Keeping Workers Safe

Security measures have become a priority at some organizations

As she prepared to leave her charity’s New York headquarters for a conference in Washington this summer, Denalerie

Johnson-Mullen placed a notice on the front door informing the building’s maintenance crew that her staff would be out of town for a couple of days.

Upon her return, Ms. Johnson-Mullen, director of operations for the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, found that her innocuous note had somehow elicited an outpouring of hatred.

“Homos! Who cares that you’re out of town?” read the threatening response, scrawled across the memo by a still unknown perpetrator.

“It was a horrible thing to come back to,” says Ms. Johnson-Mullen, noting that the conference, sponsored by her organization, had been titled “Teaching Respect for All.” “We’re on the eighth floor of a building with security in the lobby, so we know that whoever did this is probably a tenant or a mail carrier,” she says. “To know that someone like this has regular access to our work space is very frightening.”

The note shook Ms. Johnson-Mullen, who feared that the words would be followed by violent acts. She immediately contacted the building’s management to report the incident and asked that peepholes be drilled into the organization’s front door. She also hired a series of consultants to conduct safety training for her staff, provided employees with photo-identification cards, and hired a front-desk receptionist to screen visitors, who previously had been allowed to walk through the office unannounced.

Before the incident, she says, putting such protections into place at her charity wasn’t a top priority, as she didn’t think her organization was a target for violence. She’s not the only one.

“Denial is probably the biggest thing that nonprofit groups do wrong when it comes to keeping themselves and their workplaces safe,” says Philip Burns, author of Multiple Victims, Multiple Cases: How to Recognize, Understand, and Stop the Disease of Violence Within Our Homes, Schools and Workplaces (SyTech Research, 1995). “Some charities have their heads buried so far up into the altruistic hole that they think it can never happen to them.”

Risky Business

To the contrary, every year more than two million workers are attacked or threatened while they are on the job, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, commonly referred to as OSHA. And no organization is immune from potential danger.

In fact, while the news media tend to focus on stories of disgruntled employees seeking homicidal revenge on bosses or colleagues, far less attention is paid to the more common occurrences of harassment, threats, and physical violence perpetrated at work by criminals, clients, and, in the case of domestic-violence victims, spouses or partners.

Some charities, purely by the nature of their missions, are more vulnerable to these types of violence than other employers, says Kirian Fitzgibbons, director of North American operations at the Steele Foundation, an international security firm with headquarters in San Francisco that has some nonprofit clients.

Charities that are physically located in crime-ridden neighborhoods and those with controversial missions that may provoke attack from opponents need to be especially aware of the danger, says Mr. Fitzgibbons.

But health-care and social-service groups, especially those that serve the mentally ill, are at the most risk of all. In fact, in 2000, almost half of all nonfatal injuries from on-the-job violent assaults occurred in health-care and social-service organizations, according to the most recent OSHA statistics.

Prepare for the Worst

Because every charity’s security needs depend on its work culture, the first thing that any organization should do is conduct a full security assessment, in which all potential risk factors — from physical vulnerabilities, like doors routinely left unlocked, to less tangible risks, like a lack of self-defense training for staff members — are documented, says Scott Johnson, manager of safety and transportation at the Union Rescue Mission, which serves homeless people in downtown Los Angeles.

As part of this assessment, Mr. Johnson says, charities should call their local police departments and ask about specific crime rates in their immediate area.

“It is essential for an organization to know what all their risks are — both from within the organization and from the environment — before they try to set up a security plan,” he says. “Otherwise, they’re likely to miss something crucial.”

As a former security manager at Disneyland, Mr. Johnson was qualified to conduct the Union Rescue Mission’s assessment himself. But charities without an experienced security manager should hire a reputable firm to do the initial assessment, he recommends, or ask the local police to check things out.

Once all the security lapses have been pinpointed, an organization should draft and distribute to all staff members a safety policy that outlines the specific procedures they should follow in the event of a violent incident, suggests Jean Haertl, executive director of Employers Against Domestic Violence, a nonprofit organization in Framingham, Mass., that helps organizations carry out plans to protect their workers from violence. This policy, she says, should include steps on how to report incidents, what actions the organization will take upon receiving a threat or after a violent attack, and the types of support that will be given to anyone who is harmed.

In addition, she says, it should list disciplinary actions that will be taken against employees who make threats or engage in violence against others.

Murders of employees often take place soon after the perpetrators are fired, are laid off, or learn that their wages have been garnisheed to pay child support or other bills. As a result, she says, “organizations need to have safety protocols in place prior to initiating such actions, particularly if they involve an employee who has made prior threats of violence.”

At the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, Ms. Johnson-Mullen has started conducting role-playing exercises with her staff members, demonstrating potentially dangerous situations, such as when an employee is fired. In addition, she provides all her workers with a phone list of local police, hospitals, and other emergency services, which she updates monthly.

Law and Order

Charity managers who are worried about the potential for danger often debate whether to hire full-time security personnel.

Some, like Carol Shapiro, president of the Family Justice Center, in New York, strongly oppose hiring a security force. Her national organization’s storefront facility, La Bodega de la Familia, provides services to drug users who are on parole or on probation and their families in a neighborhood dominated by low-income families.

The threat of violence is certainly palpable, says Ms. Shapiro, as participants sometimes come in inebriated or on drugs, and some have mental problems or a history of perpetrating violence at home. And yet, she says, security guards could intimidate and drive away some of the very people her group is designed to help.

Instead of relying on armed guards, she keeps her employees safe by providing them with periodic training sessions, teaching them what they can say to calm anxious participants before situations get out of control.

In the eight years that the charity has operated, no staff member has been the victim of violence, says Ms. Shapiro.

“At one point we did have our people go on home visits wearing bulletproof vests,” she adds. “Everyone hated it because it sent the wrong message. I think part of what keeps us safe here is that we don’t treat the people we’re trying to help as if they are dangerous and scary. They know we are with them, not against them.”

Other organizations, like the Union Rescue Mission, say hiring trained security guards is a necessity.

Mr. Johnson describes a recent incident in which a client was trying to cut ahead of others in the food line, cursing at those around him. He was asked to leave, but refused, and then began violently swinging his meal tray. Several security guards were hurt while trying to subdue the man, Mr. Johnson says, but he believes that their presence prevented even worse violence.

Indeed, he says, since the summer of 2003, when he revamped the charity’s security system, the number of violent incidents at the charity has decreased from about 10 per month to 2.

If charity officials decide to hire a security firm, Mr. Johnson urges them to avoid “mom and pop” companies, which he says tend to be less reputable, more expensive, and employ less-well-trained guards. Before he was hired to manage the charity’s security, he says, it had employed a small company whose guards were not certified by the state. In California, he notes, the state can fine both the guard company and the client if security guards are not certified.

Mr. Johnson also says, however, that he doesn’t rely on any security company to fully prepare guards to work at his organization. He conducts additional training, teaching the guards about the Rescue Mission’s history, its goals, and how to deal with the special needs of homeless people — without force whenever possible. The guards are asked to be respectful to clients, even when enforcing the rules. They also don suits and ties, as opposed to policelike garb.

“Many people we work with have just come from prison, and we don’t want to portray that same institutional image,” he says. “People come here to receive help, not to be guarded.”

Setting Ground Rules

One thing that social-service charities in particular must do to stay safe is create a very clear set of rules, publicly displayed, that clients must follow as a condition of receiving service, says Mr. Fitzgibbons at the Steele Foundation.

Simple rule-making has kept the peace for two decades at Central Arizona Shelter Services, in Phoenix, says John Wall, the group’s program director. For example, he says, no weapons of any kind are allowed on the premises. If a fight breaks out, both parties are immediately banned until they appear before a committee of staff members and case managers that determines fault and provides conditions for being readmitted.

“When you have 260-plus men crowded into one dorm with no air-conditioning in 115-degree summer heat, you’d think we’d have riots every day,” he says. “But in reality, we have very few fights and our staff almost never gets assaulted. We’ve never had anyone attacked with a weapon in 20 years of operation. I think our clients appreciate what we’re doing for them, and they do their best to make it work.”

Nuts and Bolts

Nonprofit organizations are wise to be extra vigilant in their hiring practices too, says Mr. Wall, who, in addition to checking job seekers’ past work references and conducting criminal background checks, uses in-depth interviews to assess whether they have the personality for the job. “We need to weed out those people who are just looking for a job that allows them to wield power over others,” he says. “We need people who can get our clients to cooperate and can de-escalate potential violent situations. Some of that is training, but a lot of it is personality, and either you have it or you don’t.”

Some nonprofit groups also employ safety measures such as surveillance cameras and alarm systems.

For example, at the Center on Halsted, a nonprofit community center that provides programs for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trangender people in Chicago, Robbin Burr, the group’s executive director, says clients can only enter the facility if they have an appointment — and then, only if the person they are visiting approves their admittance — which minimizes the number of unauthorized persons seeking access to the building. Additionally, all individual meeting rooms at the center are outfitted with panic buttons, which allow staff members to summon the police if necessary.

Employees need to take some responsibility for their own safety as well, says Benjamin Rudolph, president of HA LoH Defensive Tactics, in Washington, a company that teaches self-defense to employees who work in risky environments. (Its name is an acronym for the Hebrew phrase, “Haganah atzmit lo hamosh,” meaning “self-defense without weapons.”)

For example, workers should always know the fastest way to get out of a room or building, and should also learn to back up their co-workers, he says.

“Leaving doors open a crack — even during one-on-one sessions — working with clients in pairs, and always letting co-workers know where you’re going, can help to prevent attacks and provide faster assistance if an incident does develop,” he says.

Community Ties

Building relationships with other nearby nonprofit groups can help provide additional support and insight, says Ms. Burr. “We encourage dialogue with organizations that might not necessarily be allies but with whom similar concerns are shared,” she says.

Additionally, Mr. Johnson at the Union Rescue Mission suggests that charities form ties with their local police departments, so they will be alerted to threats. He plans to ask the captain of the local police precinct to visit the organization monthly to answer questions from staff members and clients.

Mr. Johnson urges charity managers to join safety-advisory and security associations. “Most don’t cost much to join,” he says, “and it can be a great way to make contacts and find new ideas.”

He says meeting new people can help a charity get low-cost safety help. He describes how, by talking with some employees of Los Angeles International Airport, he learned that the airport was dumping its old metal detectors.

“Now, rather than having to write a grant proposal to be able to afford these $5,000 machines, I’m getting two donated to us for free,” he says. “When it comes to finding ways to secure your organization, don’t be shy about asking for help. As my Dad used to say, ‘The worst they can say is no.’”