Benefits of Mock Robbery Survival Training
The takeover robbery is a dangerous occurrence. Each year, bank employees lose their life to these senseless tragedies while others are taken hostage or injured both emotionally and physically. While the overriding reason to provide robbery training is safety, we have compiled a list of several benefits associated with the training.
1) Robbers are "processed" meaning that they are more likely to be treated as a rare but anticipated serious occurrence by staff rather than a terrifying life or death experience. Bank employees who have participated in the training have reported that they weren't as terrified as they thought they would be when an actual robbery occurred at a later date and knew they simply needed to give the robbers what they wanted calmly and quickly. In one instance, a branch supervisor arose from her prone position on the floor and assisted the robber who couldn't seem to operate the front door to leave the branch after he had been given two tracking devices. This type of "robbery processing" behavior under pressure proves that Neural Learning works.
2) Branch staff who have been involved in neural learning appear mentally healthier after the robberies than those without similar training. HR professionals have commented that the staff seemed more prepared as a group having trained for the incident together and later were more resolved to heal together from the stress of the incident. One major financial institution claimed to have not had a single workman's comp claim as a result of a robbery after the training was implemented whereas they had several claims prior to the training.
3) The robbers are more likely to be provided counter measures such as dye packs and tracking devices when they are mentally prepared and can think about what they are supposed to do. In one recent robbery, as the robber went from teller window to teller window, all of the Robbery Survival trained tellers provided the tracking devices to the robber and he was caught within minutes with all of them! News reports of bank robbers who are promptly arrested deter other robbers from hitting the same bank and naturally help our employees and customers to sleep much better at night.
4) Calmer employees result in more reliable identification of the robbers during post robbery follow-up which leads to a better chance of apprehension.
5) Less money is provided to the robber if the branch staff is able to respond in a calmer fashion. In one situation the robber asked for all of the teller's 100's. She gave him exactly what he had asked for, the three she had in her drawer and the robber left the branch without incident. He was later killed in a shoot out with the California Highway Patrol during a traffic stop.
6) Branches that have experienced the Robbery Survival Workshop are back in business sooner providing less downtime for their customers. Past robberies for one client had such a debilitating effect upon the staff that they simply couldn't work leaving the branch closed for at least a day. Branch staff at a recent robbery commented "I wasn't that scared, the training robbers were scarier than that guy." The reality of course was that this branch's employees had experienced neural learning and the effects of a real robbery were minimized.
