Threats to corporate executives rising!
You don’t need to be famous, wealthy or a politician to be threatened…
Once upon a time only the famous, powerful, and wealthy needed to worry about being targeted, threatened, and even subjected to violent attacks.
That is no longer the case.
Increasingly CEO’s, executives and those in senior roles attract similar attention. There are expected to articulate their views and those of the brands that they represent with regards to public affairs and controversies.
Whilst once they might have stuck to subjects related to their brands, their profits and maybe other relevant news, they are now expected to comment on activist issues such as black lives matter, the environment, impact of strikes and other subjects that divide public opinion.
Equally, they are increasingly involved in lawsuits brought against the brand, and other workplace issues.
As a result, they are increasingly vulnerable to what is termed ‘workplace violence’
Workplace violence has been divided into 4 categories.
- Criminal Intent.In this kind of violent incident, the person of concern has no legitimate relationship to the business or its employees. This is often associated with criminal such as robbery, shoplifting, or trespassing. Acts of terrorism also fall into this category. It can also be committed by activists.
- Customer/Client.When the violent person has a relationship with the business—for example, a customer, client, patient, student, or inmate This often starts with a complaint about the customer service or product failure.
- Worker on Worker.The is an employee or past employee of the business who attacks or threatens other employee(s) or past employee(s) in the workplace. This may be targeted at a line manager, the HR professional or the C-Suite
- Personal Relationship.This is where a personal relationship of an employee is brought to the workplace. This category includes victims of domestic violence who are assaulted or threatened while at work. It can often be initiated by a relationship breakdown or court settlement. The workplace attracts the person of concern as it is the place where they know the employee will be.
Very often the Pathway to Intended or Targeted Violence is followed, and so such events are seldom sudden acts with no warning. Expertise should be sought to identify and analyse such threats and to the uninitiated, they are almost certain to be missed.
Each of these categories starts with some form of grievance and can be prevented with appropriate awareness and training.
Workplace violence is on the rise, and with regards to senior figures can they are often targeted at their home addresses. This was promoted by both al-Qaeda in Inspire Magazine and initially by the animal rights groups, now copied by other activist groups.
