Leadership Buy In

STEP 1 | Commit to Employee Safety and Support

Adopting a prevention mindset through a commitment to employee safety and support is an important first step to reduce the risk of targeted violence in the workplace.

This commitment can be demonstrated by securing leadership support for workplace safety efforts, providing resources and direction to employees, promoting collaboration and coordination of safety efforts between employees, and building partnerships with others outside of the organization's walls.

Support from senior leadership can be of paramount importance to the development of an effective BTAM program.

Leaders who actively support violence prevention efforts are instrumental in ensuring that resources, funding, and staffing are allocated appropriately and that the work of the BTAM program is prioritized.

After this conversation, leadership provided the security professional with resources, funding, and the formal authority to establish the company's BTAM program.

Due to their lack of training in handling threats, employees did not inform the threat manager about the employee's threat of violence or his termination.

described an incident in the company's past when a terminated employee engaged in a spree of killings

The executive conceded that the amount was not enough.

Despite the organization having thousands of employees, the threat manager was the sole person managing several important functions

Recent structural changes, including a corporate merger and the replacement of organizational leadership, had resulted in additional challenges.

developed pitches for specific executives that quickly summarized the importance of a robust violence prevention program

ORGANIZATION 1: A security professional received little support for workplace violence prevention efforts.

Some of those impacted were employees of the organization whom the attacker felt had wronged him.

After sharing this story, the security professional asked the executive how much the company had invested in workplace violence prevention.

Partnering with personnel from security, HR, and the company’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP), the security professional established an infrastructure to assess and manage concerns throughout the company.

ORGANIZATION 2: A threat manager experienced significant challenges getting support for workplace violence prevention from their organizational leadership.

The employee was ultimately arrested for trespassing on the premises.

The threat manager attempted to convince organizational leaders of the importance of proactive violence prevention efforts to avoid similar incidents.

However, additional resources were not provided.

Once the executives knew and understood the vision of the program and saw the good work the team was doing, a new hiring process was developed to select people really interested in joining the threat assessment team.

A senior-level manager can serve in the role of facilitator, leader, and/or final decision-maker

the BTAM team leader is also responsible for communicating information between the BTAM team and organizational leadership when necessary

management reportedly refused to intervene because the attacker was a good worker, and no action was taken

The decision to close a case should involve all relevant stakeholders, including the BTAM team and organizational leaders.

These were really successful with middle management especially, who would then start to advocate on our behalf.