720 Preventing Workplace Violence

Form a Planning Group/Threat Response Team

This group may also act as a threat response team who more directly responds to incidents. The planning group assesses and evaluates the company's current ability to handle violent incidents and recommends ways to strengthen its response capability.

Typically, members of a planning group include representatives from management and labor, and might also include members from the local community, including:

• Human Resources
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Union
• Safety
• Health/Medical
• Security/Law Enforcement

While many departments may be represented on the planning group, only a few of them will generally be involved in actually responding to reported incidents. For example, representatives from Human Resources, EAP, and Security often make up an incident response team. Typically, representatives from the other departments will not be involved in responding directly to incidents, but they will act as consultants to the incident response team or play an active role only in certain types of situations.

Staff Expertise

Every company will have different areas of staff expertise. Your company may have employees who have special skills that could be put to good use in a potentially violent situation, such as employees who are skilled in mediation, conflict resolution, crisis counseling, investigations, or threat assessment. Identifying departments and individuals ahead of time, working with them in the planning stages, and agreeing on a coordinated response effort is one of the most effective ways of preparing your company to handle potentially violent situations should they arise.

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