NEW "Violence in the Federal Workplace: A Guide for Prevention and Response."
The new Guide on workplace violence--which includes bullying--is now public. The Guide was developed by the Interagency Security Committee (ISC) whose mission is to develop security standards, best practices, and guidelines for nonmilitary Federal facilities in the United States." The ISC is comprised of 53 Federal departments and agencies.
To view the guidelines How to Build an Effective Threat Assessment Team
Businesses today face an ever-growing array of threats to the security of their critical data and IT assets. Under- standing which threats pose the greatest likelihood of doing damage to the business can be challenging. A threat assessment team can assist business leaders in sifting through this information and prioritizing security initiatives that will help ensure the business does not become the next security breach headline. A threat assessment team is a multi-faceted group that’s capable of not only identifying where an organization’s infrastruc- ture is vulnerable, but also providing valuable context about the links between those vulnerabilities and various threat types. Assessing threats requires an understanding of the business landscape, ability to identify vulnerabili- ties, knowledge of current threats, and creativity to predict new threats. Establishing such a team requires careful planning and a methodical approach. A threat assessment team enables companies to more effectively respond to the growing variety of threats to business assets and data.
Read More 7 Tips for Delivering Effective Emergency Notifications
Communicating with your constituents in times of crisis can be challenging. Now that we have the capability to send alerts quickly and easily – and reach anyone, anytime – community expectations for constant commu- nication are high. The seven best practices that can help you to be more effective in delivering your emergency notifications are: 1. Pre-configure emergency messages using templates and scripts that you can then customize as needed for each incident. 2. Create a message that can be digested in 30-45 seconds (write the message at no higher than a sixth-grade reading level to accommodate a diverse and possibly alarmed population). 3. When
possible, use the same person to record each message related to an event. 4. Craft direct and detailed messages. 5. Add automated National Weather Service alerts to your mass notification service. 6. Make sure you have the ability to manage the emergency using mobile technol- ogy in case you have to cope with a crisis from an off-site location. 7.
Send alerts with zero retries. To maximize the protection you can provide your community, it is also imperative to test and train staff on your notification system before the next severe weather event happens.
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LANL Employee Awarded $1 Million A Santa Fe jury has awarded $1 million in punitive damages plus $1 in nominal damages to a Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) employee whose 2010 lawsuit alleged that a supervisor made comments about using a gun to settle office work issues. The jury ruled in favor of Marylayne Mahar and against LANL, the partnership that runs the lab, on counts of breach of LANL’s workplace violence policy, breach of contract and acting in bad faith. In one instance, the lawsuit alleged, the Los Alamos police and the lab’s own SWAT team responded after the supervisor got upset about a work plan, “went ballistic” and said he was going to “bring in a gun and take care of it himself.” Mahar also contended in the suit that her problems at LANL started after she and her group leader reported nuclear materials inventory problems at the lab’s plutonium processing facility. The lab disputed her allegations and intends to file a post-trial motion to challenge the results of the trial. After the investigation, Mahar needed treatment from a psychologist and took a two-month leave. Upon her return, she was given the option of working for the same supervisor again or taking another job. She objected and was “relocated” to another area performing “ministerial clerical work far below her previous job scope”.
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Houses of Worship Not as Secure as they Should be Experts say it's often a hard sell, but churches must respond to safety needs. Jeff Hawkins, founder and former director of the Christian Security Network, which disbanded in 2011, has consulted with hundreds of churches about security and risk resiliency. Churches are soft targets for crime, "no longer the sacred places" they were considered to be a few decades ago, Hawkins said. Now that churches have flat-screen TVs, sound equipment, computers and other valuable assets, they're ripe for both internal and
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Have a question about workplace violence? Email us at
Barry@WVPReport.com to get help.
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