Crisis-Prepared or Crisis-Prone?

Organizations are crisis-prone when they are likely to experience a greater frequency or severity of dangerous and disruptive situations, such as inter-employee violence and conflict, assaults by non-employees, harassment, threats and intimidation. Such organizations have not created the necessary preventive systems. Consequently, they experience a lowering of workplace morale, increased disability costs and a far greater risk of legal liability. A crisis-prepared organization, in contrast, has adopted policies that ensure continuing high levels of internal communication and an early, effective response to signs of distress. It listens carefully to the needs and concerns of employees and managers. Workplace Solutions is dedicated to helping organizations become crisis-prepared.

Achieving Preparedness

1. Workplace Solutions prepares you for the possibility of conflict and stress arising from:

• Reorganization, restructuring and re-engineering
• Conflict, threats, harassment and violence among individual employees
• Inter-group strains in diversifying workforces (ethnic, linguistic, cultural and gender conflict)
• Intrusion of domestic stress, abuse and violence
• Interactions with threatening or assaultive non-employees (customers, clients or patients, for example)

2. Workplace Solutions helps you develop policies and procedures that protect workers, comply with government regulations (including OSHA guidelines and the Americans With Disabilities Act) and limit exposure to needless litigation. The development of these capabilities typically includes the following steps:

• Preparing a systematic, comprehensive Organizational Risk Audit.
• Facilitating planning for critical incidents and emergencies as well as for post-incident analysis.
• Improving the effectiveness of grievance and dispute resolution procedures.
• Creating mechanisms that can provide a continuum of responses, including detection of early warning signs (such as symptoms of acute stress), early intervention and post-incident counseling.
• Developing corporate structures and policies and fostering an organizational culture conducive to violence prevention and effective crisis response.
• Training key personnel in problem-solving, communication and conciliation skills that can keep conflict from spiraling out of control.

3. Workplace Solutions provides an array of coordinated services, which can be customized for your workplace. These services include:

• Consultation and planning with decision-makers in response to a critical situations, planned organizational changes or system-wide stressors.
• Creating and training in-house violence prevention and crisis-response teams
• Policy development consultation.
• Facilitation sessions with Labor-Management Committees and other in-house bodies.
• Training in dispute resolution skills for managers and front-line personnel.
• Consultation on sensitive employment relations and human issues, such as those involving discipline, termination or allegations of discrimination or harassment.