Creative, for this project. She worked tirelessly making this book readable and professional. The content is all mine, but like all great editors she made it so people would like it. Thanks a gazillion.

Lastly, I can’t forget to mention my wife, Eileen. She has stuck by me and done so many things for me on top of her full-time job as an RN. While her expertise is not necessarily in security, she has learned a lot, and does all of my technical stuff — which included formatting this book. And I won’t even mention the fact she is my 24 hour a day sounding board, thesaurus, reader and general overall best friend

Introduction

According to Ronn Lavit, Ph.D, a psychiatrist in Phoenix, Arizona, "Violence may take many forms. It may take the form of a physical nature and manifest through aggressive, physical contact towards another; or violence may be of a verbal nature, when someone has a short temper and responds verbally in an aggressive manner towards others. There are also people who are very controlling of others and this control may be of a coercive nature. This control can be particularly damaging in relationships which can be evidenced both in a home environment and a work environment.

Those who are violent may feel the need to control or have power over others and/or may have a strong sense of mistrust/suspicion of others and may interpret this conduct in a negative way, which places them on guard against others."

Now that you have a psychological explanation of violence, let me give you a little bit of history of workplace violence (WPV), from my own observations that I think may intrigue you. I firmly believe that the roots of modern WPV started back in the late 1950s. Attitudes in the United States began to change and some regions that were extremely conservative became liberalized, San Francisco for example.

Going along with this liberalization is the fact that in the ’60s it was Do your own thang! and Let it all hang out. Two phrases that ring out loud and clear from the past.

The parents of the ’60s allowed their children to experiment and try out their rebelliousness in innumerable ways. Drugs, sex, riots, rabble rousing in the streets for no good reason (in my opinion), and then just lay around and let the government take care of them.

In the ’70s we all became part of The Pepsi Generation, also known as the Me Generation. It’s all about ME and what makes ME feel good about myself and my surroundings. Again, permissiveness, drugs, sex, disco (my favorite kind of music by the way), and a myriad of other issues contributed to this attitude.

Low self-esteem, no self-confidence, depression, and permissiveness pushed us on our way. These were the buzz words of social commentators that explained what was happening. And unfortunately it only got worse as the century neared its ending, even with more than 20 years to go.

In the ’80s, the catch phrase was Greed is Good. Still it was all about me and what makes me feel good and better about myself and where I’m at in the world. In this sense it was the idea that we could do and get away with almost anything that made us feel better about our self-esteem and psyche.

Therefore, if it makes me feel good to go and kill those Sons of bitches messing up my life, I’ll show them ! then that’s what I’m going to do. And unfortunately, too many people did just that. For those who don’t remember, think of the Post Office and the many tragedies that occurred in many different offices.

In the ’90s the attitude of do what makes me feel better continued and we saw the incidence of WPV grow exponentially. We went from incidents that claimed only one or two lives per day to having more than three per day murdered at work every year.

Now, being in the new millennium we are back down to only one or two a day. But as the book title suggests ... one is still too many.

Far too often, top level managers believe that the solution to workplace violence (WPV) is complicated and therefore requires a complicated answer and program. Continuing with this train of thought, if they think it’s complicated and then they make it complicated. Worse, they think it’s complicated and make the solution complicated and they miss the whole point. Management often thinks that following a cookie cutter plan from a book or guidelines from a professional organization, or a book by an expert, is good enough. But they leave out the most important part of the plan’s success ... the employees.

This book does not have all the answers to the issue of WPV. Sometimes, it is unavoidable as you’ll read later. No one has the answers to prevent all incidents. I don’t, others don’t, no book can, and no book will.

The best you can hope for is to lessen the liability and reduce the risk of an incident happening. So what I’m telling you is that if you are looking for a cure-all for WPV, this book isn’t it, nor is any other book or person you’ll talk to.

You can hire consultants, turn your office into a prison, and spend millions of dollars to prevent WPV, but the absolute truth is that there will always be the potential for it to occur in your office or business, no matter what you do, plan for, or how you treat your employees.

I know you’ve heard this before, probably from your mother, father or teachers — there are no guarantees in life. Basically this means that no matter how you plan or what you do, there is no iron clad guarantee that nothing will happen. And in the incidence of WPV, it is assured that someone, somewhere, somehow, will make an event happen despite your best efforts.

And that is what this book is about, your best efforts. Recognizing and preventing WPV is a full time job. You have to be ever vigilant and observant to what’s happening. It’s not an easy job. Many times, especially in larger companies, people fall through the cracks and that causes them to burst forth in rage. At other times it allows them the time and presence to methodically plan and implement that rage.

So whether it be a verbal assault or physical abuse, or even if it turns murderous, you must be ever watchful. If you do that, then you might be able to recognize and prevent an incident.

When dealing with this subject, recognition is 75% of the prevention process. If you can recognize the potential issue and problem then you have a much better chance of preventing it from actually happening.

Taking security precautions, turning your office into a gulag, and generally making your employees think they’re working for some super-secret alien organization isn’t the way to combat WPV. As I said, recognition is the key to preventing it. In order to recognize it, you have to know what to look for and then how to help prevent it— hence the reason for this book.

Preventing WPV, contrary to what many experts will tell you, is not complicated. What it is, is time consuming and detailed oriented. Too often these programs that are time consuming and detail oriented are considered complicated. Sometimes they are, but in this instance we know what needs to be done and how to do it. It is just a matter of gathering facts, sorting details, planning and connecting the dots.

What is Workplace Violence?

I believe that this is one of the first questions you need to look at and ask questions about when beginning the task of trying to prevent an incident — what exactly is WPV and why should I be concerned?

WPV means a lot of different things to practically everyone you ask about it. It is kind of amazing that so many different interpretations can be used for one term.

Some people will tell you that workplace violence is only when someone comes into the building and kills someone else. That is their only interpretation of an incident.

Others will tell you that WPV is only when someone gets hurt at work. Hmmmm, I’m sensing a theme here. Only at work or only when someone gets hurt.

While that is partially true it really misses the entire truth. And if you’re not looking at the whole picture, then you will be shocked when an incident does occur.

Not very many people will acknowledge that WPV is a term that has a much broader definition. What do I mean, you ask? Let me give you my definition.

WPV can happen anywhere, at any time, to anyone for any reason. That means that WPV can happen even away from the business and work. It is a problem that can occur to any employee in any place. In other words, it can happen even off work. If it happens because of work then it is WPV.

Let me give you a couple of examples of what I mean.

In Glendale, Arizona, a pipe bomb went off in a person’s driveway early one morning. Was the incident caused by terrorism? What it racial, religious or what? In this case, the perpetrator was a co-worker of the victim and the two had been having a long running feud at work in the Peoria (Arizona) School District. Because it was work related it should be classified as WPV.

Another incident that occurred in the Phoenix area in 2004 that I believe falls into this category occurred with a bus driver. A bus driver accidentally cut off another vehicle on the highway. The driver of the car came up alongside the bus and started firing a gun at the driver. This should be considered WPV. Why?

The driver was at work and working when the incident occurred. It was not a traditional place of work because it was on wheels and constantly on the move. But it was WPV nonetheless. The bus driver was not seriously hurt by the shots and the driver of the other vehicle was arrested.

I’m sure if you look back at other incidents that you know of, then you’ll notice that some of them can be described as WPV. Keep in mind that the media (and even the government) doesn’t always classify these incidents as WPV.

If a sales clerk makes a customer angry and that customer then takes out their frustrations later at the clerk in another location, would you consider it WPV? Probably not, and likewise the media or government won’t either.

There are numerous incidents where a perpetrator has gone to a supervisor’s house and killed him or her before proceeding to the business to take care of the rest of the problem. If the supervisor is killed and then four people are killed at the business, how many are attributed to WPV. According to the government only four fit the criteria. But it is actually five.

So what else is considered WPV and not reported as such? What about an incident of a bomb threat in a business? When someone phones in a bomb threat, then it should be considered an incident of WPV, unless it can legitimately be classified as something else, i.e. terrorism or racial tension.

The purpose of most bomb threats is to disrupt the workplace so that normal functions can’t be accomplished. When a business has to be evacuated because of a threat, then it should be considered WPV.

This definition also applies to the anthrax scares we’ve had in recent years. These should be considered WPV and not necessarily terrorism, unless absolutely confirmed as such. Too many times, when an envelope full of white powder arrives at an office, it’s evacuated because of the danger with anthrax and rightly so. But if no link to terrorism is attributed, then it should be considered WPV as well, until disproven.

In the United States, we seem hesitant to look at any incident as WPV. Unless a person walks in with an M-16 and starts shooting hundreds of rounds and killing dozens of people, then we don’t want to classify it as WPV.

But what else is considered WPV? Keep in mind that even the experts in the field of workplace violence can’t seem to agree on what constitutes workplace