Recent Tragedy Leaves Questions for HR

The latest outbreak of workplace violence offers some food for thought for HR leaders on the importance of compassion during terminations, as well as the importance of a corporate culture that embodies a zero-tolerance policy toward bias.

By Jon Campisi

To company officials at the Hartford Distributors beverage plant in Manchester, Conn., Omar Thornton seemed to be a competent, hard-working employee.

Until that is, he took out a handgun and killed eight co-workers and injured two more after he was fired for allegedly stealing beer.

Thornton, 34, then turned the gun on himself.

While co-workers say they were surprised Thornton could act in such a way, others, namely Thornton's family, say Thornton, who was black, was being harassed by workers in the predominantly white company, according to news reports.

Company representatives have denied any bias and union officials have said Thornton was simply a disgruntled employee, according to reports.

If, like his family claims, racial bias is what drove Thornton over the edge, how can incidents such as this be prevented in the future? Or, if the claims of racial harassment are baseless, how can companies better handle firings or disciplinary actions to avoid such tragedy?

"I don't know if this guy was treated in a bigoted way or not ... but the fact that he stole from the company was a legitimate reason for termination," says author Joseph Grenny, of Provo, Utah, whose book, Crucial Conversations, was a national bestseller.

The important thing for employers to keep in mind when firing an employee, Grenny says, is that, very often, it's not what you say, but how you say it. Those doing the firing must take care to ensure confrontations are kept to a minimum.

It's these "termination conversations," Grenny says, that often make all the difference in the world. Aside from minimizing potentially violent conflicts, terminating an employee with compassion and understanding can actually help the person being fired move on with his or her life.

"Termination is really an incredible opportunity to send a profound message to an employee," he says.

Of course, for an employer, keeping one's cool will also ensure a smoother termination process.

"People often don't realize how important that is," Grenny says.

As for the claims of racial discrimination, it's a slippery slope, says Philip Toomey, a partner at Carico, Johnson, Toomey, an El Segundo, Calif.-based law firm.

"The employer can find themselves in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation, always subject to second-guessing," he says.

In a litigious society, employers have to be very careful when it comes to the information that is released regarding specific employees. If an employee falsely claims racial harassment or discrimination, and those who did the alleged "bullying" are found to be innocent, employers could find themselves in some trouble concerning the accused party, Toomey says.

There's another side to the issue. If an employee claims to be the victim of discriminatory behavior, some companies might automatically look to that person as someone who could carry out workplace violence. Labeling everyone who makes a complaint as potentially dangerous is also problematic, he says.

"It's very difficult for an employer who wants to do the right thing," Toomey says.

But sometimes, the problems are real. Toomey has dealt with cases where disgruntled employees, ex-paramours of current workers and others have wreaked havoc. Some have mailed bombs, others have clogged voicemail boxes with nasty messages and still others have made death threats.

"The likelihood of something happening, most of the time, is not there. It can get easy for people to think, 'Hey, it's not that big of a deal,' " Toomey says.

But that doesn't mean every threat should be written off as improbable.

"I'm a firm believer that an employer is not given carte blanche to ignore this stuff," Toomey says. "Hindsight is not always 20/20. It can end up in a situation where it can be very complex, not necessarily easy to sort out."

Reid Bowman, general counsel for ELT, a San Francisco-based organization that specializes in ethics and compliance training for companies, says companies "looking at best practices [should have as their] step No. 1 ... a zero-tolerance policy toward violence and harassment in the workplace."

It's of the utmost importance, he says, for companies to clamp down on harassment and discriminatory behavior early on. And the best way to do that is to have policies in place that dissuade this type of behavior.

Still, most companies have policies and despite strict policies governing what is and isn't acceptable, there will always be those who either act in questionable ways or are victims of such behavior.

When this happens, it's up to the HR leader and the rest of the organization to "send a commitment from the top down," Bowman says. "Take it seriously and don't blow it off. The big part about the training we do is, things don't come to you in a big red label that says, 'This is a formal complaint.' You have to be smart enough to recognize, 'Hey, something's going on here.' "

Bowman also cautions against having supervisors address issues that are better suited to professionals. And since companies don't often employ psychologists or counselors, human resource executives are the next best thing.

"Recognize the issue and then take it to the people in the organization who are the experts," Bowman says.

Very often, companies want to avoid controversial or contentious issues, Bowman says, because it takes attention away from the company's mission.

"All of this is always a big distraction," he says. But putting things off can, and often does, make things worse.

"It's better to deal with things when it's a mole hill than when it's a mountain," Bowman says.