Workplace violence is rising at an alarming rate. Although many leaders and staff are concerned, most don’t know how or where to begin to solve this horrific problem. The following is my interview with a renowned expert. I hope this resonates and causes you to become proactive toward solving this serious issue!
We are all too familiar with the violence in Columbine, at the Annapolis Capital Gazette, the Washington Navy Yard, the Kroger-owned supermarket in Boulder CO, massage parlors in Atlanta, Orange County, CA, and many many others. They have resulted in people killed, terrified employees, and suffering families. With workplace violence on the rise, it should be no surprise that 1 out of 7 Americans does not feel safe at work, according to the Society for Human Resource Management, (SHRM) known as – the voice of all things “work.”
If you are a business owner, CEO, manager, or human resource professional, it is highly likely that you are concerned but ill-prepared to deal with preventing workplace violence. How could you not be with so many employees voicing their fears.” This is according to Felix Nater, a nationally recognized Workplace Violence Prevention Advisor. Felix has thirty years of experience, many awards, and recognitions including, from the prestigious International Association of Professional Security Consultants, (IAPSC). I felt that Felix would be an ideal expert, for advice on this topic. Recently, he agreed to meet with me to discuss the subject for this ASK ALAN (business advice and idea) column.
Please help put workplace violence in perspective.
“The problem is much greater than you would think. Nearly half of HR professionals said their organization had at some point experienced a workplace violence incident—up from 36 percent in 2012. And of those who reported having ever experienced workplace violence, over half said their organization had experienced an incident in the last year.“
Many business owners deny that workplace violence is an important issue for their “small” businesses. Is workplace violence limited to the size of the business?
“This is a common misunderstanding, the answer is no. No business is immune. Small brick-and-mortar businesses with just a few employees are as vulnerable as hospitals, educational institutions, and large corporations.Another mistake is underestimating the multiple layers and dimensions of the issue. Most often, company management only focuses on prevention. To be truly effective, businesses must consider this issue in terms of security, prevention, training, and response.”
The negative media coverage seems to only spotlight active shooters. What harm does this limited focus present?
“The reality is that media stories about active shooters attract viewers and sell newspapers. However, workplace violence takes many shapes and forms including, bullying, harassment, disgruntled employees, intimate partner violence that has workplace spillover, and domestic violence, all in addition to active shooter violence.”
Many business owners tell me that they have trained their managers and supervisors about what to do in the event of an episode of workplace violence. What is wrong with this picture?
“Waiting for an event to happen, then acting while it is underway, is a troubling response. Workplace violence has multiple levels of complexity. There are several things that should take place before a violent situation occurs. When an event happens, determining what tactics should be employed and by whom must be planned for in advance. Additionally, every employee has a role to play if the company is to mitigate the threat and dangers of workplace violence.”
What do you tell leaders who are genuinely and sincerely interested in a safe working environment?
“I tell them that they need a trusted, objective, outside consultant, with years of experience in mitigating workplace violence. It is impossible to alleviate employee fears using internal resources alone. I also tell them, that to do this requires a process implemented through collaborative organizational engagement. The process requires management to be logical, thoughtful, and be as comprehensive as possible.”
“The process begins with a comprehensive assessment. This assessment is intended to uncover gaps in any existing violence prevention initiative that could help thwart the next homicidal threat, workplace suicide or intimate partner workplace spillover violence. Gaps may include unintentional consequences of policies, procedures, protocols, access control, visitor management, separations and discipline, and new employee screening. This assessment also includes the specific nature of the workplace, policies, plans, procedures, technology, supervision, and training.”
Once a trusted consultant/advisor is retained, what can management expect to learn, change or do differently to mitigate the risk of workplace violence?
“Management will become more sensitive and learn how to: • Recognize warning signs, risk factors, and contributing conditions • Manage situations • Be in charge of one’s behavior in managing the potentially hostile workplace • Discover what being proactive really means • Use and rely on organizational resources • Lead with purpose • Seize the moment • Assess and evaluate situations on the spot • Conduct future comprehensive worksite specific assessments • Take corrective measures with policies that are proactive rather than reactive • Report, advise, and inform all involved”
Interviewing Felix taught me a great deal about workplace violence issues that I was previously unaware of. The problems are multi-faceted and complex. They require more than a casual conversation or meetings among executives, managers, supervisors, and co-workers. To tackle the problems successfully management needs to acquire a new way of proactive leadership skill that must begin at the top. The ROI for collaborating with a qualified workplace violence specialist will be measured in the comfort level of all employees. Employees will recognize that company leaders never take the potential for workplace violence for granted.
Would you like to learn what the top performers do in the field of Customer Experience?
We wanted it as well. That is the reason why we went out there and asked nearly 500 market leaders and top performers in CX what they do regarding their CX activities, budgets, and plans for the future. What we got is a comprehensive package from practical data and a vast future outlook on where the CX market is going and how top companies are putting their customers at the heart of their strategy in the future. We are excited to share with you the key facts and insights from the Future CX Outlook Report.
Join us on April 28 to understand where the CX budgets are appointed and what the industry feels about how to quantify the ROI of Customer Experience efforts all the way to the rise of the emotional experience measurement.
To this point, we have been living in the world of simplification. And to be honest, we still do and that is a good thing. But we would need to be able to look deeper than just satisfaction, recommendations, and ease of doing business. The study of Emotional Experience shows that compared to many others, different emotions drive the highest business value.
Emotions and feelings are the biggest part of the customer experience since everything is tied to them starting from the willingness to recommend and customer satisfaction. Emotions grow or deteriorate value for a business. This also happens in a way that you don’t even notice it if you are not paying attention to it.
Emotions are the key drivers that make it or breaks it when it comes to our desire to buy or not to buy. Even more than that, if we have decided to buy, we choose which company to do business with based on the experience and what emotional drives are behind it. Today, a whopping 46% are saying that customer experience is the main driver of the purchase decision where pricing is only 20%.
According to our recent study, today the number is still low as only 6% of the professionals and managers in the industry try to measure emotions and most of them do not have a sufficient KPI for it. Mr. Colin Shaw discusses the hierarchy of emotional value in his book and study with the London School of Economics where they asked over 50,000 people from 100 industries in 40 countries to get these answers. Out of the 4.5 million survey questions answered, 1.25 million responses were about what customers want, and another 1 million answers explained what customers feel.
In other words, look beyond NPS and CES to emotions that you want to drive in your business and find a way to measure those. In Feedbackly, we’re using the Emotional Value Index (EVI®) for it (feel free to contact us to learn more about it). One way or another, the industry is moving towards measuring deeper emotions, and that is a good thing! The next big thing is to dive deeper beyond the current KPIs and use something that explains more emotions than anything else.
To understand the emotions of your customers and how the emotions impact the performance of your business, you would need to be able to measure the emotions on a large scale.
To help you do it, in cooperation with CX Forum, Carepage and Feedbackly, we’ve put together a webinar about the Emotional Experience and Emotional Value Index™. It is free of charge and you can get the recording here!
Measuring customer experience is more popular than ever and not without a reason. In the quick pace of technological development, only a very few companies are able to compete purely based on technology and ignore the customer. Customer experience is the new competitive edge that makes it or breaks it. If you’re reading this, you likely agree. You also understand that collecting CX data is key, understanding its value to your business is critical, but identifying the right actions to take is not always so clear.
With CX Forum and Feedbackly, we have developed a completely new concept of Emotional Experience measurement. This new framework takes into consideration the vast variety of human emotions and how those emotions impact your business performance. We’re excited to open up more about this big and important topic on our next webinar.
This webinar was live on March 17. Now you can enjoy the educational webinar recording to find the answers to some key questions about how human emotions impact your business performance and how you can use them for growing your business. The webinar was brought to you by Feedbackly and Carepage.
Jaakko an award-winning CX professional and one of the founders of the Emotional Experience measurement framework. Jaakko is also the founder and CEO of Feedbackly, co-founder of CX Forum and CX academy, and the author of the CX handbook The Journey. He is a researcher in the area of utilizing AI tools to build better customer experiences. Jaakko is an award-winning Customer Experience Professional who has been featured also on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list of rising CX stars.
This webinar was live on March 17th, 2021. Big thanks to all the registrants and participants. We’re thrilled that the webinar had about 500 registrants! Thank you!
Measuring customer experience is more popular than ever and, if you’re reading this, you likely agree. You understand that collecting CX data is key, understanding its value to your business is critical, but identifying the right actions to take is not always so clear. That’s why we put together this webinar in cooperation with CX Forum and Carepage. To answer some key questions around:
What are the key steps to take when collecting CX data?
What to keep in mind when analyzing the CX data?
What actions can you take after you have analyzed the data?
What are the most common pitfalls to avoid when closing the loop between gathering data and taking action?
How to calculate the ROI of your CX improvements?
Join us on February 17 for our educational webinar to find the answers to some key questions that define if and how much your CX improvements have an impact on your growth.
The webinar will be led by the Customer Success Superhero at Feedbackly, Chief Customer Officer, Kristian Stolt. We’re proud to say that Kristian and his team have helped industry-leaders around the world become CX front-runners. Kristian is also one of the head coaches in the CX Academy.
Kristian is the Chief Customer Officer of Feedbackly and one of the head coaches of the CX Academy. Kristian and his team have helped many industry leaders across the world succeed with their CX programs and become CX front-runners. Among the many, they have helped the City of Helsinki, Merck, Innovasport, the Australian Government, Banregio.
Every year hundreds CX and marketing professionals like you take the survey to help the industry to gain a better understanding of the trends of CX.
Share your insight on the future of CX and gain early access to our latest report on “Future CX Outlook in 2021” all by simply completing a short 15-minute CX Survey. This report will give you a global overview of the CX industry and where it is heading.
By completing the survey before Feb 14th, you will gain instant free access to CX Academy’s most popular course, Customer Experience 101. Once the report is published, you will gain free early access to the “Future CX Outlook in 2021” report where you’ll be able to compare your position to your industry peers.
You may participate in the survey by filling the form below, well then email you the link to the survey. This report is created in cooperation with CX Forum and CX Academy.
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