The If-Then Approach to Strategies to Avoid Physical Harm from Violence

California’s new workplace violence prevention law is quite specific in its requirements for employers. Requirements such as having the active involvement of employees throughout the workplace violence prevention process, and having an effective complaint and investigation process are clearly spelled out.

But, there’s one requirement within the new law that’s quite vague.

The law’s requirement that employers train employees in strategies to avoid physical harm from workplace violence.

I believe that California intentionally went vague on this requirement for a couple of reasons.

The first reason is that knowing how to avoid physical harm from workplace violence requires understanding how violence occurs. Violence is chaotic and nonlinear. By not specifying what approaches to train your employees, California is recognizing that no one size fits all approach works.

And secondly, I believe that California wants employers to really think through the specific safety threats that your employees face, and to use that process to devise the relevant strategies to train your employees so they can avoid physical harm from violence.

To my way of thinking, California’s lack of specificity is likely a combination of those two thought processes.

In this piece, I’ll examine why training employees in strategies to avoid physical harm requires a different approach than other types of training. And why I use the “if-then” approach when training employees in this critically important safety requirement for California workplace violence prevention programs. 

I spent 30+ years working in some very dangerous environments while conducting witness interviews, often about significant acts of violence, on behalf of my attorney clients. My work often meant showing up, unannounced, at a witness’s door, and then convincing that person to let me inside, so that I could interview that person privately about something really traumatic the person had witnessed. And, I did so 1000s of times knowing very little about the person’s background, whether there were any weapons in the house, or who else might be inside the house. 

And on top of that, I served many hundreds of court papers, including restraining orders, lawsuits, and witness subpoenas. And regardless of the necessity behind having to serve those papers, I always recognized that being served court papers is stressful to the recipient. And that stress can cause reactivity.

I want to share with you a workplace violence prevention checklist for California employers that I developed based upon what I learned about violence, and how to prevent it in the workplace, from my decades of conducting investigations into violent incidents. As well as the approaches I implemented to ensure my own safety while conducting those investigations.         

Strategies to Avoid Physical Harm from Workplace Violence

California’s new workplace violence law states, “The employer shall provide employees with initial training when the plan is first established, and annually thereafter, on all of the following…(D) Workplace violence hazards specific to the employees’ jobs, the corrective measures the employer has implemented, how to seek assistance to prevent or respond to violence, and strategies to avoid physical harm.”

The other trainings are themselves pretty straightforward too, and can easily be handled with a talk. But strategies to avoid physical harm, this last required training, is different.

It’s not something that can be taught through a passive talk. Strategies to avoid physical harm from violence is best learned through active participation.

There’s two things to recognize about the way California describes this requirement.

The first is the use of the term strategies (plural) instead of strategy (singular). Thus, California explicitly requires training your employees in multiple approaches to avoid physical harm. It says so right in the law. 

And this makes total sense. Providing training to your employees in only one approach increases the risk of your employees being physically harmed from violence should that one approach fail to work.

As I mentioned earlier, violence does not follow a script or a linear path. It’s chaotic and unpredictable. And training provided to your employees in strategies to avoid physical harm must reflect that.

The second element of note in this requirement is California’s use of the phrase “to avoid physical harm.” While not specifying what strategies to train employees in, California clearly states its goal for this training requirement. And that is keeping your employees from being physically harmed by violence during the course of their workday.

The Need for Training Employees in Multiple Strategies to Avoid Physical Harm

When California first announced the requirements of the new law, there were various articles and interviews of people opining, that employers could satisfy this requirement through some version of de-escalation or respect training.  

De-escalation skills are definitely an important strategy for your employees to learn, but it’s just one strategy among many needed in order for your employees to avoid physical harm. And that’s because the effectiveness of de-escalation is situation dependent, and far from automatic.

There are many instances of workplace violence where employees don’t get the chance to even try de-escalation, let alone perform it effectively before the physical violence begins.

And what happens in those types of situations when your employees rely solely on de-escalation? They get physically harmed. And sometimes with lasting impact. And that is what California wants to avoid with this training requirement.

To me this narrow reliance on a single strategy promoted in those pieces, doesn’t meet the state’s requirements, and doesn’t comport with the real life violence that comes from the four source types of workplace violence that your employees may face.

The If-Then Process. My Approach to Training Employees in Strategies to Avoid Physical Harm from Workplace violence.

The if-then process is a great approach to develop strategies for pretty much any type of situation.

Asking what if, is a good way of critically examining hypothetical situations. And, it’s one of the best ways to learn to examine fallback approaches to a fluid situation.

If approach A fails or won't work in a given situation, then what? Then you look at whether B or C or D or E can work.

And it’s no different when it comes to developing and training employees in strategies to avoid physical harm.

I teach a multi-faceted approach to strategies to avoid physical harm from workplace violence. And ensure that employees can apply each of these different approaches based upon the situation they are actively dealing with at the time.

The processes involved in avoiding physical harm from workplace act like a a non-linear flow chart.

Violence can enter into the human interaction process at any phase. Which means that you can’t just try one step at a time. Try this step first, then this step second, and then this step third.  Because each situation is unique. And if step one fails, it may already be too late to try steps two and three.

For example, starting with recognizing a potential safety hazard early enough to avoid it is generally the most important safety step to take, as it allows you, when successful, to avoid that threat entirely, or at least to have some time in which to formulate an approach to deal with with that threat. And that is the ideal way to avoid being physically harmed from violence.

But, there are times, when the threat does not initially appear to be a threat. But then quickly turns into a threat after your employee has already begun interacting with that person. In that situation, there may be no chance to recognize and avoid that threat from a safe distance.

And there are times when your employees will encounter an act of violence after it’s already initiated. And at that point, it is simply too late to try and avoid it.

And this same non-linear flow can happen at any point during a violence incident, requiring different approaches in order to avoid physical harm.

How to Start Identifying the Right Strategies to Avoid Physical Harm for Your Employees

So how do you identify the right strategies to avoid physical harm to train your employees?

Start by asking your employees. They have an idea of the types of safety hazards they face, and the types of strategies they believe would help them to avoid physical harm from those safety hazards. Have them describe how they believe these safety hazards would manifest, and what they feel they would need to know to deal with that threat without being physically harmed.

Next look at the four source types for workplace violence that your employees face. And then use the information from both of these sources to create scenarios in which the violence might occur, including how the might situation turns violent. Assess where your employees are located when this happens. What they are they doing at the time this violence happens. And what led this threat to materialize.

Then, applying if-then hypothesis, game out different strategies to avoid physical harm.

Will implementing situational awareness keep your employees from being physically harmed? Will de-escalation attempts be able to work? Will your employees have a chance to communicate with others who can help before the incident turns violent? Can your employees come together in a way that increases safety through safety in numbers? What can your employees do to offset an attacker’s initial advantage once an attack begins, or to be able to put the attacker on the defensive enough to create the opportunity to exit? And what would your employees need to know to defend themselves, or someone else, physically so that no one is harmed physically if no other approach works?

Once you’ve examined those different scenarios and carried them out to different conclusions, (if-then) then look at what your employees need to learn in order to be able to engage in these different actions.

And that’s how you identify the types of training in strategies to avoid physical harm from violence that will be effective.

Click here to learn more about strategies to avoid physical harm.