Dealing with Tragedy in the Workplace
May 2008
 When tragedy happens, HR professionals need to be prepared to step in quickly and appropriately to address employee needs and concerns, whether the problem is the critical illness of an employee, the death of a staff member or a tragic, violent on-site incident.
Angie Anderson, a public relations director at The Art Institute of York-Pennsylvania, York, PA, suggests these key first steps:
- Connect with the organization’s administrative and communication leadership to create a message uniformly applied from the top down.
- Give your employees the facts first.
- Don’t violate patient confidentiality.
- Send a high ranking representative to the site of the tragedy, the funeral or the hospital.
- Be prepared to offer assistance in the form of food, lodging and flexibility for those involved and their immediate loved ones.
- “Food has many healing benefits,” Anderson
notes. “If there is a funeral, consider having
the post-funeral meal catered at your organization’s
expense. This gesture will never be forgotten.”
- Offer appropriately frequent updates.
- Find a communicator-coworker for the individual involved in the tragedy, so the affected employee isn’t inundated by well-meaning coworkers. The communicator-coworker can also ask for assistance from the company in sharing appropriate updates.
Technology Can Help
Modern technology can make these actions easier and quicker than ever.
 For example, when The Art Institute of York-Pennsylvania lost two alumni in a November car accident, the Dean of Academic Affairs sent the following e-mail to students and alumni:
“It is with sadness that I inform you of the recent deaths of two of our March ‘07 graduates. [names] were killed Friday evening in an auto accident in Lancaster. I am attaching links for further information about the two young ladies.
No matter if it is a current student or graduate, we all feel a loss when our community loses a member.
Our thoughts go out to the families of these graduates."
It was an effective way to let everyone affiliated with the school know about the tragedy quickly, effectively and in a caring manner. It was a good first step in the handling of such an unfortunate occurrence.
Modern technology also offers families of victims a way to control distribution of information that they’ve never had before. Web sites, such as CarePages (www.carepages.com), or CaringBridge (www.caringbridge.org), let family members control the messages shared with those concerned. They create a virtual meeting place on the Web where news and photos can be shared and messages posted by friends and coworkers.
Violence in the workplace
When violent incidents or accidents occur on work premises, the role of the HR department becomes even more critical. When emotions are high, calm minds must prevail.
David Brimm, of BrimmComm, a PR consulting firm in Deerfield, Ill., suggests the following tips for handling these types of tragedies:
- Assign one person to talk to employees and reporters, so the news is consistent. The contact person should be the best spokesperson, not necessarily the highest in command.
- Don’t let reporters push you around. Never give out facts until your organization is ready to issue a statement and has contacted involved families. Never give out information about an accident until you know all the facts. Don’t guess, don’t venture opinions and don’t let reporters goad you into answering questions you don’t have appropriate answers for.
- Your first priority is to show compassion. Your first statement should be along the lines of, “Our hearts and prayers go out to [employee’s] family.”
- When serious crime is involved, work through local police and fire authorities. They may have guidelines on what to say and not say.
- At the end of the investigation, let employees know the results, so that people won’t conjecture.
Privacy and Communication
 Headline-making tragedies are rare. Most workplace issues involve illnesses or deaths among employees or their families. Coworkers want to know what’s happening, but you need to balance need-to-communicate with privacy.
The bottom line is that when tragedy strikes, whether it’s a shooting in the workplace or the accidental death or injury to a colleague, it’s a crucial time for HR to rise to the occasion and use every tool at its disposal to help employees overcome the associated problems.
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Résumé Lies
Article originally featured on CareerBuilder.com
By Rachel Zupek, CareerBuilder.com writer
During the past few years, the United States has seen a myriad of high-profile individuals -- namely working professionals -- committing a serious crime: résumé fraud.
OK, while it's not quite a "crime" (more like a misdemeanor), résumé lies -- and those who tell them -- don't fare well in the working world. Yet somehow, these seemingly harmless untruths are still making their way onto paper and into the hands of future employers.
Although just five percent of workers admitted to fibbing on their résumé, 57 percent of hiring managers say they have caught a lie on a candidate's application, according to a survey by CareerBuilder.com. Ninety-three percent of those who spotted the lie did not hire the candidate because of it.
Common lies
Here are the top nine ways people fib on their résumés, according to Forbes.com:
- Lying about getting a degree
- Exaggerating numbers
- Increasing previous salary
- Playing with dates
- Inflating titles
- Lying about technical abilities
- Claiming language Fluency
Archived Articles
April 2008: Overcome Workplace Language Barriers
February 2008: Watch for Resume Tricks
November 2007: Negligent Retention: Is Ongoing Background Checking Necessary?
October 2007: Develop Tactics for Surviving Failure
September 2007: A Primer for Dealing With Difficult Employees - Learn to manage "employee surprises"
August 2007: Defusing HR’s Ongoing Legal Time Bombs - Learn what to be are of to protect your company
July 2007: Powerful Presentations - Getting it right through technology, presentation skills and sales tactics
June 2007: Compensation Philosophy - Should You Offer Money or Perks?
June 2007: Phoenix Posts Lowest Jobless Rate in the U.S.
May 2007: The ‘Little Things’ That Motivate Employees
Benefits do not have to be expensive or complex to be satisfying.
April 2007: Resume Indiscretions Remain Widespread - Forbes reports on resume "padding"
April 2007: US Reaches Visa Cap, Skilled Workers Out of Luck
March/April 2007: The Touchy Question of Religion in the Workplace, Understanding Risk vs. Accommodation.
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