By J. N. HALM
A colleague loses a child and the call comes in during working hours. A co-worker is assaulted on her way from work. An associate commits suicide during the holidays. A fellow worker is involved in a serious accident on her way to work.
These are incidents that can have a devastating effect on anyone. Incidents of this nature pose challenges that can throw anybody off their game. But these are also incidents that are very much a part and parcel of life.
The unpredictable nature of life and certain professions means that workers can encounter such situations that test not just their professional capabilities but also their emotional resilience.
These situations, rightly referred to as Critical Incidents (CIs), are those events that are disturbing enough to challenge workers’ coping mechanisms. While much has been written about the psychological impact of such incidents on workers, it is interesting to note that there is more to the story than meets the eye.
A groundbreaking study published in the April 2020 edition of Manufacturing & Service Operations Management journal has shed new light on how Critical Incidents affect the operational performance of workers.
The study, titled “Recovering from Critical Incidents: Evidence from Paramedic Performance”, took an in-depth look at how paramedics performed after encountering Critical Incidents during their shifts.
The importance of this study cannot be overemphasised. In an era where service consistency has become a major competitive advantage, anything that affects the performance of service providers must be given the attention it deserves.
The findings from this study are particularly important because they have implications that go far beyond the emergency medical services sector.
Using data from the London Ambulance Service (LAS), the researchers analyzed over 900,000 ambulance activations. For their study, they defined Critical Incidents as those incidents where patients had a high probability of dying at the scene.
What made this study particularly interesting was that the researchers went beyond just looking at overall performance. They broke down the ambulance activation process into five distinct sub-processes and analysed how each was affected after crews encountered Critical Incidents.
The findings from the study were quite revealing. It was found that after encountering just one Critical Incident, crews took an average of 2.6% more time to complete subsequent ambulance activations during that particular shift.
However, what was even more intriguing was what happened when crews encountered a second Critical Incident during the same shift—the time taken to complete subsequent activations shot up by 7.5%.
One might argue that a 2.6% increase in completion time does not sound like much. However, when dealing with emergencies where every second counts, such increases in completion times can mean the difference between life and death. Additionally, the fact that encountering a second Critical Incident led to an almost threefold increase in completion times is something that cannot be ignored.
It is important to note that the impact of Critical Incidents on performance was not uniform across all sub-processes. The researchers found that the effect was most pronounced in those aspects of the job that were least standardized—those situations where paramedics could not fall back on standard operating procedures. This finding has far-reaching implications for service operations in general.
The study also unveiled some very interesting findings regarding the role of age and experience in dealing with Critical Incidents. Teams made up of older paramedics showed larger duration effects after encountering Critical Incidents.
However, it was also found that experience helped to mitigate these effects. In other words, although age seemed to work against the crews, having more experience under their belts helped them cope better with Critical Incidents.
Another key finding from the study was that the impact of Critical Incidents was strongest for the jobs that immediately followed the incident. However, what made this finding particularly noteworthy was that the effect persisted throughout the remainder of the shift. This suggests that encountering a Critical Incident has both immediate and lasting effects on performance.
The findings from this study have implications that go far beyond the emergency medical services sector. Any service setting where workers might encounter emotionally challenging situations must take note.
For instance, customer service professionals who deal with particularly aggressive or abusive customers might need time to recover before handling the next customer. The same could be said for social workers who encounter particularly disturbing cases or even teachers who have to deal with extremely challenging situations in the classroom.
One of the lessons that can be gleaned from this study is the importance of having standard operating procedures. As mentioned earlier, the impact of Critical Incidents was found to be less pronounced in situations where paramedics could rely on standard operating procedures. This suggests that having well-documented procedures might help workers maintain their performance levels even after encountering emotionally challenging situations.
The study also brings to light the importance of experience in helping workers deal with Critical Incidents. Although older workers seemed to be more affected by Critical Incidents, having more experience helped to reduce these effects.
This finding has implications for how organisations staff their operations. It suggests that pairing more experienced workers with less experienced ones might help in situations where Critical Incidents are likely to occur.
For operations managers, the implications of this study are quite clear. In settings where performance consistency is key, it would be prudent not to assign new jobs to teams that have recently encountered Critical Incidents. However, this raises an interesting challenge—how to balance the need for operational efficiency with the need to give workers time to recover from Critical Incidents.
By and large, this study brings to light an often-overlooked aspect of service operations—the impact of emotionally challenging situations on operational performance. As competition increases and customers become more demanding, maintaining consistent service quality becomes even more important. Understanding how Critical Incidents affect worker performance is therefore crucial for any organisation that wants to maintain high service standards.
The issue of Critical Incidents is a critical one—so critical that it cannot be ignored. For as long as the front lines of businesses continue to be manned by human beings, the emotional state of these customer-facing employees will be of importance. It is a fact that people are largely emotional and therefore whatever affects those emotions will affect the individual.
A cashier who has lost a child will not be normal for some time. An accountant who has had a traumatic event will not be in the right frame of mind. These individuals, professionals in their own right, will need all the help to survive, not just during the period of the CI, but even after the incident.
On far too many occasions, businesses behave as if all is well with an employee who has dealt with a Critical Incident. An empathetic manager or supervisor might give the employee in question a week or two to recover. Thereafter, the one is thrown back into the fray, as if nothing untoward had ever happened.
Continuous counselling is not offered to the one. Further emotional support is not provided. Even if the one complains about the effects of the Critical Incident, the one is likely to be accused of being lazy and looking for excuses. The one might even be teased for being soft, especially if the one is a male.
The ongoing discussion should make every business manager, owner, supervisor and leader realise the importance of emotions in the performance of employees. Whatever affects the employee’s emotions does not just disappear after a brief period. The emotional baggage gets dragged into the office every morning.
If not handled well, the customer becomes the ultimate recipient of that baggage. In other words, to ensure that the front-line employee performs optimally, the business must ensure that the one is constantly monitored and managed. It is by so doing that the business would be able to help these important employees deal with serious issues such as Critical Incidents.
