Review of Physical Assaults Risk

As part of a series of reviews to evaluate Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) actions to address key risks, the OIG evaluated TVA's physical assaults risk. Physical assaults risk was identified in the 2011 Enterprise Risk Management Program. The objective of our review was to evaluate TVA employee, contractor, and visitor physical assaults risk, identifying opportunities to improve mitigation strategies and assess whether mitigation strategies were designed appropriately to address the identified risk. TVA developed a mitigation strategy to reduce risk that included (1) creating a comprehensive physical security plan, (2) expanding employee education, (3) replacing communication infrastructure and equipment, and (4) implementing a guard program.Our review found TVA has implemented or was implementing actions to reduce the risk of physical assaults on TVA employees, contractors, and visitors. The mitigations were generally designed appropriately to address the risk. However, TVA identified that workplace-violence incidents were not always reported to TVA Security and Emergency Management. This prevented TVA from recognizing emerging patterns and identifying possible training that could lower the risk of similar future incidents.We recommended a procedure be created for individuals who receive workplace-violence incident reports detailing which workplace-violence incidents should be reported to TVA Security and Emergency Management along with a uniform way of submitting that information. TVA management generally agreed with our findings and recommendations and plans to take measures to address them.