What would you do if your work environment turned violent?
Do you want to be vigilant without paranoia?
Situational awareness is the act of paying attention to what’s going on around you. It sounds simple, but with the many distractions in our lives – phones, earbuds, colleagues, visitors, and more – being aware of your surroundings can be difficult.
How can you improve your situational awareness?
Monitor your environment and create a baseline reference of what’s normal; from then on, you can more easily distinguish what might be out of place at any given time. Scan the environment and be aware of anomalies. These include things like volume of voice, distance between people, open or closed doors, abnormal lighting, people you don’t recognize, and people’s body language. If you see an anomaly, monitor the situation to see if it’s violent or it escalates.
Here’s how situational awareness can benefit you in the event of workplace violence:
- Detect danger and act ‒ If you’re situationally aware, you’ll have a much better chance of seeing anomalies escalate or be cognizant of dramatic changes in a coworker’s behavior. Every second is vital in a violent situation, and enhancing situational awareness will enhance preparedness and safety.
- Plan ahead ‒ Part of situational awareness includes understanding your environment’s layout. Where are ingress and egress? You should know the location of at least two exits if you are in a building, or escape routes if your work is field-based. If workplace violence occurred, what would you do? But it’s not only workplaces you should be monitoring; if something occurred in a movie theater, a restaurant, or a retail store, what would you do? Creating an action plan in advance will help you be prepared in the case of a real event.
- Prevent violence ‒ If you’re aware, you’ll notice anomalies such as someone being upset, making threats, or intimidating others. These are signs that the person may have the potential to perpetrate workplace violence. If you see these behaviors, tell someone, such as a supervisor, security, manager or your HR department, right away. Providing a co-worker emotional support or de-escalating a potentially violent interaction is the goal and it requires training to have this knowledge and skills.
Monitor your surroundings with workplace violence training
Enhance safety and preparedness by taking TPOP’s training on workplace violence prevention, verbal de-escalation, and active shooter preparedness. You’ll learn ways to identify signs of violence, practice situational awareness, how to keep your focus, and how to create a plan of action before you need one.
Our course is taught by internationally recognized industry experts from the FBI, DHS, law enforcement, SWAT, EMS, and criminal psychology. TPOP’s co-founder, William F. Flynn, helped to develop and popularize the policy of “If you see something, say something” and the “Run, Hide, Fight” active shooter survival methodology recommended by national security agencies.
If you’re ready to prepare yourself, call us today at 833-723-3893 to discuss your training needs.