Disaster Recovery Journal - Winter 2004 Issue-From the Perspective of Ed Devlin

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Richard L. Arnold, CBCP
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EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
Jeff Dato, MBCP, KPMG
John Jackson, IBM
Edward S. Devlin, E.S. Devlin & Associates
James Hammill, CBCP, JMH Consulting Inc.
Pat McAnally, SunGard Availability Services
Brian Turley, Strohl Systems
Belinda Wilson, Hewlett-Packard

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Preparing for ‘Workplace Violence’

By ED DEVLIN, CBCP

A colleague who wanted to discuss “workplace violence” incidents contacted me recently. One of his executives had asked how the threat of a workplace violence incident was being handled by his organization. My colleague explained that the organization has included workplace violence in their business continuity plan. The executive then had specific questions about the prevention, the response and the plans for the resumption of business activities during such an incident. The executive explained that his interest was based on a recent event at another organization. The other organization supposedly had a plan to address a workplace violence incident, but when an incident actually occurred, the response was very poor. Finally, the executive asked for a detailed presentation to be made by my colleague at the next executive committee meeting.
My colleague asked me to come in to discuss their workplace violence plan, and how, in my opinion, it compares to other organizations’ plans. During our discussion, I explained that in my experience, “workplace violence” is often overlooked by organizations.
When we discussed why, I offered three reasons:

Maybe it was because this type of disaster occurs infrequently.
Maybe it was because executives are prone to thinking that it will never happen in their organization.
Maybe it was because those same executives feel if it does happen, everyone will know what to do.

We kicked around different policies and procedures that could be used to prevent such an incident. Then we examined some of the recent case studies to see if the organizations could have recognized that an employee was “becoming a threat.”
For example, in the following incidents in 2003, we can see the angry employee is definitely a sign of an employee capable of committing a workplace violence incident.
q In the Lockheed Martin incident in Meridian, Miss., on July 9, 2003 a factory worker, mad at the world, opened fire with a shotgun, killing five fellow employees. The rampage occurred after the alleged shooter attended a meeting on work-place ethics. He stormed out, grabbed a shotgun and semiautomatic from his pickup, and hunted down fellow workers. (Disturbed and angry employee in its ranks)

In the Modine Manufacturing Co. incident in Jefferson City, Mo., on July 3, 2003, a factory worker, who knew he was close to being fired for missing work too often, pulled a gun in the middle of the plant floor, killed three employees, and wounded five. (Angry employee)
In the Andover Industries Co. incident in Andover, Ohio, on Aug. 19, 2003, a factory worker, who was denied vacation because he filled out a form improperly, opened fire in the auto-supplies plant, killing a woman and wounding two others. (Angry employee)
In the Firestone Tire and Service Center incident in Bensalem, Pa., on Dec. 12, 2003, a repair technician at the store, was charged with murder for shooting the store manager after being threatened with being fired. (Angry employee)

On the other hand, in examining some other workplace-violence incidents in 2003, we came to the conclusion that the organization had little opportunity to prevent the incident. For example:

In the Case Western Reserve University incident in Cleveland, Ohio, on May 13, 2003, a graduate student was charged with killing another graduate student and trying to kill two other people. The alleged shooter was authorized to be at the university and authorized to be in the building.
In the Windy City Core Supply Co. incident in Chicago, Ill., on Aug. 28, 2003, a man, who was fired six months before, came back and killed six employees. It’s difficult to prevent an “old ex-employee” from coming to the company site six months later.
In the MBNA America Bank incident in Wilmington, Del., on Aug. 9, 2003, a former employee shot one former supervisor to death and wounded another supervisor. It is difficult to prevent an incident such as this because the shootings took place at the supervisors’ homes.

I suggested to my colleague we accept the fact that “absolute” prevention is impossible, and that our goal should be to minimize the potential for an incident to occur.
In order to minimize the potential for an incident, we knew that preventative steps must be implemented. The preventative steps met the general security standards or best practices.
As we finished the prevention section for his presentation, we dug into the other two areas the executive wanted included, namely, the response during and immediately following the incident, and the plans to follow during the resumption of business operations.
Oops, I’m out of room for this column. I’ll try to finish the discussion on “workplace violence” in my next column.

Ed Devlin, CBCP, has provided business recovery planning consulting services since 1973 when he co-founded Devlin Associates. Since then, Devlin has assisted more than 300 companies in the writing of their business recovery plans and has made more than 800 seminars and presentations worldwide.
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