Workplace MVP: Oscar Villanueva, Managing Director of Security Services, R3 Continuum

Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Workplace MVP. Workplace MVP is brought to you by R3 Continuum, a global leader in workplace behavioral health and security solutions. Now here’s your host, Jamie Gassman.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:25] Hi, everyone. Your host, Jamie Gassmann, here, and welcome to this episode of Workplace MVP. On January 30th, 2006 at 7:15 p.m., Jennifer San Marco, a former U.S. Postal Service employee, returned to the Santa Barbara Distribution Center, where she once worked. Now, this return was not to reconnect with coworkers and catch up on what’s been going on in their lives because she happened to be in the neighborhood. Now, she was returning with violent intentions. And on that evening, she shot and killed her previous neighbor and six of her former coworkers at a postal facility before taking her own life.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:09] The agents who investigated this case are unsure or just unclear a little bit of what her true motives or intentions were by committing this act of violence. Was it out of revenge? Was it due to racism or related to her mental health condition that she had? There was certainly evidence of all of those reasonings in her background that led up to this event, but how could the employer have known she would come back and commit harm? And the reality is in this case, that they had no indication that it would occur. You know, in looking out over history, this is not the first time that a situation like this has happened in a work environment. And, as we can see in the daily news, it wasn’t and won’t be the last time.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:57] Unfortunately, situations like this happen way too often putting any work environment and organization at risk regardless of their size, industry, or location. So, what can an employer do to prevent or mitigate this risk? And if unfortunately they do experience an event like this, what can they do to lessen the impact it might have on their organization and its people?

Intro: [00:02:24] Well, with us today is Workplace MVP Oscar Villanueva, Managing Director of Security Services at R3 Continuum. Villanueva was an agent and executive for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the law enforcement arm of the Postal Service, where he oversaw the Los Angeles division and his agency response and investigation into the Santa Barbara Distribution Center shooting. He is with us today to share his experience managing this investigation and from the work that he has done in consulting organizations and how to help prevent and mitigate workplace violence and security risk. So, welcome to the show, Oscar.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:03:06] Thank you, Jamie. It’s a pleasure to be here today and to have this conversation with you about this important topic. I’m looking forward to it.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:13] And, I’m looking forward to hearing your great thoughts and sharing some insights with our audience. So, let’s start out getting kind of an understanding of your career journey and kind of talking a little bit about the work you’ve done in the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and where your career is at right now.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:03:31] Sure. So, I have over 30 years in federal law enforcement and corporate security consulting domestically and internationally as well. I’ve had an excellent and very enjoyable career in both. In all those years, one of my main focuses was workplace violence in my work in federal law enforcement and also for the past 10 years in corporate security. And, it has very interesting work and that along with many other areas that I have been involved with, you know, physical security investigations.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:04:08] And now, as I get more and more into corporate security consulting, I really appreciate the opportunity to help individuals and organizations navigate the difficulties of security overall and risk issues that come up and, now, especially as the topic of this podcast episode is workplace violence. It’s a very difficult topic to discuss because there are obviously some unsavory situations that happen out there almost every day. And I think anything that can come of this conversation and the work that I do and have been doing is welcome just helping people in organizations get passed through this type of very difficult situations that happens with workplace violence.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:57] Yeah. Absolutely. So, looking at the events of January 30th, 2006, I know you shared with me that you were part of that investigation. Talk me through, you know, those incidents and how it occurred and then also some of the things that you’re able to share in the aftermath.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:05:18] Well, that was a very difficult time in a number of ways. At the time, I was working in Los Angeles as the head of the Los Angeles Division of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. And, of course, we were notified that evening that there had been a shooting at the Santa Barbara Processing and Distribution Center, which is located actually in Goleta, which is a city just north of Santa Barbara, a sort of suburb of Santa Barbara, north of the Santa Barbara City.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:05:51] And what had occurred that we didn’t know at the time but once we responded found out that this woman, a former employee at this facility, had been to the facility, had gained access into the parking area, and then into the facility and had shot six employees and then committed suicide right there in the middle of the workroom floor. And before going to the postal facility, she actually went and visited a former employee, a former neighbor that appears to have had some kind of disagreement with her over the years, and shot and killed that person first. And then, she went on to the facility and committed the horrific shooting where six employees lost their lives. This was a facility that had been evaluated for security. It had good security measures. But like anything else the possibility of someone who is focused on causing harm to somebody being able to perpetrate happens and sometimes it cannot be stopped.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:07:11] It was a horrific scene the day that this happened and those affected by the tragedy were very difficult to observe because, you know, if you can imagine, you have employees – this happen at the end of a shift. It happened around 7 to 9 p.m. in the evening at night and it was the end of a shift. And as people were thinking of leaving and going home and others coming into work, that’s when this happened. And we believe that she knew the shifts at this facility and use that information to get there at the right time.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:07:51] So, it was a horrific day, a terrible day. But as anything else, you know, this too shall pass, as they say. And there was an investigation. There was a lot of support for employees and family members. And, you know, if there is anything to be learned out of it, I hope that some of that comes out today in our conversation.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:08:15] Yeah. Absolutely. And so, one of the first questions I have for you is, you know, as a leader, leading that investigation, what was the first thing that went through your mind when you heard the news and then obviously had to respond. What was the first thing that went through your mind?

Oscar Villanueva: [00:08:37] Well, I think the first thing that went through my mind is how are we going to respond to this and mitigate it. These are very large events. They usually require the support of multiple law enforcement agencies. In this case, the first ones to get there was the Santa Barbara County Sheriffs, who did a tremendous job, and they were excellent at doing their work. We also had the California Highway Patrol come out because when you have fatalities, there’s specific expertise that you need to process a crime scene. And of course, we were there. The Postal Inspection Service was there in significant numbers as well to help with the investigation.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:09:21] So, just the victims of the families – the victims and their families actually were my first concern, aside from how to respond and how to do an excellent job on this, which is not easy, always easy. When you have family members who went to work at the regular time and they don’t make it back home, that’s a really, really difficult situation. So, you know, as you can imagine after this, individuals that were the victims did not show up, did not get home. Their family members started coming to the facility to find out what happened. So, seeing that anxiety and that, you know, desire to figure out what happened to their family members, whether they – maybe they had gone somewhere else and didn’t make it home or maybe they were victims of the shooting, was difficult to see.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:10:14] And so, my concern was really for the victims and their families and my desire to really support them and others affected by the tragic tragedy. There were maybe a thousand employees working at that time. And all of those individuals were affected by this as well. And again, they just came to work that day not knowing that something tragic was going to happen later. And seeing the devastation is really heartbreaking. And it really has been a catalyst for me to work on preventing and mitigating this type of incidents from occurring in the future.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:10:48] So I know that, you know, when I work with clients that are having difficulties with workplace violence or conducting a threat assessment, there’s something inside of me that wishes I can really prevent anything from happening because I know what it looks like when something terrible does occur. And I hope that in any way, if in any way, it can be prevented that it can be done so that they don’t have to go through this situation.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:11:14] Yeah. Because there’s definitely this ripple effect, right, when that incident happens. It’s not just those that are on that facility, it’s the family, it’s the community, it’s others in the organization that are, you know, maybe not at that particular location, but worked with somebody that was. So, there’s definitely this kind of spread kind of effect that occurs.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:11:34] So, in looking at, like, the aftermath of that situation, I know the family was probably one of the hardest things to navigate with that. But what are some of the other things that are particularly hard to navigate when a situation like that occurs?

Oscar Villanueva: [00:11:50] Well, as you mentioned, I think the victims’ families were the toughest, absolute toughest situation to handle, again, because they’re asking questions that you don’t have an answer for at the moment and they show up in great numbers. And, I think this is something that’s very interesting about this incident. There are so many factors that are going to play in responding to one of these things, and most companies and most organizations really have not thought of. For example, the families showing up, how do you handle them? In this particular case, the way it was done is a church two or three blocks away was asked if we could use their church. And so, whenever family members showed up at the site, they were routed to the church where they could wait until we were able to come over and give them an update.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:12:41] The other part that was really difficult to handle, and again this is something that a lot of organizations and individuals haven’t thought about, a lot of leaders haven’t thought about it, is the media. There were at least 25 media outlets that showed up. And they were all kinds from national networks to local TV stations, newspaper, radio. They were all there. And just managing that was difficult. How do you keep them away from the crime scene? How do you give them enough information for them to be satisfied? Because you know what happens with the media sometimes. If you don’t give them information, they’re going to go look for it somewhere else. And oftentimes that information is not going to be accurate. So, managing through the media part of this was also somewhat difficult.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:13:36] I would say that working with other law enforcement agencies was relatively straightforward in that this, unfortunately, you know, acts of criminal activity happen frequently and there’s always agencies working with each other so that worked okay. But I would say the victim families, dealing with the victims, not only the ones that were deceased but other employees at the site with postal management and also with the media, those three were probably the hardest areas to navigate right after this.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:14:08] Yeah. I guess, you know, controlling the scene but controlling the messaging too, the communications going out, it’s going to be very challenging. In looking at your staff and the work environments, because obviously if I’m understanding kind of the investigation role, you weren’t working inside this facility. You were in a different office somewhere else nearby. Correct? When that incident occurred?

Oscar Villanueva: [00:14:36] Well, the Los Angeles Division of the Postal Inspection Service has multiple offices all throughout L.A. County, down in Orange County, all the way down to San Diego. And so, if you can imagine when the call went out that this had occurred, inspectors, that’s what the agents are calling the inspection service, inspectors responded from all these different locations, and they all converged at the Goleta Processing and Distribution Center. And so, you know, everybody’s there. Everybody wants to help. Sometimes there is something to do. Sometimes there is not much to do until later. So, navigating through that was not easy. And the fact that it happened at 9 o’clock at night, around 9 o’clock at night, and most of us arrived an hour or two later because we were large distances away from there. Again, the Santa Barbara County Sheriffs are the ones that responded first, and they were the ones, they had the SWAT team inside looking for the shooter because at that time they didn’t know that the person had committed suicide. The shooter had committed suicide.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:15:45] So, I think the impact on my staff was psychological, for sure. You know, all of us as postal inspectors were federal law enforcement agents but we’re also postal employees, and many of us started in the Postal Service either working at a processing plant like this one or working in another area of the Postal Service. Sometimes you come into the Postal Inspection Service directly from another law enforcement agency, but many of these individuals that were responding were former operations workers at the Postal Service and now there were agents. And so, you can easily place yourself in the situation that these other employees were in at the plant.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:16:32] And then on top of that, of course, they have families that are wondering what’s happening because this is all over the news, and you have your coworkers. You know, we all know people in the Postal Service that work in other capacities, you know, executives, employees, carriers, clerks. And so, you start thinking about all these different people. So, it really – you know, even though it happened in one location, it really affects a broad range of employees and facilities within the Postal Service because, you know, it’s like one big family. And if it happened there, it could happen anywhere.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:17:05] So, I would say the impact on the employees that they were working with me was largely psychological. And I think it was just a difficult day. And the week after that was also hard because now you’re trying to figure out what happened here. And so, you have to really dig deep into the cause and why did this happen to begin with, which was not easy to determine in this case.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:17:34] Yeah. Absolutely. And, I mean, in your opinion looking at, because we talk a lot about, you know, you’re looking at workplace violence, there’s that prevention side of it and trying to prevent it from happening in that work environment. But in the event that it does, how do you mitigate that impact afterwards? And there’s so many different things that are impacted, you know, the family members, the other employees there, the culture within the work environment itself, you know. And so, it’s like how do you mitigate all of that?

Jamie Gassmann: [00:18:04] From your kind of experience and working in this field and maybe from this particular situation itself, what do you typically see in your opinion for how long it takes for an organization to recover and return to kind of a new normal? Because obviously there’s not going to be like what it was before the incident, but what typically is that time frame? I’m sure it varies. But what do you typically see for that kind of turnaround in terms of recovery?

Oscar Villanueva: [00:18:35] Well, I think that – I don’t think you ever fully recover from this, to be honest with you, because you’re seeing in the case of the postal facility, you’re seeing your coworkers shot dead, which is not a pleasant thing to see, and it’s difficult to recover from that. The Postal Service, I think, did an excellent job at dealing with the aftermath. There were EAP resources on site. There were a lot of mental health resources and other resources that were provided to all employees, and they were there for a long time, just allowing people to heal and to figure things out on their own and just being available whenever they were ready to talk about it.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:19:25] And it took a while. I can tell you that at the one-year mark after this occurred, there was a dedication on site that I was able to attend where they planted some trees in the memory of those that lost their lives. And so, I think they did an excellent job at sort of keeping it real, as they say these days, you know, making sure that people understood that they were valued and that there was care that they can seek and assistance they can get. On the side of our response team, when I think about the employees that I work with responding to this, all the agents and people that were involved in that, is the same. I don’t think it ever really goes away. There’s always something a little memory that’s in there that gets triggered whenever you see another shooting occur. And unfortunately, here in the U.S., we seem to have quite a few of those happening.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:20:27] And so, how long does it think is hard to tell. I think it really depends on the work that the leaders at the organization do to make people feel valued and supported because it takes time and it is very traumatic. So, I think the more work you do immediately right after the event, the better the outcome is in the long run. And, I think mental health is really the key to getting back to work and getting back to normal, which is really what everybody is looking for. You know, they don’t want to keep reliving this over and over again. They want to get past it. And that’s what I saw in this situation.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:21:07] Yeah. And we’re going to, later in the show, we’re going to talk a little bit about what leaders can do from a preventative and a recovery standpoint. But just a quick question in terms of the work you’ve done. Obviously, I know there was probably a lot of learning that you acquired from that day. But in kind of your career and just looking out over the work that you’ve done, what are some of the key learnings that you yourself have had that have helped you to be able to give sound advice to other workplaces?

Oscar Villanueva: [00:21:38] Well, I think at the end of the day, when you have a – as a leader, when you have a situation like this or anything else that’s traumatic for a team or a workplace, you really need to take care of your team, especially their mental health. And it’s really important that you take care of your own mental health. Because as a leader, if you – you know, that you’re only as good as the team around you and the team around need somebody to point them in the right direction so they can go and do what they do best. And, I think the ability to remain in the moment, to understand what your role is, to be able to work through difficulty is really important.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:22:30] So, mental health support for your team, for yourself, especially after something like this has occurred, really goes a long way, understanding your feelings, understanding what sort of responses you’re going to experience, and just, you know, making sure that people understand that you appreciate their support, you appreciate their work, and keeping that team mentality, the team atmosphere is really, really important in order for you to be able to perform and do well in the future.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:23:02] But, you know, this is – there are many types of activities that teams engage in. This happens to be one that can be difficult from a psychological perspective because you’re seeing people harmed, you’re seeing lives destroyed, you’re seeing a lot of different things that the average individual doesn’t have to deal with. I mean, you see it in the news, but you’re not directly involved in it. So, I would say mental health, the availability of mental health support before and after and just ongoing is really, really important.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:23:37] Yeah. Great. So, we’re going to talk a little bit more about some of the ways that leaders can protect their work environments and help their teams. We’re going to take a moment and hear from our sponsor. Workplace MVP is sponsored by R3 Continuum. R3 Continuum is a global leader in providing expert, reliable, responsive, and tailored behavioral health disruption and violence solutions to promote workplace well-being and performance in the face of an ever-changing and often unpredictable world. Learn more about how R3 Continuum can tailor a solution for your organization’s unique challenges by visiting r3c.com today.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:24:21] So, continuing to move into this, so we shared, you know, this particular active shooter situation and the events, how they unfolded, and the investigation. But that’s not the only type of workplace violence or criminal attack or risk that organizations face. Can you talk to me a little bit about what are some of the other types of security and risk issues that are common in work environments that sometimes employers aren’t really aware of? And, you know, because I know I’ve talked to a number of workplaces myself, and a lot of times they go to the active shooter scenario. But there are so many more ways that employers can be impacted. Can you talk through those for us?

Oscar Villanueva: [00:25:09] Yes. So, you know, active shooter situation and workplace violence is one that most companies face at one time or another. I have heard from a colleague one day that there’s only two kinds of companies, one that has had a workplace violence issue and one that will have a workplace violence issue. So, that’s kind of a given that at some point there will be some problem. And, most workplace violence is not an active shooter situation. Sometimes it’s a threat. Sometimes it’s a fight on the working floor. Sometimes it’s bullying. Sometimes it’s sexual harassment. So, it takes a lot of different – it manifests itself in a lot of different ways.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:25:49] And other types of threats or concerns that organizations and companies face and risk is to their physical security. For example, theft of property, theft of intellectual property rights. Sometimes you have issues with insider threats. For example, an employee that’s stealing or employee misconduct. You may also have issues with emergency preparedness situations where you have a natural disaster or a manmade disaster that you need to deal with and recover from. And then, the business continuity of the company or the facility or the organization after that. So, there is a number of different areas that can be a problem from a security and risk perspective for a company.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:26:47] And I think this is a good spot to mention that, you know, the average company is not in the business of security or risk mitigation. You know, the average company is either manufacturing something or selling a service or providing support or doing something, along those lines. And their main line of business is not security or risk mitigation, and sometimes companies tend to forget that, you know, your business is only going to operate properly if places are secure and you have a plan in place to deal with security and risk issues.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:27:25] And that’s what I do a lot of my work in, you know, just providing that advice and that consulting consultancy to help organizations get to that point. But there’s a variety of types and kinds of risks and potential security attacks that occur. And sometimes because they don’t happen often, companies and organizations tend to be complacent about it and don’t really put a lot of attention into it. But there’s a number of things to be concerned about and be prepared for.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:27:58] Yeah. I mean, looking at employers, you know, I think you and I have had a conversation before in the past where, you know, we discussed that how having, just even the – having a workplace violence plan in place and a program that you’re following and then being proactive and communicating that at the onboarding of employees can in and of itself be a preventative measure because the employees know what’s being tolerated or not tolerated. So, you know, with that example in mind that, you know, you and I have kind of talked about whatever, how can an employer, what can they do to help lessen the chances that there’s going to be a violent incident in their work environment?

Oscar Villanueva: [00:28:43] Well, I think, you know, if you think about overall risk and overall security concerns and threats, I think there are a few things that every company and facility should consider having, every company and organization. And these are very straightforward. They can be put together relatively quickly, and they often take into account the companies or the organization’s culture, which is really important when you put some of these things together that I’m going to talk about.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:29:11] But I would suggest that every facility should have a facility security plan. And by that, I mean some kind of document. You can have it online. You can have it written as a paper document. But something that says, if this happens this is what you do and this is your contact and here’s where the nearest hospital is and here’s a police department contact that you should get a hold of. And if anything happens in this facility, these are the leaders in the organization that you need to contact and notify. A facility security plan is important for every facility and is relatively straightforward to put together.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:29:51] The other thing that employers can do to sort of mitigate risk and security issues is to create a workplace violence program that deals with how the company is going to handle reports of workplace violence. And again, they fall in all kinds of different categories from threats, assaults, sexual harassment, all the way down to an active shooter situation. But putting together a workplace violence program is important, and in this program what you want to include is who has a responsibility for what. How is management going to handle reports of workplace violence? How will it work to mitigate bullying and other behavior, harassment, and sexual harassment that occurs in the workplace? And we know that it does occur almost everywhere. Just put together a program along with a plan and a policy that says this is how this company will handle workplace violence situations and here’s our policy where we don’t tolerate it, and this is what will happen if we find it at work. So that would be the second recommendation that I would have.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:31:03] The third recommendation is to put together and to have in place an executive emergency preparedness and business continuity plan. So if you happen to have a tornado happen someplace or a hurricane come or if you have an earthquake or if you have a fire or any kind of natural or manmade disaster that comes your way, how are you going to deal with that and how are you going to ensure that your organization and your company is going to get back to work as soon as possible in order to continue your business? And that can be accomplished ahead of time if you put together an emergency preparedness plan and a business continuity plan. Again, this can be done. It’s not – many companies have this, but many others don’t. And it can really help mitigate and prepare for the situation where you have an emergency preparedness or an emergency situation, a crisis situation that occurs.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:32:03] Then, I would suggest that along with these documents, the fourth recommendation would be to have an overall security plan which basically talks about the organization as a whole, not just the facility but the entire organization, and it would include policies, procedures, internal resources, external resources, who do contact, how to handle security issues when they do show up.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:32:30] And then, the final point that I want to share here, and this is just as important as all the others, is training, training and security awareness and training and situational awareness by socializing employees to the possibility that you may have a criminal attack or a workplace violence issue. You’re already halfway there when it comes to preventing and mitigating issues from occurring and being able to handle them when they do happen.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:33:03] And, situational awareness specifically is really important because it helps you be aware of your surroundings and is helpful in your work environment as well as in your personal life. You know, taking your kids to the movies or going shopping, you know something can happen there. You know, usually things are safe and nothing occurs. But if something was to happen, thinking ahead and being aware of what’s going on around you and how you will respond to that is really, really important. So, those would be my recommendations of what employers can do.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:33:35] Yeah. Those are some great recommendations and they sound pretty straightforward in terms of like kind of this checklist of things to do and knowing that, you know, violence can happen anywhere and it can happen to any size organization. From what you’ve seen, why do some organizational leaders not make this a top priority in securing their workplaces?

Oscar Villanueva: [00:34:00] Well, I think there’s a couple of reasons. One is that most organizations are not, again, they’re not in the security and risk management business. They’re into tech or manufacturing or whatever other business they’re in. And so, this becomes – this is almost like an afterthought. It’s not something that’s top of mind. And, I think it’s important. So, that’s one of the reasons.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:34:26] The other reason is that it does cost some money to put these plans together and to prepare. And oftentimes organizations don’t see it as an expense that needs to happen at that moment in time. But there are many organizations that have this reasoning, and what ends up happening is they’re penny-wise and pound-foolish or dollar-foolish in that, you know, when they have the opportunity to do these prevention efforts at a certain cost, they don’t do it. But when they do have an incident, there’s no limit as to how much money they will spend on attorneys and consultants and advisers and the rest. So, I would argue that if you don’t have these things in place, these prevention methods in place, you will end up paying a lot more in the future because of that lack of preparedness.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:35:22] Yeah. I can’t recall the dollar amount, but I think I read somewhere that it’s like a hundred times more after the fact than what you would have paid if you had just done that, you know, a plan upfront. It’s going to save you a lot in the long run because, especially in a litigation situation, you can show you had, you know, due diligence in protecting that work environment. And I’ve seen in some cases where the judges, you know, identify that the employer had done everything they could to prevent that it was completely out of their control is that something that you’ve also seen in the aftermath of some of these incidents.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:36:01] Yes. I think there is significant liability when it comes to some of these issues. Because there is the OSHA Act, I think it was of 1970, dictates that every workplace, every organization, every facility has the responsibility of maintaining a workplace free of hazards. That’s the language that OSHA uses in their language. And what that basically means is that you have the responsibility as an employer to keep a place that is safe for a work environment. If you have a workplace violence issue that you’re not addressing, if you have a bullying situation that you’re not addressing, if you don’t have proper physical security measures to keep intruders from coming in, all of those are instances that someone can gravitate towards and file a lawsuit because you did not do your duty as an employer to keep the place safe and secure. So, I would argue that one of the great motivators, if employers start thinking about this, is the fact that there is liability involved in a lot of these situations and that can be mitigated by putting in place programs and policies and practices that address these concerns. Again, it’s cheaper in the long run to do that than to wait for something to happen and then face liability lawsuits and loss of life, God forbid.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:37:37] Absolutely. So, looking out over the last two years, there’s been a great number of employees that have moved to a remote work environment where they were originally inside an office setting. You also have some employees who have been in roles where they work with the public, so they haven’t been able to have that ability from a remote environment but they’re dealing with more increased frustration and stress from general public. And you have employees now, employers, that I’ve started to see that are starting to, you know, where they were allowing this remote work or hybrid setting are now looking at it and going, “No. We really need you back in the office.”

Jamie Gassmann: [00:38:18] So, all of these shifts and changes and challenges that we’ve been experiencing, you know, navigating the pandemic has created a lot of, like, kind of I mentioned that frustration and stress, and you’re seeing more situations occurring on, like, planes. I know there’s a lot of plane stories with the mask mandates and you’ve seen a lot of, you know, incidents occurring in stores and restaurants. You know, so it feels like violence is more on the rise than what it maybe was prior to the pandemic. And so, I’d like to get your thoughts on that but then also from an employer’s perspective because I imagine that a lot of them have not been thinking about this over the last year that that protecting their people in their organization, particularly with this return to the office, I think a lot of it’s going to be focused around like that health aspect, you know, and how do I keep them safe from catching the pandemic or the COVID. What is some of your perspective on what employers should be thinking about if they are looking at bringing their employees back into the office or if they are still working in a frontline kind of role, what are some of the things that you would be recommending that these employers start thinking about if they haven’t already?

Oscar Villanueva: [00:39:35] Well, I think that there’s a couple of factors that come into play here. One is the people who have been working remotely seem to like it. And so, there is likely to be a backlash when somebody is told you’ve got to come back to the office and you have to get back on your car and you have to commute again and you have to pay for lunch and you’ve got to do all these things that we all have done working in an office someplace. So, there could be some resentment there once they’ve tasted working from home. And I would argue that productivity has not really suffered from what I can tell, at least from my experience, from working from home as opposed to working from a facility. I would expect that there would be some resentment from having to come back to work.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:40:26] The other area that appears to be a concern, and I would expect this to continue to be a concern, is the polarization of our beliefs when it comes to vaccine, no vaccine; mask, no mask; all of these really divided thoughts that we have when it comes to a lot of these different things. So, I would say that the main concern I would have, aside from the health issues and making sure that everyone is safe from that perspective, is the potential for workplace violence because you will see friction occur when people come back to work. You see it on planes, you know. You see people flying on planes that don’t want to wear a mask and they’re willing to foolishly put themselves in jail just to prove a point that they don’t want to wear a mask, something that’s so very simple. Even if you don’t 100 % agree with it is a requirement.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:41:29] So, I would expect that when people come back to work, they’re going to experience friction. There’s going to be anxiety and there’s likely to be resentment from having to come back to commuting and to working in a place when they were doing well working from home. Those are for the ones that are working at home. And of course, you know, when you have frustration and you’re coming back to work, that frustration is going to manifest itself in different ways. If you go to a restaurant and you’re not treated exactly the way you want to be treated but you’re already in a bad mood, so that may cause you to lash out at somebody.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:42:05] So, I would say my advice would be to employers to pay attention to that friction that’s likely to occur to consider the possibility that these people are not going to be 100% happy about having to come back to work, that there’s going to be some friction and to consider putting together or at least thinking about a workplace violence prevention program in order to mitigate the possibility of that occurring.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:42:36] Yeah. Great. And looking out over just in general this topic and what employers maybe some that have been kind of on the fence of adding a workplace violence program or, you know, maybe just haven’t thought about it, you know, what would be something that you would want to leave with them as kind of a takeaway or an action item that they need to do at least a minimum, where they can start kind of mitigating that workplace violence or workplace violence situation in their office?

Oscar Villanueva: [00:43:12] Yeah. So, it’s pretty straightforward, you know. There should be – to put together a workplace violence program I would recommend would be the top thing that employers should do in this situation. And, it is fairly straightforward. It takes a little bit of research within the company, the culture, the type of issues that they’ve encountered in the past, the potential problems that they will encounter going forward.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:43:36] And so, I would suggest, you know, this potentially could be done internally if you have the expertise. But I would say that more than anything, it’s important to bring somebody in that has that type of experience and expertise to help put something together. But I would say workplace violence again remains an important part of what the employers should be thinking about doing as people come back to work and just overall in this current situation that we have with the pandemic.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:44:07] Yeah. Are there any solutions that you would recommend for where they might be able to seek out expert support for that if they don’t have that expertise in-house? Are there places that they could go to get that expertise?

Oscar Villanueva: [00:44:23] Well, I think that there’s a number of professionals that do this kind of work, me being one of them through R3 Continuum. But, you know, it’s really important to find somebody. I think it’s important to make sure that they have the past experience in doing this type of work and they have a track record of success. I also believe that when it comes to workplace violence, for example, it’s important to combine security and behavioral health because that’s what’s going to give you the best result. There’s always a little bit of both components or a lot of both components in every single situation that I’ve ever encountered. But I think it’s important to find a professional that has done this before, knows what they’re talking about, and can really help to put something together that’s going to be meaningful and helpful.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:45:16] Great. It’s been really a great conversation and very insightful in hearing from you, from your experience. So, if our listeners wanted to get a hold of you and ask more questions or find out how they could vet a vendor, how can they get a hold of you to do that?

Oscar Villanueva: [00:45:33] Well, I would say the best way to get a hold of me is to contact me at oscar, O-S-C-A-R, .villanueva, V-I, V as in victory, I-L-L-A-N-U-E-V-A, @r3continuum or r3c.com. Let me do that again, oscar, O-S-C-A-R, .villanueva, V-I-L-L-A-N-U-A, @r3c.com. That would be the simplest. It’s just a quick email, and I’m happy to talk to anybody who’s interested in discussing this a little bit more.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:46:09] Wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Oscar, for being on our show and letting us celebrate you and the great work that you’ve done in your career. It was very insightful and I really appreciate you sharing. I’m sure that was a very difficult story to walk us through, but really appreciate you sharing your experiences with us and our listeners, and we really, truly appreciate you as a guest.

Oscar Villanueva: [00:46:30] Thank you, Jamie. It’s been a pleasure talking with you and I hope we can do this again sometime.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:46:34] Absolutely. We also want to thank our show sponsor, R3 Continuum, for supporting the Workplace MVP podcast, and to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. If you’ve not already done so, make sure to subscribe so you get our most recent episodes and other resources. You can also follow our show on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, @WorkplaceMVP. If you are a workplace MVP or know someone who is, we want to hear from you. Email us at info@workplace-mvp.com. Thank you all for joining us and have a great rest of your day.