Workplace Violence and the Facility Manager

Book Preface

The head of a private school in Jacksonville, Florida, was gunned down by a teacher whom she had terminated earlier that day. The gunman was a 28-year-old Spanish teacher who concealed the AK 47 in a guitar case. He then committed suicide. No one else was injured in the shooting.

Two people were killed and nine wounded in New York City in a shooting that took place in front of the Empire State Building in August 2012. The shooter was killed by police in a hail of bullets. The shooter was a disgruntled former designer who was laid off from his job a year before the incident.

A former employee, who was fired only hours earlier, came back to the Minneapolis sign shop where he worked, killing five people including the shop owner and a UPS driver before killing himself.

In the summer of 2012, a husband in Memphis shot his wife to death as she arrived for work before turning the gun on himself.

A judge, a court reporter, and a deputy were killed in a Georgia courtroom despite high security in the courthouse.

In what is believed to be the nation’s deadliest workplace shooting committed by a woman, a former postal worker who was on medical leave for psychological problems, returned to a California mail processing center in 2006 and killed six former colleagues before killing herself.

Each year violence in the workplace takes its toll. Lives are lost and people are injured. Business operations are interrupted and can come to a grinding halt. As a result, the costs for doing business soar. And everyone from the boardroom to shareholders to the assembly line to consumers—pays the price.

The key to understanding the complexities of workplace violence and its impact on business operations lies in focusing upon the issue of prevention. As part of a company’s disaster and recovery planning initiative, workplace violence much be approached from the perspective of prevention. As such it must focus upon identifying those factors and issues that create or have the potential for creating this type of incident. It must also define the strategies that can be used to address the issues that contribute to workplace violence. While this book is written for facility managers, it also targets other professionals who are charged with the designing, installing, and maintaining various programs and systems within a company. These include safety compliance officers, risk managers, consultants, engineers, as well as maintenance executives and human resources managers.

This book can also be used by CEOs, building owners, and their senior staff. It can guide them in heightening their sensitivities to the issue of workplace violence. More than just physical violence, there are the issues of bullying, domestic violence or intimate partner violence, sexual harassment, racial discrimination, intellectual disability, and physical disability. Perpetrators of workplace violence can be current or former co-workers, supervisors, managers, or strangers.

The book can also assist senior staff in meeting their own specific responsibilities for ensuring the safety and well being of their employees, tenant-occupants, or companies. It does so by raising awareness of what was known prior to an incident occurring as well as when it was known and what preemptive measures were taken to prevent the incident. Finally, it raises the awareness of what measures need to be taken to ensure that such incidents will never be repeated.

Developing plans and procedures for preventing workplace violence is an integral part of a company’s long-range plan; it supports business operations while ensuring business continuity—and that is where its significance lies. A company’s effective disaster and recovery plan is of strategic importance to employees, occupants, tenants, other business entities, customers and clients and the community in general.

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1—Violence in the Workplace
• Chapter 2—Workplace Violence—A Safety Issue
• Chapter 3—Workplace Violence—What’s at Stake
• Chapter 4—Developing the Program
• Chapter 5—Developing the Plan
• Chapter 6—The Legal Ramifications
• Chapter 7—Domestic Violence
• Chapter 8—Racial Harassment
• Chapter 9—Sexual Harassment
• Chapter 10—Disability Harassment