The context
We are in a public amusement park. Reception agents have to deal with increasingly frequent incivilities: we do not respect lawns and flowered spaces, we smoke, we throw papers on the ground, we spit……
They are therefore led to act to recall the rules and take it upon themselves to remain correct, not to respond to provocations, to play down threats.
Audience reactions
Generally, the public complies; but before that, agents frequently find themselves in a situation of verbal escalation.
These repetitive difficulties lead them to think and to tell their managers that ultimately, it is the space that is badly designed and that, moreover, the management is not sufficiently interested in their problem.
As a counterpoint, they wait until the last moment to react to incivilities and/or show themselves to be unavailable.
This is when LACT is seized by management to help teams better manage these incivilities.
Our analysis of the situation
As it stands, the situation described is a conflict situation characteristic of a symmetrical escalation, each party trying to save face:
Some say “I don't respect the rules because I don't want to respect them! », the others, « I am authoritative by virtue of my status ».
The former are in an emotional register, the latter in a rational register.
Obtaining no results, the agents talk to each other and try to give another meaning to their inability to control the situation. And disillusion, doubt and then renunciation set in on a loop; they think they are doomed to endure incivility until exhaustion.
General
Audience reactions are sudden but predictable; they are therefore controllable.
Deviations from the rules can be generated by:
- a lack of understanding; in this case we will explain
- a deliberate transgression: the author of the transgression will justify himself and as soon as we justify ourselves, we feel guilty
- a lack of education: we then practice “morality” which makes people feel guilty and generates anger and violence
- the feeling of an interruption of pleasure, experienced as frustration and the inconvenience of being found wanting
Faced with a foreseeable reaction, the agents must prepare themselves and make contact with the public as quickly as possible by using the so-called bumper :
“You will be upset but I remind you that….
". The use of this verbal shock immediately lowers the intensity of the reaction.
The management must for its part not allow the complaint to become socialized because in this case it has no functional solution to provide (development of the park, for example).
Our intervention system
We first established an operational diagnosis with the agents and their managers in order to:
- clarify concerns
- to measure the degree of discomfort and demotivation
- assess psychosocial risks
This work was carried out in the form of interviews and meetings.
Restitution and targeted actions
After reporting the results, we proposed the following actions:
- census of incivilities
- training to counter them
- post-traumatic stress management for officers
Effects obtained
- officers respond more quickly to offenders
- they have adapted their communication
- they have gained in flexibility
- collectively, they share their experiences for the benefit of all teams