ABB defers to employees in shooting aftermath

By Steve Giegerich, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Four days after one of their employees opened fire on eight co-workers, killing three before turning a weapon on himself, the ABB Inc. leadership team convened to discuss the next step in the aftermath of the nation’s latest case of workplace violence.

“The decision was unanimous and immediate,” said ABB spokesman Bob Fesmire, who attended Monday’s meeting. “We will open when the funerals are over.”

Barely 24 hours later, another rampage erupted at an Atlanta truck-rental facility, resulting in two deaths. Then, on Wednesday, ABB co-workers, family and friends honored Carlton Carter at the third and final service for the company’s victims.

Today, the next phase begins for the remaining 270 employees who report each day to the St. Louis subsidiary of the international manufacturer of power and automation equipment.

Company officials say no production will occur at the St. Louis plant today.

Rather, the day will be given to large and small counseling sessions with mental health professionals and company officials.

It signals the beginning of a long process of mourning and healing at a pace guided entirely by the emotional needs of the plant employees.

In the weeks, months and years to come, the company’s post-tragedy strategy is simple and straightforward.

“It mainly amounts to a lot of listening,” said Fesmire. “We just want to be there for them and let them take the lead.”

Experts credit ABB for quickly embracing an extremely sound policy under the worst of circumstances.

“Especially right now, they certainly need to be very sensitive to their employees,” said Keith Womer, dean of the College of Business Administration at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

At the same time, Womer and others stress — and ABB understands — that the company needs to be cognizant that memories of the Jan. 7 shooting will never be erased.

“This will be a water-cooler conversation that will be taking place for a very long time,” pointed out Ross Arrowsmith, an Alberta-based corporate security adviser inspired to co-found WorkplaceViolenceNews.com by a hostage-taking incident in the Canadian province.

“Part of the healing process is allowing the employees to support themselves by talking about their versions of the event and how they reacted. (The company) needs to support that.”

Psychologist Mark Braunsdorf has presented his findings at seminars on the business impact of workplace violence.

The key, Braunsdorf said in a telephone interview from his Connecticut office, is realizing that, from a psychological standpoint, every employee will react independently to the situation.

“These events, as horrible as they are, don’t affect people in the same way,” Braunsdorf said. “People who are emotionally healthy, resilient psychologically and have good coping skills actually come through these things remarkably well without us having to do a whole lot. But employers can’t assume everyone can
handle it.”

Braunsdorf said ABB can expect some employees to seek comfort and counsel from family or clergy.

Others will take advantage of the services offered by the company. “People are like snowflakes,” Fesmire acknowledged. “They’ll all respond to things in a different way.”

The ultimate objective may be “normalizing routines and rituals,” Braunsdorf said.

But, he reiterated, the workaday world at ABB in St. Louis may never be normal again, particularly for the employees present when Timothy G. Hendron and his arsenal arrived at the plant a week ago.

As opposed to pushing it aside, Braunsdorf believes ABB needs to acknowledge what occurred and “assimilate” the trauma into whatever fundamental changes might occur in the wake of the rampage.

He cited Edgewater Technology, a Wakefield, Mass., firm that lost seven employees in a hail of gunfire nearly 10 years ago.

In that instance, Braunsdorf said, tragedy led to a reorganization of the corporate culture and management practices.

In a glimpse of the future for ABB, a representative of that Massachusetts corporation sympathetically declined to share details of the company’s recovery.

The Dec. 26, 2000, shooting that ended the lives of co-workers, she said in a voice mail message, remains too painful an event to revisit.

From a business standpoint, Arrowsmith believes smaller companies generally have a tougher time rebounding in the wake of the rampages.

“We’ve seen locations go completely out of business because they can’t recover from a situation like this,” he said.

ABB’s 115,00 employees worldwide therefore provide the Zurich-based company with the advantage of size and diversity.

Fesmire said the firm is prepared, if necessary, to shift some production and managerial duties to other ABB facilities during the recovery phase.

No matter how it unfolds over the next few years, the experts say ABB will need to find a way to maintain a delicate balance between needs of employees and its corporate mission.

Corporations, after all, exist to generate business.

“It is not a conflicted goal,” said UMSL’s Womer. “Because the right thing for company is the right thing for the employees.”

Fesmire said ABB has long embraced the same philosophy.

“These people (the employees) are the business,” he said. “The plant is just a bunch of machines.”

Arrowsmith nonetheless cautions that perception is everything.

And while ABB goes about the task of putting its employees first, the company needs to pay attention to its customers as well. ABB needs to reassure clients it can continue providing goods and services in a timely basis, Arrowsmith said.

Company employees, moreover, might want to brace themselves emotionally for insensitive remarks, inadvertent or otherwise, from outside business interests.

Arrowsmith suggests a proactive approach.

“They should take it up and address the issue directly with customers,” he said. “Tell them, ‘We’re in a rebuilding process as a result of this, and please bear with us.’”

Fesmire has been in countless meetings with local and corporate ABB officials since arriving in St. Louis from his home in North Carolina seven days ago.

The company’s short-term strategy, he emphasized, has been and remains fluid.

“We’re very much in the wait-and-see phase,” Fesmire said.

But the focus, he added, is singular.

“From the moment this happened, I haven’t heard one discussion about getting the business on track,” he said.

And that, say Braunsdorf and the other experts, is just as it should be.