Happy Thanksgiving

Michele Harmon

The candy season of Halloween has passed so bring on the turkey and dressing and holiday parties. There are only 4 weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so get busy. Are you feeling the pressure yet? Because I’ve started my yoga breathing just to finish typing this sentence. The reality of the holiday season means that employers need to be extra vigilant as to the state of mind of their employees. The holidays are joyous for many but can be sad if not tragic for others.

Can you tell I’m going to be a bit serious this month? We have had too many violent incidences happen at work from current or past employees for as long as I can remember. So, I have tried to summarize various experts’ recommendations for being proactive in preventing workplace violence.

When you terminate someone be kind but consider having an armed guard with a box for their personal items, walking them out, and shutting down their security access to the building and all other technology before you have the termination meeting. Don’t fire them in a text message! It only takes one person that you misjudged as being a little quirky and not violent and it is too late.

Be proactive. Plan for an active shooter. The local police have wonderful staff members that can come train your employees. By the way, train everyone, not just the staff in attendance on the one day you selected. Schedule a few dates and make it required training with sign-in sheets for your records. Then, add it to your new staff orientations moving forward.

If you don’t have surveillance cameras at your facility, install them and let staff know you have them. They are there for security and not to spy on your staff, so explain that to everyone. Lock your doors and install a card key system to get into your facility. We pay our receptionist the least amount of money and he/she is often the person sitting out in the open without any means of protection. It is amazing to me that when I go see my investment banker, I ride freely up 10 or so floors and am greeted by that floor’s receptionist. I’m glad to see her each time. She and I talk without fail about the book she is reading, and I am allowed via my banker to go back behind the locked doors.

Establish trust among your employees. Spend a few extra dollars each year on employee insurance and provide an Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Don’t make it optional for those that pay out of pocket for add-on supplemental insurance. Convince employees to seek help for personal problems. Let’s be honest, who among those reading this have not felt the need to talk to someone about what is going wrong in their own life at some point?

With a trusted HR leader, encourage your employees to come forward with their concerns about a colleague’s behavior. Your employees need and want this avenue. There used to be a guy that went to every job fair in the area dressed very similar to a deceased island nation dictator. Now no one hired him, and I still think it was an unemployment scam, but really, would you have hired him? I’d be a bit concerned if someone dressed like Hitler and sat next to me in my otherwise happy workstation. However, I could care less about someone’s religious dress, tattoos, etc. That is another article on cultural awareness for another day.

What about the employee with an explosive temper or one that complains at every turn, disrupts every staff meeting, etc.? In a perfect world, those folks need to be pushed not gently nudged into counseling and it may be at your own expense. You do need to speak to them about their behavior and refer them to the part in your employee handbook that addresses how to treat others at work. You know that part, don’t you? They may need to be given written directives about what is appropriate behavior and explain that not changing their behavior, may mean ultimate termination. At this point with an explosive personality, do not close your door when you speak to them and do not speak to them alone. Consider whether security needs to be in the office with you or sitting in very close proximity.

I talked a bit last month about negligent hiring, remember? Conduct background checks on your employees with their written permission. Don’t ignore a potential threat. But just because someone has spent some time behind bars does not in any way prevent them from making a great employee. Be honest, I bet you have known someone that made a mistake and will never do it again. There are many laws against you having blanket policies preventing hiring those who have made a mistake. It is a miracle I made it through college—how about you?

On another note, don’t send your untrained employee into what might be a dangerous situation. A policeman is trained, a schoolteacher making a home visit is not. Well, maybe in Texas. One of my favorite bosses had an expression I have used for years. Don’t give them a stick to beat us with, Dr. Harmon. Negligent hiring or sending your employee into a dangerous situation is a big stick.

Let’s circle back one more time to your employee handbook, not your OSHA policies and procedures. I recommend you have an anti-harassment policy, along with a how-to on communicating any perception of harassment to your HR leader and/or the employee’s supervisor. Document all training new employees are provided at orientation and future ongoing opportunities. Create a clear code of conduct with regards to behavior between employees as well as others outside your organization they meet while carrying out the work of their employer. Teach cultural awareness and tolerance of difference because at the end of the day, who cares what race, ethnicity, gender, or religion someone is if they do their job well in a respectful manner to others?

Remember to protect your company from those who would do everyone harm, including harm via your data. Network security and social media will be saved for a later article but protect your assets and those of your employees. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Lock your doors and secure your data. Don’t ignore the unignorable and pay attention to your intuition and those of your trusted employees. I’m not going to tell you whether to allow legal weapons into your place of employment, but I am going to insist you plan for the worst and hope for the best. The U.S. Department of Labor’s data indicates that there were 18,400 incidents of violence in the private business sector in 2017 and 458 fatalities, and the most violence at work occurs against health care professionals, teachers, and social workers.

In closing, expect your safety department and your HR department to work cooperatively. Be proactive about problems at work with your employees and don’t ignore them, wish them away, or pass the lemon. Don’t bury your head in the sand, you are not an ostrich! Safety doesn’t happen by accident. (Author unknown)