Preventing Workplace Violence

Preventing Workplace Violence

There is a central theme that runs through many of the recent workplace violence incidents.  It is that violence has become the knee jerk reaction of many employees when they are disciplined.  Let’s examine some of the most recent examples of this and determine whether there were ways for the employer to have avoided and prevented these incidents of workplace violence. 
Take for incident the recent shootings on August 3, 2010 in Manchester, CT in which Omar Thornton was disciplined for allegedly stealing beer from the employer’s trucks.  He was given the option of either being fired or resigning.  He chose to resign.  However, that’s when everything went terribly wrong.

After resigning, he stepped outside to supposedly get a drink which is when he grabbed the two 9 mm handguns he had hid in his lunch box and then walked back in and shot Steven Hollander, the Vice President of the Company who had just fired him.  He then apparently ran through the halls and even outside targeting and shooting specific management employees who had been present at the meeting in which he was fired. He shot his supervisor, Louis Felde and the Union President, Byron Cirigliana.  He then allegedly called his Mother to say goodbye and told her that he had “killed the racists that were bothering me”.  He then shot and killed himself.

What is interesting to me and what I have not been able to figure out is why did Omar Thornton bring the guns to work that day?  Had he been told that he was going to be disciplined or fired that day?  If yes, then obviously one answer to how to avoid this situation from happening is to not provide the employee with a “head’s up” that he will be disciplined.  However, this was a union shop so that might not have been possible.  They may have had to provide the Union with notice and the Union might have told Mr. Thornton. 
But there were warning signs here as well.  Warning signs that no one seemed to pay any attention to.  Mr. Thornton had allegedly complained of harassment to the Union.  However, the Union apparently denies this.  If however they did receive a complaint of harassment by Mr. Thornton, they should have informed the company’s HR Department.  HR could have then conducted an investigation and perhaps Mr. Thornton would not have felt that his complaints were being ignored. 

Let’s examine another case in which the imposition of discipline resulted in the employee reacting with violence.  Only one month later on September 9, 2010 Yvonne Hiller, a 15-year employee at a Kraft Foods International plant in Philadelphia, PA was suspended from her job.  Unfortunately, she also reacted with violence.  She left the building and only 10 minutes later returned with a .357 magnum hand gun.  She drove through the security barrier, entered the building, walked up to the floor where she had worked and shot three employees, killing two of them.  What did she do during the 10 minutes that she left the building?  Did she go home and get a gun?  Did she go to a store and purchase a gun?  If not, how is it that she had a gun with her to come back into the office and kill others?  Perhaps she had been given a head’s up as well and had planned the attacks.  If so, again this would demonstrate that if an employer plans to discipline an employee, the employer should not provide the employee with notice of this until it actually occurs.  Moreover, as soon as employees are provided with the discipline, if it is a suspension or a termination, they should be immediately escorted from the building and a security officer should be stationed at the entrance to the building to ensure that the employee does not return. 

Responding to discipline with violence occurs more often then we realize.  In  Orlando, Florida on November 6, 2009 another employee,  Jason Rodriguez, was fired from his engineering firm, Reynolds Smith & Hills.  After more than two years he returned to his former workplace seeking revenge for his termination.  Mr. Rodriguez  began shooting everyone in the workplace, killing one and wounding five other employees.  He told a reporter who asked him why he had done this that it was “because they left me to rot”.  Apparently, he had never forgotten the anger nor moved on from the resentment caused by his termination.  Of course, he was faced with many stresses in addition to the termination.  His marriage had ended, he could not pay the child support for his son, his home was taken in foreclosure and he had to declare bankruptcy.  Faced with all of these stresses, Mr. Rodriguez was driven over the edge and became just another employee who responded to discipline with violence. 

These cases demonstrate that more is needed.  Employers need to open their eyes and realize that incidents of workplace violence can and may occur in their workplace.  They need to act proactively to prevent them.   First and foremost, every employer should have a Workplace Violence Prevention Policy.  In addition, every employer should provide training on that policy and on the warning signs of workplace violence to their employees and managers.  As part of this training, employees should be advised of resources such as Employee Assistance Programs that they can use to help them with any problems they may be experiencing.  Moreover, when disciplining employees it is clearly best, if possible, to not let the employees know ahead of time.  In addition, employers may want to install emergency notification systems and have access to them readily available in the rooms in which they are meeting with and disciplining the employee.

Clearly, employers today need to expect that employees that are being disciplined may overreact especially in today’s economy.  Employers need to prepare for this by having a well-drafted workplace violence prevention policy, providing training to their managers and employees and working proactively with a security team to ensure that their workplaces are safer and violence free.