by Joy Dike, PhD

Workplace violence is an unfortunate but important topic that all employers and employees need to consider. The issue of violence in the workplace has been addressed by OSHA, the CDC’s NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health), the FBI, the DOJ, and the National Center of Victims of Crime. According to OSHA, workplace violence is any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening or disruptive behavior that occurs at the work site.
 
The news media sensationalizes workplace violence episodes like the Fort Hood shooting, the shooting of a Virginia news crew during a live broadcast, the shooting at Chattanooga military facilities, or the Washington Navy Yard shooting. These are tragic and alarming episodes, yes. The truth is, however, that the majority of workplace violence employers and managers have to deal with on a daily basis runs more along the lines of domestic violence, harassment, emotional abuse, and threats - not armed gunmen. 
 
Workplace violence causes ripple effects in terms of costs to the American economy. The Department of Justice estimates that workplace violence costs the American workforce over $30 billion annually; the FBI further explains this loss to include lost work time, lost wages, reduced productivity, medical costs, workers’ compensation payments, legal expenses, and security expenses. Beyond these tangible costs, workplace violence also creates anxiety, fear, and a climate of distrust in the workplace.
 
It is well documented that individuals rarely snap and engage in workplace violence without first exhibiting behaviors of concern. Knowing and reporting these behaviors of concern is just as important as understanding the problem situations and risk factors that often precede behaviors of concern. Such behaviors of concern could include depression, threats, menacing behavior, erratic behavior, aggressive outburst, offensive conversation, jokes referring to violence, increasing tardiness, increasing absenteeism, worsening relationships with coworkers, decreased productivity, homicidal comments, increasing belligerence, hypersensitivity to criticism, and verbal abuse. Of course any of these behaviors alone is not necessarily more suggestive of potential workplace violence, but many of these behaviors taken together should raise warning flags.
 
Continue to follow this blog as we look at how an Emergency Action Plan can help you address workplace violence.  

by Joy Dike, PhD

by Joy Dike, PhD

Is your place of business located in a multi-tenant building? It’s important that you take this fact in to account when creating your Emergency Management Plan.
 
Consider the following situation: You’re on the 15th floor of your building. A tenant on the 4th floor has a deadly workplace violence incident. Police, fire, and other law enforcement and first responders are on the scene. There is chaos. There is fear. Your own employees are panicked.
 
It would be great if the building as a whole had an Emergency Action Plan that covers incidents in the building. It would be doubly great if building management has shared that plan with you, one of the tenants. But let’s face it – this probably isn’t the situation in your multi-tenant office building. You need to have a plan of your own for your own emergencies and also for building-wide emergencies.
 
But don’t forget to share your Emergency Action Plan with building management, local law enforcement, first responders, and other authorities. You don’t want to have an Emergency Action Plan that conflicts with one written by building management – that would cause even more chaos and fear. There needs to be communication in a multi-tenant office building.
 
Continue to follow along with us as we talk more about Emergency Action Plans and things to consider while writing yours. 

by Joy Dike, PhD

I’m sure you have a fire evacuation plan at your place of business. In fact, you probably drill the evacuation procedures occasionally. That's great, considering it’s a federal regulation. So it’s good that you have a plan to keep employees safe in the eventuality of a fire. But did you know that the regulation saying you need to have a fire evacuation plan also regulates that you have an emergency action plan? Do you understand the difference between them?
 
Consider, for a moment, this scenario: An armed gunman comes into your lobby threatening to shoot people. Your emergency plan dictates that someone gets on the intercom system to announce, “There’s a shooter in the building. Everyone follow the fire evacuation plan.” Think about how absurd this situation is. You are announcing to the shooter that everyone is about to come to the lobby! How convenient - he can just stay put and shoot at hundreds of people in just a few moments. Hopefully you can see how irrational this plan is.
 
The sad fact is that most emergency action plans are written exactly like this. You NEED a plan for emergencies that goes above and beyond fire. This plan needs to be drawn up by professionals who understand your building layout, your company policies and procedures, and your security system. Without a plan, chaos will ensue.
 
Continue to follow us over the next few days and we think about what factors to include in a good Emergency Action Plan. 

by Joy Dike, PhD

If you’ve been following along with us over the course of the past few weeks, you’ve thought about some of the stranger (and less likely) situations that may arise in an emergency situation. To review, we’ve talked about:

• Servers and electrical distribution equipment
• Food spoilage
• Lease issues
• Paper files, laptops, and desktops
• Active shooters
• Lockdown situations

 
Hopefully your business will never encounter these problems. Hopefully your business will be successful and carry on thriving for many years to come. But you need to do a Business Impact Analysis and you need to create a Business Continuity Plan. It’s just good business sense.
 
Please, when you create, write, review, or update your business impact analysis and your business continuity plan, don’t forget about these unusual situations. You can’t answer questions like these by sitting down for 20 minutes and brainstorming what you’d do. You can’t just “wing it” and hope everything works out. You need to have professionals who are experts in business continuity planning help you write a business impact analysis and create a business continuity plan.
 
You also need to write an Emergency Action Plan so that your business is prepared for what to do during an emergency. In light of recent national and world events, this is more important than ever before to have a risk assessment done and create an Emergency Action Plan. Continue following us as we move on to discussing Emergency Management Plans and why you also probably suck at writing one of those.

by Joy Dike, PhD

After Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, many office buildings were flooded. Flooding is bad. Flooding with seawater? Even worse. You want to know why? Because a lot of these office buildings had all of their servers and electrical distribution equipment in the basement. With all of your systems located in the basement, a flooded basement becomes more like a business crisis. Also? After 6 months of no power getting to these units, batteries start to leak toxic gases. A bad situation became even worse.
 
Now we’re not saying that your business continuity plan or business impact analysis can do anything to prevent or account for something like this. If you have a business continuity plan, it surely covers dealing with the aftermath of a natural disaster like a hurricane. The issue with these particular hurricanes wasn’t that the buildings themselves were structurally damaged. The issue was that tenants couldn’t move back in for over 6 months because the electrical equipment in the basement was a hazard, and it needed to be cleaned up, replaced, remediated, etc.
 
A business continuity plan that covers just the bare bones of IT (like Mr. Smith works remotely, Mr. Grey works at home, Ms. Franks is on call, and Mr. Boot moves to the Chicago office) isn’t going to cut it here. These people may be out of the office for half a year. They may need new computers, phones, supplies. They need a place to work for the next 6 months. Do your business continuity plan and business impact analysis take extended evacuations into account? The IT aspect of your business continuity plan and business impact analysis needs to go beyond which of your IT guys works from home after a hurricane.  
 
Continue to follow us as we wrap up this extended discussion about business continuity plans and business impact analyses. Hopefully you have realized that there are unusual situations that most business continuity plans and business impact analyses don’t take into account.