In years past, the greatest threat a business faced was theft. However, in today's society, many businesses also face the threat of violence and aggression from a disgruntled employee or customer. It is very important that you be able to identify and control this behavior to avoid an unfortunate scenario.
Recognizing Hostile Behavior
One of the most important things you can do to help protect your business, employees, and clients is to ensure your staff knows how to identify hostile behavior. Often, there is a misconception that hostile behavior only involves someone screaming, being physically violent, and overly upset. Yet, hostile behavior can also be subtle.
For some people, this behavior is identifiable by an increase in the persons' breathing speed, and the person may shake or even clench their fists, all while appearing to be relatively calm. The better your staff can recognize this behavior, the more rapidly they can move into action.
De-Escalation Training
Once these behaviors are recognized, it is important that your team understand how to not move the escalation further, but to instead quell the situation to maintain a safe environment. A large part of this process involves not matching the aggression of the individual.
When the person gets upset, it is important to train your employees to remain calm — do not match their anger. De-escalation training should also involve teaching the staff how to be better problem solvers. Often, the source of this behavior is a problem that the person sees as unresolved. If the team can resolve the problem, they can often deter this type of reaction.
Increased Protection
The employees that work within your business can benefit a great deal by learning more about recognizing this type of behavior and taking steps to prevent hostile situations from escalating. However, their efforts are far more effective when they are combined with the services of a security professional.
Enlisting a security professional to work on-site can help strengthen your employees' abilities in each of these areas and also provide additional measures to reduces these threats, including patrol services. With the authoritative presence of a guard and their experience, you can work to keep these dangerous behaviors away.
No business believes that they will be a victim of this type of behavior until it occurs. Make sure you diminish this risk and take measures to safeguard not only your business but most importantly, your employees and customers.
For more information, contact a security guard company.
