This course is designed for staff who work in the reception or front counter of your workplace and for those who respond to calls for assistance from the reception area. It combines our basic communications techniques along with a personal safety component on what action to take during escalating risk situations. There are a number of short interactive workshops throughout and a security risk assessment of the reception area is also conducted.
The learning objectives for this program include:
- Understand why people behave the way they do when under pressure.
- Effectively manage your own emotions and responses in challenging and difficult situations.
- Identify the key elements of active listening to use in highly emotional situations.
- Recognise how to structure replies during challenging conversations.
- Identifying the early warning signs through what is said and by reading body-language.
- Respond to pinch-points – the things that people continually say and do that annoy us.
- Risk mitigation workshop – what steps to take when faced with any emergency.
- Strengthen personal resilience – how to quickly overcome difficult encounters/situations.
Topics include:
- Understanding how our brain works – Learn why people become angry and emotional.
- Rules in communication – How prejudice influences our communications, the importance of politeness, how to recognise when people are lying, generational differences in communication, and the importance of good tone, volume and rate of speech.
- Effectively communicating with the disaffected – What works for those who are extremely emotional, affected by alcohol/drugs, or may be mentally impaired.
- Workshop – putting theory into practice to cover the identified pinch points. Use the unique ‘Triple A’ method of Agree, Acknowledge, and Assure.
- Reading and using body language techniques.
- Communication strategies to engage – Active listening specifically designed for front-of-counter staff, using your voice to guide others, building a rapport with customers using empathetic questioning, examining phrases that damage rapport.
- Effortless sentences – Examples of simple sentences and techniques to deescalate the angry, to encourage the sad, and to manage the swearers.
- Workshop – Establishing a step-by-step process in managing difficult people. What to do when confronted with an angry/violent person; from initial engagement to escorting off the premises to contacting police. At the conclusion there will be a recognised step-by-step approach identified for your use.
- Managing personal stress – How to forget about work at the end of a busy day, the importance of sleep, exercise, and socialisation, and introducing positive techniques to change negative perceptions. How to stop worrying, how to identify the signs of too much pressure, and techniques to support the emotional brain.
The business outcomes for the program include:
- Reduced customer contact time – fast and effective service.
- Increased employee engagement – knowing that I have the tools to use in difficult situations.
- Increased confidence – possessing the ability to deal with challenging people and situations.
- Reduced tension in communications - supports the public and employees alike.
- A resilient workforce – able to withstand the effects of work-challenges.