Everyone Has a Plan Until They Get Punched in the Face (Mike Tyson)

Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson once said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

While Tyson’s comment came in response to a question about an opponent’s plan for their upcoming fight, his quote is actually relevant to workplace violence prevention and employee safety too.

That’s because creating a workplace violence prevention plan isn’t enough to help your employees avoid physical harm from workplace violence. Doing so effectively requires training too.

Yes, California’s new workplace violence prevention law requires that employers create a workplace violence prevention plan. But, California’s end goal isn’t having the plan, it’s keeping your employees from being punched in the face. Literally.

And having a plan alone won’t accomplish that. That’s because at its core, a plan is simply an intention to take action. It’s like a road map. It can point you towards your destination, but it doesn’t bring you there itself.

And that’s kind of what Tyson was saying. A plan is nice in concept, but it’s ineffective without action.

Successfully keeping employees from being harmed by an act of violence requires two specific actions: identifying where threats to their safety come from, and then providing your employees with the specific skills they need to keep safe from those threats.

We live in unsettled and angry times. People are lashing out instead of hashing things out including in the workplace. And as an employer, your employees’ safety is your responsibility.

And to do that effectively, you have to understand how safety threats to your employees develop, and what they need to know to keep safe.

Take the guesswork out of keeping your employees safe, with my CA Employers Workplace Violence Prevention Training Checklist. When it comes to violence prevention, having a plan is just the beginning. The types and frequency of training matters greatly. I spent 30 years investigating violent incidents in the workplace and in the community. Through my work I learned what works to keep employees safe from violence. And used that knowledge to keep myself safe while working in some pretty unsafe areas.  

The Suddenness of Violence 

Violence is not linear. An attacker doesn’t follow a standardized, step-by-step, process before attacking.

Instead, he’s just going to punch your employee in the face. Suddenly, and without warning. And just like that it’s too late to avoid physical harm.

Assessments Help Your Employees Know Where Safety Risks Can Occur

There are two actions that can significantly help your employees protect themselves from the suddenness of violence.

The first is for you to conduct a thorough assessment to determine the most likely safety risks to your employees based upon the work they do, where they perform it, and who they interact with while doing it. 

Typically, conducting interviews of your employees provides the most detailed information. The more detailed the information you get, the better you’ll be able to develop approaches to lessen those safety risks.

By identifying the likeliest sources of violence you’re helping your employees to focus their attention where they are at greatest safety risk. 

It’s not possible to completely remove risk. But, with the right information you can identify steps to take to greatly reduce those risks.

Reading and Assessing the Environment And People Around You

Because of the nature of violence, the other critical component to helping your employees avoid getting injured by violence, is to teach them how to recognize potential safety threats, and to use that recognition to create ways to either avoid that threat completely, or to be prepared to handle the threat when avoidance isn’t possible.

Situational awareness is the ability to read the environment around you, and the people within it, for signs of a potential safety threat. And to interpret that information quickly enough to be able to act upon it.

It provides you with the information to determine the most appropriate response for any given situation that arises.

Doing so allows your employees to completely avoid a safety threat, or if that is not possible, to be prepared enough in advance, to take away the element of surprise that attackers rely upon.

And that applies whether it’s a person from the community holding a weapon, an angry client, or an employee’s ex-romantic partner waiting in the parking lot.

This same skill, allows your employees to know where to go to exit a location, or to hide in place, during an active incident. By reading the environment around them, your employees develop the ability identify exit points, and the routes they’d need to take to get to those exit points.

Not coincidentally, hiding in place and evacuation, are part of the required trainings to provide to your employees under the new law. So you’re performing double duty by training employees in automating situational awareness.

The Key to Situational Awareness

To make situational awareness an effective skill so that your employees can avoid physical harm from violence, your employees must be able to do so automatically and without thinking. 

The goal is to get your employee to recognize when a person approaching them is a safety threat, so that they can prepare for, and protect against that punch to the face that will come without warning. And to do so without hesitation.

There are two distinct elements required to accomplish this safety skill. The first is learning to see and hear what’s around you. And the second element is learning to process that information quickly enough to decide what action to take before being harmed.

It’s not as easy to master and automate this skill as it seems. According to the FBI, an aggravated assault happens every 39 seconds in the US. 

That’s about 2215 people a day, who didn’t recognize a threat early enough to either avoid it completely, or to be prepared to response to it.

You can’t plan for every potentially violent situation your employees will encounterBut, your can help them learn the skills to keep them from being punched in the face and suffering physical harm.

Training your employees in strategies to avoid physical harm from workplace violence requires knowing what does and doesn’t work to keep them safe., I can help you take the guess work out of keeping your employees safe and complying with California’s new law. Email me at [email protected] to set up a free consultation to discuss the specific workplace violence safety hazards your employees face, and the most effective strategies for them to avoid physical harm from that violence.