5 Things Employers Can Learn from the Santa Monica College Shooting
It’s too soon to know for certain, but it’s likely that a sense of grievance was behind the October 14th, Santa Monica College workplace violence incident, where one employee shot another employee at one of the college’s education annexes.
But what is certain, is that preventing this type of significant workplace violence incident is why California’s workplace violence prevention law, that went into effect on July 1st, was created.
The human cost of this incident, as with any significant incident of workplace violence, is very real. The employee that was shot was hospitalized, and passed away several days later. The shooter killed himself as law enforcement closed in.
There is no pound of cure once violence happens. So when it comes to workplace violence you need to do more than an ounce of prevention. Much more.
Here’s 5 things employers can learn from this significant workplace violence incident:
- Workplace violence can happen at any workplace at any time.
- A workplace violence prevention plan is only as good as its implementation.
- People with a history of violence don’t change. Background checks still matter.
- Strategies to avoid physical harm from violence are critical to employee safety.
- Nothing happens in a vacuum. Accountability at all levels matters.
California requires employers to “establish, implement, and maintain an effective workplace violence prevention plan.” Effectively protecting your employees and organization from violence requires an understanding of the reality of violence, and how it can happen to your employees.
But, many small to midsized employers (fortunately for them) haven’t experienced violence firsthand. And that creates a challenge. How do you effectively prevent violence to your employees, when you don’t have the relevant experience?
Take the guess work out of creating an effective workplace violence prevention program. I spent 30 years investigating violence in the workplace and in the community. I saw firsthand how violence happens, and what it takes to prevent it. And since I worked in some pretty dangerous places, I learned how to keep myself safe from violence.
I’ve helped people keep safe while doing the work they love, including the staff of a United States Senator, judges, court administrators and staff, educators, religious institutions, law firms, medical professionals, restaurant managers, construction workers, and manufacturing companies.
I’ve created a workplace violence prevention checklist to help California employers unfamiliar with the nature of violence and the ways that it happens, to develop a workplace violence prevention plan, that keeps employees safer while meeting California’s requirements.
Workplace Violence Can Happen At Any Workplace At Any Time
Most employers do not have the resources for workplace violence prevention that Santa Monica College has.
The college has its own police department. And a separate workplace violence prevention program with a dedicated workplace violence prevention webpage.
The college’s workplace violence prevention plan is detailed and easily meets the requirements established in California’s new workplace violence prevention law. It clearly identifies how to report workplace violence concerns, how workplace violence investigations are conducted, and lists different types of workplace violence trainings that the school provides to its employees.
Yet, despite everything the college does to prevent violence, a significant workplace violence incident still happened. And it can be like that.
Yes, there are certain industries, such as healthcare, that have a higher percentage of workplace violence incidents than other industries, but thinking that your employees are immune to workplace violence because your industry experiences a lower rate of violence is a mistake.
A 2021 survey of small and midsized employers by Zogby Analytics found that 34% of them had experienced a serious workplace violence incident or serious threat of violence. And that 90% of those surveyed believe a workplace violence incident can happen to any organization in any industry. A 2019 survey by SHRM found that 45% of HR professionals reported that a workplace violence incident or threat of violence occurred at their workplace.
All of this should serve as a wake up call. Workplace violence can happen to any organization, regardless of the nature of the work your employees do.
Implementation Matters
A workplace violence prevention plan is only as good as its implementation. Developing a plan is a good start, but implementation of everything in the plan is the key to employee safety.
A large employer, whose operation is less nimble due to its size, may have to rely more on computerized trainings for implementation. And while that may be necessary, it’s not optimal.
That type of training does not engage employees enough for them to really understand what to do should a violence incident occur.
But, taking a plan from paper to implementation can also be challenging for small and midsized employers too. And that’s because of the sheer amount of work that goes into implementation.
There’s a lot to get done, from conducting assessments to use to determine the specific workplace violence safety hazards your employees face, to coming up with approaches to remediate those hazards, to determining the types of training that will be most beneficial for your employees’ safety, especially regarding the incident response team, and the different types of strategies to train your employees in so they can avoid physical harm from violence.
And, California also requires employers to actively involve your employees during the development of a prevention plan, and with the implementation of that plan.
Implementation of your plan is the key to real world safety, as. it takes the theory of violence prevention, and applies it in a concrete way to your employees’ actual day to day work, by providing employees with the specific tools they need to be safe from violence.
And, when done right, it can be the difference between life and death.
People with a History of Violence Don’t Change. Background Checks Still Matter
Many states, California included, have made it much more difficult for employers to use pre-employment background checks to weed out potentially violent individuals.
I understand why the states do this, believing that employment candidates should be assessed for who they are, and not for what they’ve previously done. And that people who have messed up, deserve a second chance.
But, I disagree with the notion that people change their fundamental selves, unless they’ve put in significant amounts of work to change.
True, some people grow out of their past. But many others do not.
While the Santa Monica College shooter has only been convicted of misdemeanor property crimes, in 2011 he was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, and in 2019, he was arrested for alleged assault with a deadly weapon.
He has an obvious propensity for violence. So no one should be surprised that he carried out an act of violence.
But, because these two incidents did not lead to a criminal conviction they can be harder to identify, and to apply in an employment process.
But, there is a way to do it.
While it is more difficulty to use information found in a background investigation, employers can still do so, and if preparing to offer a position to the candidate, can ask applicants to explain any history of violence as long as the employer does not do so to deny the applicant equal opportunity.
The EEOC notes, “it is not illegal for an employer to ask questions about an applicants or employees background, or to require a background check. But the employer cannot conduct background checks or use the information obtained in a manner that denies equal employment opportunity to anyone on a protected basis, by intent or by unlawful disparate impact.”
And criminal charges or arrest by itself are not a basis to deny employment, but according to the EEOC the fact pattern behind either is fair for an employer to assess. The EEOC notes, “There are situations where an employer can explore the person’s conduct leading to the arrest and ask them to explain the circumstances. Then the employer can decide whether the conduct is a reason not to hire them or to make another employment decision.”
When done fairly, a pre-employment background check process is both fair to the applicant, and at the same time helps to protect your employees, the public, and your organization, from someone with a propensity for violence.
Strategies to Avoid Physical Harm from Violence Are Critical to Employee Safety
California requires employers to train employees in strategies to avoid physical harm from workplace violence.
Workplace violence happens, and this requirement to provide employees with multiple tools to avoiding being physically harmed by that violence is both necessary and critical to their safety.
Violence occurs in ways that are nonlinear. An attack can occur at any point during an interaction including without warning.
Providing employees with just one approach, say de-escalation training, will not help your employees avoid physical harm from violence when an attack occurs without warning, and turns violent before there’s a chance to de-escalate.
Multiple strategies to avoid physical harm helps your employees avoid being harmed in a variety of situations both before, and at the time violence happens.
There are many different strategies to avoid physical harm from violence that employees can be trained in ranging from situational awareness, de-escalation, and communication strategies for when an employee faces a potentially violent situation before actually becoming violent, to parking lot safety, and self-defense training.
Determining the right strategies requires assessing the specific risks your employees face, and from whom they face that risk.
And then using that assessment to determine which tool will keep them safe from physical harm when facing an actual safety threat.
But even matching the strategies to the specific safety risks might not cover every situation.
For example, most significant workplace violence incidents do not involve a firearm. So in terms of assessing the probability of your employees facing an armed attacker you’d determine not likely unless facing a robbery.
However, 44% of Americans live in a household where there is a firearm. So the possibility of incident involving a firearm can’t necessarily be ruled out. Especially in workplace violence situations involving your employees’ current or former domestic partners, and family members. At that point, it becomes a judgment call. Do you try to cover any contingency that can happen, or do you focus the strategies on what’s most likely to happen?
And that’s where involving your employees, as California requires, can really help. They’re the ones who have the best handle on the types of threats they can face. Especially when it can involve their private lives.
Nothing Happens in a Vacuum. Accountability at All Levels Matters
Effective workplace violence prevention requires that there be accountability at all levels of your organization, from employee to owner. And that’s because nothing happens in a vacuum.
And this is especially true with co-worker on co-worker violence, where it’s not uncommon to see a situation turn violent because someone failed to take corrective action when first alerted to there being an issue developing between employees.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but a lot of co-worker sourced workplace violence could be prevented if people alerted to the problems took concrete action.
In many co-worker on co-worker incidents of workplace violence, there are almost always incidents of bullying by the victim, or the aggressor, that were reported to the employer prior to the significant incident occurring.
But, once those actions were reported, those with the ability to actually stop the bullying did not do their jobs.
Accountability requires that employers develop ways to address a failure to act by those with the responsibility to act. And that when such inaction occurs, that corrective action be taken to rectify that inaction.
Standardizing the complaint and investigation process helps to lessen the likelihood of inaction following an escalating situation, since it removes individual personalities, with different approaches, from the process. And in doing so, it also takes away the frustration that comes when a potentially escalating situation is reported. Frustration leads to explosion.
Employers have to make sure that those who handle the complaint and investigation processes fairly and objectively do their work.
Having to make a judgment call about what your employees need to know in order to protect their physical safety is not something most employers know about.
Workplace violence prevention is more difficult than preventing other workplace issues. It requires an understanding of violence, how it happens, and what steps are effective in preventing it. Here’s my approach:
- I begin by identifying and assessing the specific safety hazards that your employees face, including how work practices may expose employees to those safety hazards.
- I then develop approaches to remediate those safety hazards, and train your employees in those approaches.
- I then train employees in strategies to avoid physical harm from the four source types of workplace violence, as well as train employees and incident response teams in what to do should a workplace violence emergency occur.
Send me an email at [email protected] and we’ll schedule a free 15 minute consultation to discuss your workplace violence prevention needs.
