As a security practitioner, I have monitored the phenomenon and types of workplace violence for most of my career. I trend, track and have developed quantitative assessment scoring processes to help my clients proactively address the possibilities of all categories of violence (no relationship/criminal, client related, worker on worker and domestic/intimate partner violence).
I model my strategies around three elements or opportunities to address workplace violence. First there is Prevention, which includes training, awareness, communication, environment, involuntary separation guidance, policies, training and more.
Second, Management, which involves controls once the flag has been raised and includes elements such as investigations, disciplinary processes and outside help. Finally, Response, which is the organization's personnel response to the conclusion of workplace violence, where an individual acts out with or without a weapon and harms an organization’s most critical asset – personnel, visitors, staff or guests.
I maintain a common misstep in the workplace violence prevention continuum is a lack of communication. I still get shivers when I view the leakage that was produced by two different individuals at two moments in time with eerily the same tone and information regarding their intent to hurt another human being.
The difference in these events is that one of those individuals is a footnote in history, while the other person is a media sensation with a resume that includes one of the most horrendous school shootings in American history.
Join me on my journey, my mission to “move the needle” on workplace violence, as I seek more footnotes in history.
Searching for Answers
My story begins on Feb. 15, 2019. My phone lights up with an alert that a mass shooting occurred at a local manufacturing plant in Illinois. Reports indicate the assailant entered the building with a firearm and began shooting at his coworkers. The incident resulted in five fatalities and several injuries.
The perpetrator has prepared for the attack, and when police arrived the standoff began where the assailant used the building’s safety mirrors to detect and engage with responding officers.
There were seven injuries, one manufacturer employee and six officers. Beyond injuries, five families lost their respective loved ones, including a young aspiring University of Northern Illinois intern on his first day at the facility. The incalculable costs to workplace violence ultimately led to the shuttering of the manufacturing plant within 2 years.
It is believed that the shooter's termination from his job may have been a factor in his decision to carry out the shooting. In my search for more answers and learning opportunities, I sought after-action reports, which are unwritten or hidden in obscurity.
One report that I sought was the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) after-action report, which was requested by the city of Aurora, Ill. Fortunately, I heard firsthand the events that unfolded at an Association of Threat Assessment Professional meeting, where the then chief of the Aurora Police Department chronicled the events that took place on that tragic Friday.
As I rode the train home, I pontificated on the powerful presentation that I attended. What could we do? How could this have been prevented? Armed with the new information from Chief Zinman, I dug in to learn more, and this is what I learned.
- The employee was told prior to this infraction that he would be fired.
- The employee made veiled threats “If I get fired I’m going to kill every mother (expletive) here” and “I am going to blow police up.” Note: The employee who heard this said he did not bother reporting this to anybody, as the gunman made comments like that regularly.
- On the day of the shooting, he arrived at work at 6 a.m. and had a verbal disagreement with his supervisor.
- He worked almost half the day, then was called up to the office where he walked into a room with several people, one of which was a young man who was interning.
- Shortly after he brandished a weapon and discharged it at his supervisor who had written him up.
Subsequently, I was conducting an assessment in Colorado, where I started to interview people regarding their involuntary separation process. My client, recognizing the concern, asked me for samples which I could not find. Strange, I thought to myself, “the grievance and potential for emotion and volatility, and there is no guidance”?
I remember refocusing on Chief Zinman’s presentation and sought to create guidance. Version one of the guide was born out of a call to arms on an ATAP member forum. I had several people want to help, and I started writing and it was done and issued on April 5, 2021.
This guide is a preparatory communication process to what could be an emotional separation process. The guide has definitions, and a linear progression from initial staff contact, to preparing for interviews, investigations, and how to address immediate policy violations.
However, the bulk of the content is contained in approximately seven pages where there is an abundance of thought leadership around the separation process, including on what to do during the day, and what to do afterwards the separation.
The Impact of Words
With recognition that the first guide was rushed, I again reached out to the public and asked for help. In this edition I was deliberate. I ensured this would be a collaborative approach and decisions would be made by committee. I painstakingly captured every comment, every suggestion and created a scoring and response approach, which ultimately was voted on by a group of tremendous volunteers.
This is truly a peer reviewed and open-source guide, that follows an open consensus-based standard method, similar to what the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) uses.
The comments, suggestions and collaboration were eye opening to me, and the guide really matured. A few big changes from version one to version two were the removal of imagery, which contradicted the goal of preventing violence.
We further understood the impact on words: termination, letting go and firing. We recognized that those were not ideal terms and are overused, similar to “going postal.” While we extensively use them, we realized how the person on the receiving end could interpret them:
- Termination – “you are terminated”, or its synonym “ended”
- Letting go – the visualization of someone falling.
- Fired – as in firing squad.
Because of this information, the group adopted:
- Separation – there is no perceived finality, but this term recognizes a business decision has been made and the organization is there to support the former employee through the transition.
We introduced steps that organizations can take to mitigate the risk of workplace violence following an involuntary separation. One is providing support to individuals who have been separated, such as counseling and job search help. This can help individuals cope with the emotional impact of the separation and reduce their risk of violence.
Research has shown that individuals who have been involuntarily separated from their jobs may experience feelings of anger, betrayal, and a sense of powerlessness, which can lead to violent behavior. Involuntary separation can have a significant impact on the individual who has been separated from the organization.
Research has shown that it may increase the risk of workplace violence and workplace armed assailant attacks, which is why it is essential for organizations to mitigate the risk of violence by providing support to individuals who have been involuntarily separated and having a robust workplace violence prevention process.
Another step is to have a clear and well-communicated process for involuntary separation. This can include providing employees with simple explanations of why the separation is occurring and steps they can take to appeal the decision. This can help reduce feelings of injustice and powerlessness that an individual may have.
We describe that the termination is not because of a person, or an act, but the policy/procedural violation. The person can be as angry as they want to be at the inanimate object.
We added a checklist, which summarizes all the content into a format, which can be easily adopted. We updated, added additional definitions, which are consistent with mainstream thinking and shored up the document in all aspects.
We included the Word document as an attachment so it could be easily changed to the respective culture need. Upon completion of these tasks, and with a consensus of the group, it underwent rigorous editing and aesthetic beautification. The revised guide was issued on December 16. Version 2 is an immense improvement over the original version and is the most comprehensive overview on the topic to date.
More Training Needed
So why, did I do this? Why did personally invest in the professional marketing, spending endless hours, making presentations, and writing articles to introduce this very important topic? Well, it's because of my findings in the Aurora, Illinois case.
What the organization in Aurora, Ill., didn’t know was their tenured 15-year employee was previously convicted in 1995 in Mississippi for a felony aggravated assault and spent 2½ years in jail. He had six arrests in Aurora that included domestic violence and the violation of a restraining order.
In Oswego, Ill. he had charges for disorderly conduct and criminal damage to property. In 2014, he applied and received a Firearms Owner’s Identification (FOID), which is a requirement in the State of Illinois.
Illinois apparently missed the infractions above, which would have disallowed him from obtaining a FOID. After he received his FOID, he applied for a concealed carry weapon (CCW) license, which fortunately led to his revocation of his FOID, but the weapon he purchased was never confiscated or otherwise recovered.
Also, contrary to the media, the perpetrator was not “fired”, nor was he going to be “fired”. He was entering a disciplinary meeting to be reprimanded for his violation and to address his grievance. What was his grievance? He didn’t’ want to wear his safety glasses.
This guide is important because, more and more, people with little training are entering separation meetings/discussions. Managers on the front-line are not cognizant, nor do they have the training to understand the threat or proactively address the escalation of violence, which appears to be corroborated in the violence project data, accessed in 2022.
In this data, the second-highest occurrence for shootings was at a factory/warehouse or a blue-collar environment -- not a school as publicized by the media. Within that blue-collar environment, a disproportionate number of those aggressors were still employed at the time of the shooting.
This shooting in Aurora was a tragic and senseless act of violence that took the lives of innocent people and affected many others. The event serves as a reminder of the importance of the role of involuntary separation and is yet another preventative opportunity to stop such tragedies from happening in the future.
So, if you have shivers, like I do, I am asking for a favor: spread the word and don’t let this thought leadership die. Please share it, share it whenever you can. It’s my hope that this communication can create more footnotes in history.
My immense gratitude is extended to Ashlee Heavrin, John Friedlander, CPP, John Wyman, CERT-In, TP, Matthew Spangenberg, CTM, Melissa Muir, JD, Michelle Calhoun, M.A., CTM, Patrick Murphy and Scott Morrell, JD, CTM who assisted in the refinement of version two of the guide.
Any organizational or business affiliation to this guide or endorsement of this guide is not intended and should not be inferred. Note: The guide is free to all, but is not to be used for commercial purposes. If you want to be involved in the next version (a future version three), contact me via LinkedIn.
Sean A. Ahrens, CPP, FSyl, CSC, is a premises liability expert and provides security consulting, assessment and security design solutions to projects that reduce security exposures within domestic and international markets.
References:
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Study on Involuntary Termination and Workplace Violence
Journal of Interpersonal Violence: Involuntary Job Loss and the Risk of Workplace Violence
Harvard Business Review: When Layoffs Lead to Violence
Forbes: The Connection Between Involuntary Job Loss and Workplace Violence
The Violence Project “https://www.theviolenceproject.org/”
