Awakened from a deep sleep by the midnight call, the corporate-level chief security officer of this Fortune 500 Company knew he was in for a nightmare. His director of security for the firm’s Texas manufacturing facility was on the brink of panic. “One of our employees gunned down, execution-style, a female coworker at the time-clock, fired multiple shots at other employees, and then blew his brains out in the cafeteria. The police are here. It’s bad – real bad.” The CSO knows how the rest of the story will unfold, because local management had severely underestimated future risks when the employee was involved in a serious altercation with the same coworker months earlier.
The National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security (NCS4) is proud to be holding our 3rd Annual National Sports Safety and Security Conference and Exhibition set for July 31 – August 2, at the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans. The theme for this year’s conference is “Bridging the Gap between Safety and Security.”
Healthcare institutions have managed workplace violence with measurable success, despite the challenges faced in hospitals, emergency rooms, mental health, nursing homes, long-term care and community healthcare facilities. The magnitude of the problem is astounding – its devastating impact looms mightily in the hearts and minds of boards of directors, C-suites and security directors as both a real institutional threat and a contentious business reality facing healthcare today.
True or False … in many healthcare facilities, workplace violence is exclusively a security issue? In many instances, the answer would be true. However, in order for healthcare facilities to properly address the issue of workplace violence, a collaborative team effort amongst several disciplines within the healthcare facility needs to occur.
Well-trained officers can be one of the most effective risk management tools for security firms. Proper training can prevent accidents, improve performance and minimize the number of incidents that can lead to costly lawsuits.
The U.S. government continues to face a momentous, transnational threat: Mexican drug trafficking organizations (MDTOs). Mexico’s capacity to combat MDTOs, coupled with the U.S. adeptness to assist in that vein, will have significant implications for both countries and beyond and security overall.
It is no secret that CSOs need to be business enablers to maximize success and to collaborate across disciplines as part of a broader enterprise risk strategy. In my article from the August edition of Security magazine, business acumen, strategic capabilities and entrepreneurial mindsets are underscored as the key skills corporations are demanding from security executives and are requirements for generating business value and collaboration in an enterprise risk management program.
We have all seen the increased physical presence of security and public safety professionals. And we have all been affected by airport delays, baggage regulations and new technologies to screen us.
Professional organizations provide a number of benefits to the occupational/professional groups that they serve. Associations help to pave the way for the profession to progress by offering seminars, publications, courses and industry updates. They set the standards of practice all the way from accreditation and certification to codes of ethics.
In today’s “microwave society” the need for speed often supersedes thoroughness, but in the absence of comprehensive background checks on prospective employees, haste can result in waste…and sometimes worse. Gone are the days when the hiring process was based on a good “gut” feeling and a firm handshake, yet there remain a fair number of otherwise very savvy business people who take the self-service approach to background screening. Without question, the Internet has made the screening process somewhat simple and inexpensive, but without knowing what to look for and where to find it, information can be confusing and/or misleading.
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