Is De-escalation the Cornerstone of Workplace Violence Prevention?

De-escalation. Verbal Judo. Conflict resolution. 

Whatever terms you use, redirecting someone’s anger and aggressive behavior is touted as the cornerstone of workplace violence prevention.

But is it really?

In this piece, we’ll look at whether making de-escalation your employees’ main strategy to avoid physical harm, is actually making your employees safer. The answer may surprise you.

I spent 30 years conducting investigations into community and workplace violence and learned what does and doesn’t work to prevent violence. I worked in some dangerous locations, and learned the strategies to avoid physical harm in order to do so safely. For over 10 years, I’ve helped employers from the private and public sector keep their employees safer. 

California now requires employers to conduct a variety of annual workplace violence prevention trainings. Unsure as to which trainings comply with California’s requirements and are the most effective at keeping your employees safer? My workplace violence prevention training checklist takes the guesswork out of California’s workplace violence prevention trainings. 

Violence Often Occurs Before There’s a Chance to De-escalate

California requires employers to train employees in strategies to avoid physical harm from workplace violence, and to do so annually. But, California doesn’t specify what that means. 

And that lack of specificity is a challenge for employers. Especially those unfamiliar with violence. 

Conventional wisdom treats de-escalation as the cornerstone of workplace violence prevention. Once employees are trained in de-escalation, they’ll be able to calm down a tense situation before it spirals into violence. Problem solved. 

And absolutely, de-escalation should be ONE of the strategies to avoid physical harm to train your employees in to help keep them safe while they’re at work. It’s one of the eight strategies to avoid physical harm that I provide training in to employees.

As strategies go, de-escalation, in theory, allows employees to avoid physically engaging with a potential attacker, and thus avoid physical harm. 

But, here’s where the reality of violence collides head on with the theory of violence prevention.

Violence is unpredictable. It’s non-linear. It doesn’t follow a set progression from A to B to C before culminating in an attack. 

Most attackers have a plan for their attack. Even if they formulate that plan just seconds before attacking. That plan typically involves launching a physical attack without warning. Creating an advantage through the element of surprise.

No jawboning. No arguing. No cursing. Just bam. Typically with a right hand punch to the head.  

The goal of the attack isn’t to get your employee to pay attention or listen to them. It’s to put your employee on the ground quickly where she’s vulnerable to further harm. 

The reality of violence means that your employee lwill likely be physically attacked BEFORE there’s even a chance to de-escalate. And once that attack commences there is zero chance for de-escalation. 

When De-Escalation Might Work

So with violence typically occuring without warning, when might de-escalation work? 

De-escalation is at its most effective when imtimidation is involved. When being aggressive is about pressuring someone to do what that person wants. It works best with someone who is talking, even if the language used is threatening. It can also work with someone who’s under emotion distress. And it works when the aggresive person doesn’t close distance. 

Studies have shown that talking, and listening, make it harder to engage in strenuous physical activity. And an attack is a strenuous activity. 

Someone who is silent, or nearly silent, during an unsafe situation, is far riskier to your employee’s safety than is a person cursing and screaming. Cursing and screaming is about intimidation. And the purpose of intimidation is to get someone to back down or to comply.  

Kind of like the climatic scene in the movie Goodfellas, where Henry Hill, who’s grown concerned about being killed by his fellow mobsters, is confronted by guys cursing and screaming at him. He narrates, “But, when I heard all the noise, I knew they were cops. Only cops talk that way. If they'd been wiseguys, I wouldn't have heard a thing. I would've been dead”. 

The second reason that a person who’s talking is easier to de-escalate, is that venting is a calming action. So in part, even by yelling or cursing, that person is actually helping to create the circumstances where de-escalation is possible.

De-escalation is about redirecting an angry person’s attention away from taking physical action. Achieving that goal uses a combination of reflective listening skills, silence, and asking questions, along with using your own body language to convey calm. 

Those are all skills that your employees can learn to do. And the best way to do that is through role playing. Employees should also learn to make a quick determination as to whether de-escalation has a chance to work. Reading body language is a key to recognizing if de-escalation is worth trying, or if another strategy to avoid physical harm is more suited to the situation at hand. 

Additional Strategies to Avoid Physical Harm 

Recognizing that a workplace violence safety hazard is materializing with enough time to formulate a plan and take action to avoid it is THE most important strategy to avoid physical harm. It involves training employees in situational awareness. Situational awareness is what allows your employees to safely exit a situation before it turns dangerous. 

This skill is especially important to develop when it comes to invitee sourced violence, community violence, and employee personal connection violence.

Situational awareness training can be combined with parking lot safety. Parking lots are the third most common location for a violent assault and even murder. Attackers can involve members of the community engaging or planning to engage in a crime. It can involve people suffering from mental health issues, and it can involve an angry client or an employee’s personal connection laying in wait to attack. 

Being able to take away an attacker’s initial advantage gained through a surprise attack is critical to avoiding physical harm. Most attacks are over and done in 7 seconds. Once an employee is knocked to the ground, the restrictions on movement caused by the ground, make it extremely difficult to avoid suffering significant harm and even death. 

Changing the dynamics forces an attacker to have to recalibrate an attack that’s begun. Doing so creates the opportuntiy to exit safely, or if necessary for your employee to defend herself. 

Developing a communication approach for employees concerned about safety is also a critical strategy to avoid physical harm. It can be done through a combination of mechanical equipment, such as a wireless buzzer, and code words, that your employee can use to signal to a supervisor that help is needed in dealing with a situation. 

Some people respond best knowing that a supervisor is involved. It’s makes them feel recognized. And it also serves as a deterrent for a physical attack as their is safety in numbers. 

The “buddy system” is also a strategy to avoid physical harm that utilizes the concept of safety in numbers. This can also be combined with parking lot safety, and other strategies to avoid physical harm. 

The buddy system requires training employees in how to report safety concerns, and how to have a co-worker accompany that employee during a situation that might involve a safety hazard. This can be an excellent strategy for employees that work in the community, work with difficult clients or patients, or face a safety concern from a personal connection who knows where she works, what her car looks like, and her work schedule.

Creating an incident response team is a great strategy to avoid physical harm. By training specific employees, in specific safety tasks and responsibilities, you can create a smoother response to a workplace violence incident. 

In addition, ensuring that those who handle workplace violence complaints and conduct investigations into alleged incidents, are trained in their specific roles can help to ensure that co-worker issues don’t escalate into violence and physical harm.

Finally, California’s workplace violence prevention law specifically recognizes acting in self-defense and in defense of others when there is a threat to safety. Because of the sudden nature of an attack, self-defense may be your employees only chance to avoid physical harm. 

Self-defense should be basic, and effective for all employees regardless of size, strength, or physical condition. It’s not about fighting, or subduing, but about avoiding being harmed long enough to be able to exit a dangerous situation safely.  

Trying to figure out what strategies to avoid physical harm are the best to train your employees in? Take the guesswork out of ensuring that your workplace violence prevention program is effective at keeping employees safe, and complies with California’s requirements schedule a free consultation