If you are an HR professional, you surely worry about workplace violence.  Whether it is an “active shooter” at work or just an argument that turns physical between two employees, the concern about workplace violence and the harm it can cause — both to those directly involved and everyone else who works there — is quite real and undoubtedly scary.

I recently read an article from the Business Journal publications that I found useful:  “Preventing Workplace Violence: What to Listen For, Look For, Notice and Do.”  This article discusses issues surrounding workplace violence prevention and offers some “identifying signs and symptoms” that can be a precursor to violence. 
Continue Reading Safely Preventing Workplace Violence

The horrific Newtown, Connecticut elementary school massacre has brought the gun control debate front and center.  But gun violence is not just in our schools.  In August, a former employee shot and killed a co-worker near the Empire State Building before being shot by police himself, and eight bystanders were injured in the shoot-out.  A 30-person Minneapolis sign company was decimated in September when an employee who was discharged shot and killed six people, including the company’s founder and a UPS delivery driver, and wounded two others before taking his own life.  In November, an Apple Valley Farms employee shot four co-workers at a chicken processing plant in Fresno, California, killing two of them, before turning the gun on himself.  Not long after, a ConAgra Foods employee in Indianapolis fatally shot his co-worker outside a break room, then killed himself.  Two other workplace violence incidents, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas (an employee fatally shot her co-worker) and Manteno, Illinois (an employee shot and wounded his co-worker), took place in July, 2012.
Continue Reading Workplace Violence: Navigating the Minefield of Workplace Gun Laws