Agenda 09-04-2025; 8-j - Approval of Revisions to the Orange County Code of Ordinances Section 28 - Personnel

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8 Reporting Procedures: 1 . Report any incident of workplace violence to your supervisor or department director. 2. The supervisor or department director is responsible for ensuring the following incidents are appropriately reported: • All incidents involving a Stage Two Response • All incidents of verbal abuse or harassment/intimidation 3. For any incident involving a non-employee as the alleged perpetrator, a Workplace Violence Reporting Form should be completed and sent to the Risk Manager in the Finance and Administrative Services Department. 4. For any incident involving an employee as the alleged perpetrator, the report should be made directly to an HR Manager or the HR Director in the Human Resources Department. If you ever have concerns about a situation that may turn violent, alert your supervisor immediately and follow the specific reporting procedures provided by your workplace. It is better to err on the side of safety than to risk having a situation escalate. The following are warning indicators of potential workplace violence: • Intimidating, harassing, bullying, belligerent, or other inappropriate and aggressive behavior • Numerous conflicts with customers, coworkers, or supervisors • Bringing a weapon to the workplace (unless necessary for the job), making inappropriate references to guns, or making idle threats about using a weapon to harm someone • Statements showing fascination with incidents of workplace violence, statements indicating approval of the use of violence to resolve a problem, or statements indicating identification with perpetrators of workplace homicides • Statements indicating desperation (over family, financial, and other personal problems) to the point of contemplating suicide • Direct or veiled threats of harm • Substance abuse • Extreme changes in normal behaviors Once you have noticed a subordinate, coworker, or customer showing any signs of the above indicators, you should take the following steps: • If you are a coworker, you should notify the employee's supervisor immediately of your observations. • If it is a customer, notify your supervisor immediately. • If it is your subordinate, then you should evaluate the situation by taking into consideration what may be causing the employee's problems. • If it is your supervisor, notify that person's manager. It is very important to respond appropriately; that is, not to overreact but also not to ignore a situation. Sometimes that may be difficult to determine. Managers should discuss the situation with expert resource staff to get help in determining how best to handle the situation.