In light of the escalating numbers of school shootings, terrorist attacks and domestic violence, employers are working to safeguard their employees from becoming statistics through training and use of non-lethal weapons such as pepper gel, said Lori O’Neill, a South Russell resident and owner of Alternative Defense Strategies, Inc.
In light of the escalating numbers of school shootings, terrorist attacks and domestic violence, employers are working to safeguard their employees from becoming statistics through training and use of non-lethal weapons such as pepper gel, said Lori O’Neill, a South Russell resident and owner of Alternative Defense Strategies, Inc.
O’Neil conducted a seminar April 26 at the Bainbridge Fire Department for local business owners and educators, explaining the responsibility of every employer to protect their employees from hazards, including workplace violence.
Under federal regulations from the Occupational Safety and Health Agency’s general duty clause, employers are required to provide a safe working environment.
According to OSHA statistics, there are 572,000 incidents of workplace violence every year and more than 500 Americans each year are murdered at their jobs. Workplace violence is up by 33 percent in the last year, O’Neil said.
Companies need to establish a policy about how to avoid becoming a victim of violence, train workers about specific responses to a variety of emergency situations and arm themselves with ways to stop a violent intruder, O’Neil said.
“You’d be surprised at the number of employers without any protocols in place,” she said, adding each employee’s situation, and correct response, varies with their physical position in the building, ability to flee or hide and other factors.
The presence of video cameras can be a major crime deterrent, causing a potentially violent person to think twice about committing an act of violence if they know a camera may be recording evidence against them, she added.
Emergency situations are stressful and the resulting physical effects, such as increased heart rate and flowing adrenalin, can decrease a person’s fine motor skills, which may render them unable to respond easily to danger, she pointed out.
In addition, employers and human resources officers need to know personal details about their employees’ lives, she said.
Martine Scheuerman, a human resources officer for an Independence company with 175 employees, said she doesn’t care about the “dirty laundry” of her workers’ personal lives, but she needs to be nosy to find out whether a family member or acquaintance may cause a threat in the workplace.
“For example, one employee’s father just got released from jail and another employee is getting a divorce,” Scheuerman said. “I need a description of their cars, so I can make sure they don’t come into the building.”
When someone’s let off the job, the rest of the employees need to know so tat they don’t inadvertently let the person back into the building, O’Neil said.
“Unfortunately, it’s something we all have to train for now,” Scheuerman said. “We don’t want to know these things, but we need to know them.”
“Not to press the point, but in my department, my police officers have guns,” added Bainbridge Police Chief Jon Bokovits said. “I need to know if something is going on with them. The more you know about your employees, the better off you are. You may be able to stop something before it happens.”
O’Neil said she and her family members developed Alternative Defense Strategies after discussing the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, when a 20-year-old man walked into the school in Newton, Conn., and fatally shot 20 small children and six staff members, after murdering his mother at her home.
“The Sandy Hook teachers had no way to defend themselves,” O’Neil said, adding she and her family members discussed the need for an effective defense method that didn’t involve guns.
Their brainstorm led to the development of a pepper gel system that ranges from individual, easy-to-use units an adult can keep on a nightstand, to a keypad-entry metal cabinet that keeps the gel spray available to responsible adults, such as classroom teachers.
The gel, which can be aimed more accurately than pepper spray, coats the intruder’s face, rendering him unable to see and helpless, she explained.
“In a life-threatening situation, you are supposed to run, hide or fight. We’re the fight part,” O’Neil said.
The units range in price from about $60 for an individual spray to about $350 for a cabinet that includes a bleeding control kit, which may save a victim’s life while waiting for help to arrive.
There is also a portable unit concealed in a cross-body sling, which can be taken just about anywhere, said O’Neil’s associate, Victor Lombardi.
O’Neil’s company also provides safety assessments for companies, training for employees on ways to protect themselves and advice to business owners on how to create a safe environment.
“The more often you are trained, the less likely you will be to become a victim,” O’Neil said.
For more information, visit the company’s website at SafeZoneCM.com.
