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Workplace violence occurs in many different forms, but almost none have employees more on edge than the potential for a shooting. Workplace shootings are rare, but when they do happen, it leaves many questioning if it could happen to them next. Whether it is a disgruntled former employee that was terminated or laid off, an individual who has something against the business, or a current employee, it is vital to ensure safety precautions are in place to protect everyone within your establishment to the best of your ability.
In the United States between 1982 and November 2018, there have been a total of 33 workplace shooting incidents, resulting in 192 deaths and 121 injuries (these statistics do not include school shooting events). Every single one resulted in at least 3 fatalities. The highest number of fatalities occurred during the 1986 shooting at the United States Postal Service in Edmond, Oklahoma, with a total of 15, and the deaths of 14 in the San Bernardino, California, shooting in 2015.
In the instance of the United Postal Services shooting, the mail carrier responsible was in trouble with his supervisors and was afraid of losing his job after a poor performance review. Union officials at the time stated there was a massive increase in pressure on employees, even reaching levels of harassment, to increase their productivity, which is thought to have influenced the intense reaction of the shooter.
The San Bernardino shooting occurred during a holiday party for employees. The man was an environmental health specialist with the county for five years. Based on records obtained by the FBI, he had been in touch via phone and social media with multiple individuals under investigation for international terrorism, so he was potentially radicalized. However, there were also workplace grievances filed that could have also played a part in the motive.
Along with fatalities, employees are also at risk of severe injury, whether due to a non-lethal gunshot wound or even an injury during an attempted escape. Having a proper plan in place will help minimize the risk of injury and death as individuals will be better prepared to react and know where to go to reach safety.
As with any workplace violence, it can sometimes be impossible to predict if an individual has the potential to commit a shooting, such as the case in 2010 at the Hartford Beer Distributor in Manchester, Connecticut. That being said, there are actions you can take to help prevent a potential workplace shooting and keep your employees safe:
Preventing workplace violence and shootings is a vital part of employee and customer safety, but it cannot be done passively. Letting your guard down and assuming that no one in the building has the potential of such action or taking expressed concerns lightly could be putting yourself and many others at risk.
For more information on how you can help prevent workplace shootings through open and honest communication with your employees via anonymous surveys, or to schedule a demo of our survey products, contact us today.
Discovering illegal behavior in the workplace can be alarming and leave an employee feeling lost as to what should be done, especially when the behavior is being done by someone in management or higher. Whistleblowing is the act of reporting illegal or dishonest activities that are taking place within an organization while protecting yourself from retaliation.
When most people think of a whistleblower, they tend to think of federal or governmental employees and departments. However, whistleblowing can take place in companies of any size or type. There are various statutes enforced by OSHA, each with anti-retaliation provisions protecting the employee’s rights. Whistleblowers are granted protection from workplace retaliation such as:
It is important for employees to know that they have a place to turn to in order to report illegal happenings within their companies without being reprimanded or fired. Although whistleblowing can happen internally or externally, most whistleblowers do so internally. Companies with confidential, internal hotlines for purposes such as this can create a secure place for employees to turn to, which in turn helps your organization remain a safe and honest place to work.
HSD Metrics can customize exit interviews to raise awareness of unethical or illegal matters that are in violation of the law or your company’s ethical standards. This provides exiting employees an anonymous place to “blow their whistle,” so to speak, should they need to report any sort of illegal or alarming activity.
Your company will receive an instant notification from our ExitRight® programs when an employee describes an unethical, illegal, or unsafe act. This adds another outlet for surfacing such issues and allows for quick problem solving on the matter.
For more information about our various organizational surveys and how they can work for your company, and to schedule your live demo, contact us today.
“The department that I was in did not acknowledge the skill sets of the employees there. They could go out and hire a senior analyst instead of promoting from within. There are employees who have advanced degrees and who have been in management that never got promoted. It would increase the morale of the employees if the company would start to promote from within.” – Actual comment from employee exiting a company
When companies have open positions available, why do they hire from outside rather than promote from within? Many believe that an external hire is easier, or may provide the company with a new perspective. While that may hold true in some cases, more often than not, it is because the current internal systems aren’t working or, quite possibly, those in charge are unaware of the existing skills in current employees. Promoting from within helps boost morale as it shows you are aware of the hard work employees are putting in and want to help them succeed with your company.
Promoting current employees first and foremost shows that you recognize the dedication and work they have been investing while working with your business. Simply showing that you believe in your own team by providing them with opportunities encourages them to continue working hard for your company and makes them your biggest advocate. Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, described how bringing in an external hire can make current employees feel during an interview with Stephen Dubner on a Freakonomics radio series “Secret Life of CEOs”:
“We’d like to promote from within, because I think there’s nothing more discouraging for, say, a thousand people who work in a company for a so-called expert to be brought in from outside. Generally, if you can’t find a good C.E.O. within a thousand people in a company, there’s something wrong in the first place.”
Not only is this good for employees, but hiring from within also provides benefits for you and your company. An internal promotion allows you to hire someone into a position who already is familiar with your company’s day-to-day routine, culture, and more, so while they may need to be trained on some tasks, you won’t need to start completely from scratch.
Long-term, promoting from within provides many advantages for employers and employees:
Does your business currently have a clearly defined internal job bidding policy? Communicating the internal job bidding process will help increase the internal candidate pool and encourage promotions from within the organization while minimizing the potential for misunderstandings. Will you be considering qualifications, performance reviews, competencies, and more during the selection process? How long will the jobs be posted? Will the company recruit internally and externally simultaneously? How long do employees have to be in their current positions before being eligible to apply for another job? All of these questions should be answered as part of an internal career advancement program.
Equally important to the internal job bidding process is having an updated internal talent inventory. A compilation of the skills, education, and experiences of current employees will help guide workforce planning. Knowing what the position requirements are along with the internal capabilities that exist, will help increase the speed with which positions are filled, reduce the cost of recruiting, decrease employee onboarding and training time, and increase productivity and company morale.
A recent Nexxt survey found that 78% of people plan on looking for a new job in 2019, so it is vital to ensure your employees are happy and feel engaged with the company. What are you doing to motivate your employees to stay? Regular communication with your employees and allowing for honest feedback from them lets them know how valued they are and that their opinions matter. Gain a better, more comprehensive understanding of your organization’s effectiveness by utilizing an employee engagement survey, such as SurveyRight®.
Stay interviews help you strengthen your overall employee retention plan, whether it is needed in a particular department or across the entire organization. Whenever an employee chooses to leave, be sure to utilize an exit interview, such as the ExitRight®, which presents you with turnover benchmarks and provides quick turnaround on the feedback received, allowing you to take action sooner.
The best part is, all of this information is gained anonymously, so employees are more apt to provide honest feedback without fear of retribution. And since it is outsourced by HSD Metrics, all of the data is compiled and organized for you, making your action process simple and efficient.
For more information about how we can help you measure employee perceptions through organizational surveys, contact us today to schedule a demo.
You may have planned your New Year’s Resolution for yourself, but did you create one for your business? Much like our personal goals, businesses need reevaluation every year to understand whether certain processes are working, where improvements can be made, and more. Many times, companies become complicit in how things are run, and even if goals are being met, leaving everything to stay the way it is quickly leads to stagnation, and eventually, any progress will level out – or decline. If you’re not sure where to begin, one easy resolution to start in 2019 is solving your company’s employee turnover issues.
No company will ever be able to stop employee turnover completely as each employee has his or her own reason for leaving, sometimes having nothing to do with the company itself. However, it is in the company’s best interest to make an effort to eliminate any easily-resolved reasons from within to help retain great talent and even save money. Keeping many of the same employees over time helps create unity and provides a valuable experience that can only be gained over time. It also helps save others from having to take on more work than a colleague who quit may have left behind, as well as saves the valuable time it takes to review applications, interview, hire and train new employees.
The first step to reducing employee turnover is to understand why it is occurring. Each case may be different, and no two businesses will be alike, but carefully reviewing the information you gained through exit interviews can help you see where there may be similarities or trends. Of course, this review takes time, and by the time you get a full scope of where improvements are needed, your company may have lost even more great talent. This information can also be gathered from current employees, but issues of confidentiality and fear of reprimands can keep them from being completely honest.
Gaining a full understanding requires the right data, and it needs to get to you in a quick and organized manner to make the biggest impact. The easiest way to do this is to work through third-party outsourcing, such as our company HSD Metrics. We do the heavy lifting for you. We handle the collection of information, process the data, and interpret what it all means before getting it to you in a timely fashion so all you have to do is implement change.
We offer various types of surveys and interviews that your employees will feel confident to provide honest, anonymous feedback. HSD can help you see perspective from current employees through our Employee Engagement Surveys and the reasoning behind an employee leaving with our ExitRight® Interview. We are here to help you succeed in 2019. Contact us today for more information or to schedule a demo of what our products can do for you.
“My education and experience have been primarily in development and system design/architecture. The role I was hired into was solely management.” – Actual comment from an employee exiting a company.
While we use the interview process itself to help get to know a potential candidate, it also needs to serve as a way to identify whether the position is a good fit for the person, the responsibility of which falls on both the interviewee and interviewer. Did the candidate fully understand the job description as posted and as explained during the interview? Was the job posted with accurate information regarding job expectations? Did the interviewer restate the correct information either in-person or via phone conversation? Was the candidate chosen based on the education and experience matching the position? Thankfully, there are several ways to get the right information that will help ensure you hire the right employee for the job.
Your business could have some of the smartest, most capable multi-taskers in the workforce, but if their job description doesn’t fit their unique skillset, you are missing out on their true potential – and they may be quickly losing motivation and drive. So, how do truly ensure you’ve got the right person?
Look for Career Commitment. Commitment can be easy to find just by looking at the candidate’s resume. Someone who frequently changes jobs or companies may strictly be looking for a higher salary or perceived better opportunity. A person who bounces around from job to job may be using your company as a stepping stone, not somewhere to invest his or her skills, meaning you will most likely lose them to the next thing that pops up on their radar.
Think about Company Compatibility. Job skills are undoubtedly important, but so is the current company culture. Introducing a new employee that doesn’t mesh well with the current team could disrupt productivity and result in great talent leaving your team or business. This includes all levels of employment, from entry-level to management. Everyone must have the ability to work well together as much as possible, but have the capability to communicate effectively with one another to discuss differing ideas.
Your Hiring Process can Always Use Improvement. Many companies get stuck in the same process, asking the same questions, reviewing the same qualifications, and more. If the hiring process does not evolve alongside the company, you will more than likely hire someone with capabilities, knowledge, and skills that aren’t quite up to what you require. Each open position must have a unique set of requirements accompanying the job description to ensure it goes to the right candidate. If you aren’t quite sure about what should be included, consult with others currently close to that position who may be able to assist.
Once employees are hired, you can also capture data during the on-boarding process with tools like our New Hire Feedback surveys. You’ll get real-time feedback on your particular recruiting, hiring, and on-boarding processes from those you’ve recently welcomed to the team, allowing you to streamline and adjust for future hires. Since the surveys are performed through us as a third-party system, your company is more likely to receive honest feedback as there is no fear of internal repercussions. Learning how you can better support and train your employees in their positions makes for a happier, more productive team within your company.
Another great way to improve your hiring process is to take advantage of data that can be collected during exit interviews. You can do these yourself, or receive the information much more efficiently by outsourcing the process with products like our ExitRight® surveys.
To learn more or schedule a demo, contact us today.
Increasingly, employees at all levels and across all demographic groups are finding it challenging to manage the time they spend at work and the time to attend to their personal needs. Finding an acceptable balance between one’s work and personal life has become more and more difficult as employees face various work and life issues at different times during their careers. The best solution to the ever-changing needs and priorities of employees and employers is workplace flexibility.
What is driving the need for workplace flexibility in today’s business environment?
While many organizations are moving toward a more strategic approach to workplace flexibility as part of their work-life portfolio, informal flexibility is already the norm in many organizations. Informal flexibility is essential for employers allowing flexible work arrangements, such as employees working at home occasionally, coming to work after a doctor’s appointment, or leaving early for a personal appointment without scrutiny or consequence. In particular, millennials have been vocal in demanding options that create a more flexible work environment, such as the virtual office. Others who have been brought up in the age of technology, such as those from Generation X and the newly emerging Generation Z, are also more apt to be drawn to companies offering those benefits, staying for as long as they feel valued, appreciated, and respected.
Many workplace flexibility options are no- or low-cost solutions that can be used to provide a more attractive work-life balance for employees and reduce turnover for the employer. With many talented candidates desiring a better balance, it is essential for businesses to review current policies in order to keep up with the competition. Organizations with flexible work options find they have increased attraction and employee retention, but it also provides many other great benefits, such as:
In business, we want to retain great talent for as long as possible, and as workplace environments evolve, it’s important to make the changes we can to provide desired benefits to employees. It is not enough to simply believe what your company offers is what is best for employee retention, you must also be open to feedback from employees, making tweaks where necessary. Getting straight-forward, useful, and organized data is simple with our employee engagement survey and employee stay interview.
For more information, or to schedule a demo with our team, contact us today.
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