California requires employers to implement, and maintain, an effective workplace violence prevention program. But to effectively protect your employees from violence, you need to be knowledgeable about violence, and the how it occurs.
And for many small and midsized employers, who fortunately have not personally experienced violence themselves, that can be a challenge. How do you know what works to keep your employees safe from violence when you aren't knowledgable about the nature of violence?
Take the guess work out of implementing an effective workplace violence prevention program. I spent 30 years investigating violence in the workplace, and in the community. Through that, I learned how violence happens, and effective ways to prevent it. And because my work often occurred in some pretty dangerous places, I learned to keep myself safe from community sourced workplace violence so that I could effectively do my work.
For over ten years, I’ve helped people to be safe while doing the work they love, including the staff of a US Senator, judges, court administrators and court staff, educators, religious institutions, law firms, medical professionals, construction workers, and manufacturing companies.
- I start with identifying and assessing the specific safety hazards that your employees face, and the relationship between your current operations and those safety hazards.
- Then I develop approaches to remediate those safety hazards, and train your employees in those approaches.
- Then I help train your employees in strategies to avoid physical harm from the four source types of workplace violence, as well as training employees and incident response teams in what to do should a workplace violence emergency happen.
Click on the button below to send me an email. We'll schedule a call to discuss where you are in implementing an effective workplace violence prevention program, and what needs to be done to keep your employees safe from violence, and to satisfy California’s requirements.
California's new workplace violence prevention law covers the majority of employees, employers, and workplaces.
Preventing workplace violence is different than preventing other workplace issues. It’s more difficult. Not getting it right:
- Risks your employees’ safety.
- When employees feel unsupported by their employer, they are more likely to quit, or miss work more often, making your workplace less productive and raising employment costs.
- And that can cause your revenue to fall.
- A significant violence incident can lead to lawsuits from employees as well as members of the public.
- Increase your health insurance, liability, and workers' comp premiums.
- Damage your reputation in the community.
- And lead to a significant fine from Cal/OSHA.
Taking the guess work out of creating an effective workplace violence prevention program will:
- Keep your employees safer; thus, increasing employee loyalty to your organization by showing them that their safety matters.
- increases workplace productivity through better communication and team building.
- Protects your bottom line by reducing employee turnover and absenteeism, and decreasing healthcare, workers' comp, and liability premiums.
- Protects your favorable reputation in the community.
- Protects your organization by complying with California’s requirements.
Schedule a call to discuss implementing an effective workplace violence prevention program.
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My commitment to preventing workplace violence comes from 30 years of conducting investigations into violent incidents. Through these experiences I learned how workplace violence happens, and how to prevent it.
Effective workplace violence prevention requires understanding the nature of violence, how it happens, and how it can be prevented, and using that knowledge to develop and implement a comprehensive prevention approach.
That's why the offices of a United States Senator, court administrators and personnel, judges, small business owners, educators, reporters, law firms, a large city's community safety department, nonprofit organizations, and others have turned to Mike Corwin to provide workplace violence prevention consulting and training.
When I was 8, I was robbed of the Unicef money I was raising while trick or treating door to door on Halloween in my own neighborhood. A few years later, my dad's sister, was victimized by one of America's most notorious violent criminals of that era. The damage that violence causes was personalized for me when my father, who had served in the infantry as a young man, but was a truly gentle soul, said out loud that he wanted 5 minutes alone with the guy.
Decades later, I began working as a litigation investigator. Developing facts for civil plaintiff and criminal defense attorneys. Because of my own history of seeing the impact violence has on victims and those closest to them, I was assigned by the criminal defense attorneys I worked with, who represented the people charged with those crimes, to interview the family members of victims.
Truly gut wrenching experiences. But conducting those interviews really reinforced that when it comes to the harm that violence, including workplace violence, causes to people, there is no "pound of cure". You just can't unring that bell once violence happens. Thus, the absolute best thing you can do when it comes to workplace violence, is to prevent violence from occurring in the first place.
30 YEARS OF LEARNING ABOUT VIOLENCE, ITS CAUSES AND PREVENTION
In conducting these investigations, I regularly got a close up view of man's inhumanity to man. Literally, the worst that people can do to each other. And that wasn't just the criminal cases.
I helped build many civil cases against organizations when employees, customers, patients, and clients were injured by violence at their location including homicides, assaults, sexual assaults, and other significant acts of violence.
My investigations uncovered what employers did wrong that led to the violence. And taught me how employers can prevent workplace violence.
I examined hiring practices and found people hired despite abusive and violent behavior.
I also assessed safety hazards caused by the interior and exterior physical layout, lighting, obstructions, ingress, egress, and parking areas.
In the 30 plus years that I conducted investigations for attorneys, I had the opportunity to help thousands of people going through difficult situations, and worked along side of some top attorneys.
Helping people is simply a part of who I am.
TO BE EFFECTIVE I HAD TO KEEP SAFE FROM VIOLENCE WHILE WORKING IN DANGEROUS ENVIRONMENTS
A significant part of my work involved conducting witness interviews (I've done approximately 12,000 of them). And often that meant showing up at a total stranger's door, which I did 1000s of times over the years, and then convincing them to speak with me about something difficult, and often tragic, that this person witnessed.
I worked in some of the roughest areas in Los Angeles, and later in New Mexico. and that meant learning how to keep myself safe so that I could develop the information I needed in order to be able to help people.
Implementing situational awareness saved me when a homeless man confronted me with a shank.
Because I saw the shank reflect light, I knew BEFORE the threat was upon me, that I had to act quickly in order to be safe.
I learned to de-escalate tense situations while serving court papers like restraining orders, witness subpoenas, and even lawsuits.
In 1996, I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and opened an investigation practice there.
I continued to focus on civil plaintiff investigations including many involving premises liability, and workplace violence.
INTERNAL INVESTIGATIONS FOR EMPLOYERS
I spent several years conducting contract internal 3rd party fact-finding investigations for the City of Albuquerque regarding abusive behavior including workplace violence.
And several years conducting internal fact-finding investigations regarding allegations of misconduct by judges for the New Mexico Judicial Standards Commission.
As a result of my investigation knowledge I was often asked by attorneys to evaluate investigations conducted by employers to assess whether those investigations were conducted adequately and sufficiently to address the alleged conduct in question.
PRE-EMPLOYMENT BACKGROUND INVESTIGATIONS LOOKING FOR A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE AND ABUSIVE BEHAVIOR
I also did the pre-employment background checks for a smaller town to help ensure that those hired would not become a threat to co-workers, and the town's citizens.
Teaching How to Conduct Effective Internal Investigations
Soon after moving to Albuquerque in the mid-1990s, I began conducting investigation trainings for attorneys, legal assistants, paralegals.
I was approved by the New Mexico Supreme Court as an instructor in investigations for attorneys, paralegals, and legal assistants.
And by the New Mexico Regulations and Licensing Board as an instructor for licensed investigators.
I regularly served as a guest instructor at UNM Law School's Clinical Law Program, it's Innocence and Justice Project, and it's Clemency and Pardon Project as well as civil and criminal law classes.
In addition, because of my investigation expertise, I've been featured on Dateline NBC, Politico Magazine, and Professional Investigator Magazine.
Training Employees in Strategies to Avoid Physical Harm from Workplace Violence
In addition to the violence prevention skills I learned while working as an investigator, I also trained in and taught a variety of martial arts, having achieved the rank of 3rd degree blackbelt in multiple disciplines.
After all, there are times when you have no choice but to defend yourself in order to avoid physical harm from violence.
BUT, in working with my students, I realized SELF-DEFENSE and MARTIAL ARTS were NOT one and the same.
One day, I came across an old training manual that the Allied forces used during WWII to train the women and men sent behind enemy lines to work with the local resistance. In there, I found exactly the type of self-defense I was looking for.
It was quick to learn, and easy to apply by pretty much anyone regardless of size or strength.
After ensuring the effectiveness of this self-defense approach by training my own students in it, I added this self-defense training to my workplace violence prevention training to give employees the skills to avoid physical harm if they were physically attacked on the job
By combining everything that I learned and taught through investigation work, with my knowledge of the physical environment to identify and remediate safety hazards, and combined them with training in communication approaches, situational awareness, de-escalation, and self-defense skills, I've provided effective workplace violence prevention consulting and training services to employers for over 10 years.
Michael Corwin, HelpYou Be Safe, LLC
38180 Del Webb Blvd. #245, Palm Desert, CA 92211
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