The winner of the title ‘Best Trainer’ at the recent Contact Centre World Awards is speaking at a one-day conference on protecting staff from verbal and other abuse.
Alexis Farndell, Soft Skills Trainer at Student Loans Company, will describe a course seeking to change the way call centre staff deal with difficult customers. Attenders of a delicate constitution are warned that the session will hear a recorded telephone call which includes swearing. By making the mental shift from ‘victim’ to ‘controller’, staff can learn to analyse a situation to draw the caller into a reasonable frame of mind, it is claimed. The results: improved morale, fewer complaints, fewer calls having to be passed to team leaders and a recognition that the organisation has the welfare of its staff embedded into its culture.
Protecting Those Who Serve; preventing violent and abusive attacks is the title of a November 3 event at the QEII Conference Centre in central London.
Speakers are Alan Davies, Community Safety Programme Manager at the Rail Safety and Standards Board, who helped bring out SWeRVe (Stop Workplace Related Violence), a DVD to help rail staff manage conflict; Sue Frith, the former police officer now deputy head of NHS Counter Fraud and Security Management Service (CFSMS); and Robert Baughan, head of health and safety at Unison, who recently updated the union’s guide on tackling violence and aggression in the workplace, titled ‘It’s Not Part of the Job’. He sits on NHS Security Management Service’s Strategic Implementation Group.
Baughan notes a perception that violence and aggression is a part of some front-line jobs. The thinking goes that we live in violent times and many workers have to deal with potentially violent people, often under the influence of alcohol and drugs and so it’s inevitable that workers serving the public, will be attacked. Baughan seeks to refute this, arguing that if we see danger as inevitable it will be seen as acceptable. He points to health and safety legislation and principles of risk assessment, whereby employers can do much to reduce the risk of attacks on staff.
Conflict management training – rolled out in the National Health Service – gives staff more confidence and can reduce personal risk. Two speakers from the CFSMS are trainer Iain Henderson; and Jayne Saunders, Training Quality Manager.
Speaking from worker protection service provider Skyguard Technologies, Kelly Chester, National Manager; and Patrick Dealtry, chairman of the British Standards Institute Committee developing lone worker standards. Low-cost mobile technology (whether ‘phones, Blackberrys and PDAs operating over any network) or devices that combine with a monitoring centre can protect staff. Speakers on technology’s role are Ben Grant, Business Relationship Management, Corporate ICT Services : Leeds City Council; Eva Court – Head of Sales and Business Development at Vodafone Specialist Communications; and Martin Worth, Director of Trackaphone. Managing return to work and counselling is the topic for Anne Payne and Dr Wolfgang Seidl , Executive Directors of helpline and staff help provider The Validium Group. Visit –
