shooting by an ex-employee at an Indianapolis FedEx fa- cility in April was only the latest in an ongoing string of such incidents in the United States. Indeed, the past decade has seen roughly one workplace shooting every year, according to a database maintained by Northeast- ern University.
I Too often, the results are human injury, traumatized
employees, and a damaged business reputation. “A vi- olent event leading to injuries and loss of life can be devastating to a business,” says Wayne Maxey, executive consultant for Workplace Guardians, a consulting firm in San Diego, Calif. “Some organizations never recover because of the impact on their surviving employees and on their brand.”
Not to be overlooked, as well, is the financial cost
when injured members of the public bring costly law- suits. “While theories of negligence vary by state, very often employers can be sued for negligent hiring, neg- ligent supervision, and negligent retention of employ- ees,” says attorney Kathleen Bonczyk, founder of the Workplace Violence Prevention Institute in Orlando, Fla.
t’s a nightmare scenario that haunts every business owner: A troubled individual’s simmering anger boils over into an act of workplace violence. The mass
The resulting financial damages can be crippling for orga-
nizations lacking costly legal talent. “Small businesses are at higher risk of financial devastation because they possess lim- ited resources to implement comprehensive preventive ap- proaches,” says Felix P. Nater, president of Nater Associates, a security consulting firm operating out of New York City and Charlotte, N.C. “Yet they’re no better than large organizations at predicting when disgruntled employees will transition into violent action.”
Viable Threats Every employer must take steps to prepare for an unexpect- ed act of workplace violence. Experts say that an effective policy starts with understanding the various manifestations of violence—including less extreme behaviors that too often grow into something worse.
“Most employers think of violence in terms of physical as-
sault or homicide,” says Nater. “However, it can also take the form of threatening behavior, verbal abuse, intimidation, and harassment.”
Threatening behavior, says Nater, can mean the shaking
of fists, confrontation with or threatening of a victim with objects, and blocking another person’s movement. Even non- physical actions can qualify: “Violence can take the form of words, gestures, intimidation and bullying, and inappropriate
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