Workplace Threat Assessment Case Study

EAPs May Not Be Best Route for Angry, Threatening Employees

If co-workers fear for their safety, a workplace threat assessment is in order

By Dana Wilkie 8/28/2015

Angry, aggressive behavior like that displayed by Vester Flanagan—the ex-TV newsman who threatened co-workers and then killed two journalists during a live Aug. 26 broadcast—should ideally be addressed with a workplace threat assessment rather than by referring the worker to an employee assistance program (EAP), according to experts on workplace risk and violence.

In 2012, managers and the HR department at WDBJ7 in Roanoke, Va., told Flanagan he’d be fired if he didn’t “repair” relationships with colleagues he’d threatened and attend EAP counseling, according to personnel

The station’s attorney did not respond to a question about whether a threat assessment was conducted.

“We understand that there may be some opportunities to learn from this senseless violence but we are not in a position to promise a prompt response at this time,” wrote the attorney, Victor O. Cardwell, in an e-mail reply to a SHRM Online request to interview station HR director Monica Taylor. “Between our grief—which feels bottomless at this time—as well as the criminal investigation and all of the unexpected issues that accompany a tragedy such as this, we are all quite overwhelmed at this time.”

Flanagan shot and killed reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward during their morning broadcast, and wounded interviewee Vicki Gardner of the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce. Flanagan later shot himself and died as emergency personnel took him to the

Speer, principal of Speer Associates, a workplace law firm in San Francisco, said that while it’s important to resist the temptation to second-guess managers at WDBJ, organizations need to take threatening behavior seriously. “I routinely advise clients to engage a qualified threat assessment expert when faced with an employee who has acted out in inappropriately angry and aggressive ways, particularly when that behavior involves direct or implied threats.”

An assessment, she said, can provide “invaluable advice regarding steps the employer could take to manage the problematic employee, enhance safety and diminish the risk of violence.”

Stephen G. White, president of Work Trauma Services Inc. in San Francisco, said threat assessment is now a specialty within the mental health field.

“Few situations ultimately pose an actual risk of harm, but the stakes are high and guessing if someone poses a risk or not is ill-advised,” White said. “Best to remember, ‘When in doubt, confer.’”

Speer and West said many companies don’t hire threat assessment experts either because they don’t know such services exist, are unaware of the level of danger posed by a problematic employee or don’t consider it their role to provide that level of intervention.

The personnel documents chronicling Flanagan’s outbursts and strained relations with colleagues date back to the middle of