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Review: Killer jobs

The Violence-Prone Workplace: A New Approach to Dealing with Hostile, Threatening, and Uncivil Behavior
By Richard V. Denenberg and Mark Braverman
Cornell University Press, 271 pages

October 30, 2000
Web posted at: 6:16 p.m. EST (2316 GMT)

In this story:

Overseeing, but not looking

Privacy vs. potential

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By Larry Keller
CNN.com/career Senior Writer

(CNN) -- The cartoon in The New Yorker magazine shows a CEO notifying a subordinate of imminent layoffs. "We've got to get rid of some people, Cosgrove," he says. "Who are the least likely to come back and shoot us?"

Authors Richard V. Denenberg and Mark Braverman in "The Violence-Prone Workplace" write that figuring out who at your company is most or least likely to become violent may be an exercise in futility. It makes more sense, they write, for employers to respond appropriately to signs of potential trouble and try to head it off.

"Rather than hunt for a few supposed 'bad apples' in the barrel," they write, "we ought to examine the barrel itself, recognizing that violence is ultimately the product of social or organizational change and other factors that leave the working environment potentially volatile," they write.

"The sense of being ignored can be a powerful emotion. When they insulate themselves from employee complaints, employers may be eliminating an important safety valve and an indicator of unduly stressful working conditions."

— Richard V. Denenberg, Mark Braverman, "The Violence-Prone Workplace"

The first half of the book is devoted to case histories of violent and potentially violent incidents in the American work force. Readers may recall some of these stories from media coverage.

Each case study is rich in detail and written like a news-feature story.

Friday was dress-down day at the Connecticut Lottery Corp., in the leafy suburbs of Hartford, the state capital. Matthew Beck, a 35-year-old accountant, was at his desk by 8:00 a.m., wearing jeans and a leather jacket, which he kept zipped. Under the jacket was a knife and a 9-mm Glock semiautomatic handgun. Half an hour later, he plunged the knife into the chest of the lottery's vice president of operations and then strolled through the warren of cubicles to find the chief financial officer.

The authors -- affiliated with a nonprofit organization called Workplace Solutions -- use the stories in presenting ways to address workplace violence.

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In the example of the 1998 Connecticut Lottery incident, for example, Matthew Beck killed four co-workers and then himself shortly after a salary dispute against his employer. He also had been denied a promotion, and on this he had no right of appeal.

"The sense of being ignored can be a powerful emotion," Denenberg and Braverman write. "When they insulate themselves from employee complaints, employers may be eliminating an important safety valve and an indicator of unduly stressful working conditions."

Beck also had a history of depression and suicide attempts. His father told the media that his son had been under a doctor's care and on prescribed medications for depression since January 1997.

Overseeing, but not looking

Some of the incidents cited by the authors didn't end in casualties, but were mishandled by company managers.

They tell the story of a water-district office in which as many as 10 workers had spoken of fantasies or dreams about killing their supervisor. After an investigation, three of the workers were fired. The union filed a grievance and the men were reinstated to their jobs.

Among the managerial errors cited by Denenberg and Braverman in that case: failing to investigate fully; failing to distinguish dreams from reality; and singling out three workers while excluding others. What's more, the company never asked what it was about the supervisor that provoked such hatred.

It's one thing to point our shortcomings, but another to offer solutions. Denenberg and Braverman do both.


Richard Denenberg

They urge companies to form crisis response teams to investigate employee behavior that could become violent. Too often, they contend, psychiatrists, corporate attorneys and union and company officials are at cross purposes, making the worker in question a pawn in the a power struggle.

Profiling of job candidates "is an attractive concept that matches the current enthusiasm for screening," the authors write. "But the possibility of predicting which persons will commit violence has never been proved scientifically."

They note that millions of peaceful workers fit the best-known profile of a violent worker -- a white, male loner who's a military veteran and a gun enthusiast.

"A rigid catalog of supposed predictive traits is no substitute for the exercise of informed and nuanced judgment," they write.

Among their recommendations:

• Have a risk assessment performed by a qualified mental health professional whenever an employee threatens to commit violence; co-workers fear an employee because of menacing behavior; or worrisome behavioral changes are observed in an employee who has been subjected to an unusual stress such as the possibility of a job loss.

"Informing the employee plainly that his or her conduct is unacceptable would be more to the point than counseling. Indeed, a referral for counseling could be considered tolerating potentially injurious behavior -- a form of negligence."

— Richard V. Denenberg, Mark Braverman, "The Violence-Prone Workplace"

• In most cases, disciplinary action should be deferred. If there's a concern for safety while an employee is being investigated, remove him from the work force with pay. This conveys to the employee that he's innocent until proven guilty and he'll be more inclined to cooperate.

• Don't send the employee outside the job site to be questioned rather than talking to him immediately at work. "The fear that confronting such employees directly about the allegations or reports will 'push them over the edge' is rarely justified. On the contrary, persons perceived as threatening usually have been unable to make themselves visible or their feelings known. They crave contact and communication above all else."

• Don't offer to send a worker accused of bullying or intimidating behavior to counseling. "Informing the employee plainly that his or her conduct is unacceptable would be more to the point than counseling. Indeed, a referral for counseling could be considered tolerating potentially injurious behavior -- a form of negligence."

Privacy vs. potential

One of the thorniest issues for employers in dealing with a potentially violent worker is the need to protect his privacy while at the same time protecting other employees, Denenberg and Braverman write. This dilemma often results in inertia on the part of a company.

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But a balance between these competing interests is possible, the authors write.

• Ask the employee for permission to view his medical records or to talk to his doctor or psychiatrist. Employees eager to clear their names often will approve the request.

• Assure the employee that only relevant medical information will be sought. Make good on the promise.

• Limit dissemination and discussion of this information only to those people who should have it, such as a violence specialist whose opinion is being sought or those personnel who'll decide the employee's fate.

With a more enlightened approach to dealing with potentially violent employees, say Denenberg and Braverman, companies may have a better chance of avoiding a scenario like this one.

It was December 1997, the season for Christmas festivities, but employees of the state department of transportation yard in Santa Ana, California, were attending funerals instead of parties. Flags were flying at half mast in the yard, which is not far from Disneyland, and a stone monument, topped by a white hard hat and a clutch of flowers, bore the names of the four men who were being buried. They were a supervisor and three workers who had fallen a few days earlier in a hailstorm of bullets from a semiautomatic weapon -- an episode dubbed the "maintenance yard bloodbath."