Workplace Violence: Should we have a contingency plan?
It still surprises me sometimes that when I ask organisations (throughout multiple sectors), ‘do they have a plan if a member of staff is threatened or assaulted’? That I still get the response, ‘we would ring Human Resources’ and then they reply, ‘we would ring the PSNI’.
That all sounds great on paper, but when you calculate things like response times of the PSNI, location of the incident and the severity of the assault it can make you realise that you don’t have a plan.
We always train the “What if” and I am sure you will all agree that there are thousands of possibilities, but we look at smaller incidents that can have an effect on an organisation through threatening or aggressive incidents.
At Quell we go to events and are asked to give presentations on “Workplace Violence” and before we start most people say “We don’t have that Problem” but when I have finished our presentation you would be surprised by the number of people who ask us to visit their organisation or help with their Policies.
We only ask a simple question to all members of staff, from the CEO to the person on the shop floor and it is “what would you do or what should you do in the event of an act of aggression”
Blog by Will Holland
For help or guidance in the subject of workplace violence, on where you stand or don’t stand contact us at Quell.