Building and maturing a workplace violence prevention program

Approach and Results

We began the engagement at the retailer’s global headquarters with a kickoff session with the core project team, stakeholders, and internal partners for our client. Our team was composed of leaders and key subject matter experts in corporate security, human resources, legal experts, crisis management, communications/public relations, and representatives from the lines of business.

During the discovery phase, our team conducted interviews with stakeholders and internal partners for our client. We conducted interviews with the lowest level partners to establish a baseline. We utilized our network of industry partners to conduct benchmarking calls and facility visits with large global companies that had previously addressed similar challenges

During the ideation phase, we worked with the client’s corporate security, human resources, employee relations, and legal partners in order to design a workplace violence prevention strategy that would address their challenges. We held weekly meetings with the client’s leadership to discuss findings and recommendations based on industry standards.

Central to the strategy that we developed for this client was ensuring a “single source of truth” existed for reporting of acts of violence, orders of protection, security incidents, and threats. This approach would enable the new threat management team to respond to any potential threat in a timely manner.

The client launched a new threat management program successfully with great internal fanfare and strong executive support. Currently, the threat management team assesses and mitigates between 400 and 500 escalated incidents annually through documented plans, expert resources, and clear expectations.