A Thought About Preventing Workplace Shootings...

More than one a day. That is how often, on average, mass shootings – those that leave 4 or more people wounded or dead - occurred in the United States this year, according to a compilation of news reports. Regardless of the statistics, no number of mass shootings can be acceptable.

On April 10, 2023, 25-year-old Connor Sturgeon got ready for work. He wrote goodbye notes to his family, then packed up his AR-15 rifle, walked into the staff meeting at the Old National Bank in Louisville, Kentucky - and killed 5 colleagues.

Connor had been an intern for 3 years at the bank, then was hired full-time last year. Apparently, he knew he was about to be fired. His social media posts included one saying, “They won’t listen to words or protests. Let’s see if they hear this.”

A friend of Connor’s noted that in high school, as a football player, Connor had suffered multiple concussions. Yet apparently, no one expected this.

There are a multitude of articles about preventing workplace violence and what to do in an active shooter situation, but most of them miss this point:  If you are going to fire an employee, do it swiftly and with compassion.

For years, I have been saying that Human Resources needs to be a healing art. At the first sign of trouble, assess what is needed to help the employee – and to protect the rest of the team. If termination of the employee is the right thing to do, then do it quickly and offer the employee a meaningful severance package of pay and benefits to transition effectively. Include career counseling or outplacement services so the person has a place to go and a plan to move on, so they turn their focus to the future and not the past. If security services are in order, line them up to be there for the termination meeting. Keep the meeting short and as pleasant and blame-free as possible.

There are no guarantees that workplace violence can be prevented, but this advice can go a long way towards mitigating the perceived need for an employee to take revenge. And that means saving lives.