2022 Workplace Violence Virtual Master Class: Addressing Violence and Handling the Aftermath

Training employees on how to respond in the event of a violent attack is important, but what’s really critical for HR and safety managers to be able to do is identify specific vulnerabilities to workplace violence and close the gaps to minimize the risk of injury or death if an attack occurs. While “run, hide, fight” training is still touted as a foundation for active shooter preparedness, it’s essential for organizations to pay close and continuous attention to three key additional elements when conducting active shooter or other workplace violence drills: safety, communication, and control.

This session will teach you how to:

• Develop policies and procedures to actually manage an event.
• Define “run, hide, fight” more clearly, and demonstrate common errors.
• Go beyond “run, hide, fight,” and look at actual processes in your facility.
• Discover how to react if a serious event occurs in your workplace.
• Encourage movement to escape threats—and the communications channels your organization may want to use if violence erupts.
• Conduct open discussion for questions and thought sharing.

Employers have the opportunity to take a stand against violent behaviors and make the workplace a safe haven. The problem so far, however, is that employers have been talked into using compliance to solve a culture problem. For example, what we’re calling harassment prevention training is harassment corrective-action training. If it were preventive, it would include skills that prevent harassment, like standing up for your company core values.

Alvarez will share tools to:

• Describe organizational risk factors for bullying and sexual harassment so that you can work to correct them.
• Implement a healthy workplace policy that gets employee buy-in.
• Implement a new kind of harassment prevention training.
• Discern the difference between an investigation and a culture assessment.
• Describe the role of the employer when personal issues and domestic violence spill into the workplace.

Alverez will wrap up this event by exploring the many aspects of identifying and addressing myriad issues relating to crisis management. With a focus on the role, expectations, and actions that leaders must implement to direct an organization through the many uncontrollable issues that are consistent in many crises, this session will provide real-world examples of missed opportunities that heightened the issues related to the original crisis and, in some cases, intensified the initial incident. While every crisis scenario is unique, there are many opportunities to take advantage of lessons learned and proactive, focused planning, and this session will show you how to:

• Develop an understanding of the many components of crisis management, including the internal and external impact.
• Identify the “early warning signs” that are frequently recognizable in pending crisis management cases.
• Share ideas on the process of creating an effective action plan that changes the course of the issue and provides a road map to solutions.
• Discuss the proactive steps that can assist with the many predicaments that can be mitigated with pre-crisis planning.

Have lingering questions about points raised during this highly instructive workshop, or want to revisit a fundamental concept or two from earlier in the day? Take advantage of this opportunity to get clarification from Alvarez before the workshop comes to an end.