Hiring, Training, Creating Processes For Empathy

first posted date - 17 Jan 2017; changes made - 

original word count - 1352; word count today - 

(linkedin does not tell you how long the article is and sometimes I find that irritating. So I am adding the length here. It will take you 7 mins approx to read and take in the other media mentioned here. p.s. you will appreciate this more by the end of the article)

Lets get the plug out of the way first - We consult for organisations that want to create superlative customer experiences. We focus on creating authentic human interactions, that we like to call MOOs - Moments where you go Ooooo.

Now that that is out of the way, lets talk about Empathy. But before that, some context.

We are currently assisting a very novel medical device company with their entire customer facing processes. The company started with a focus on stroke patients but as applications of the product/service grow it seems to be able to assist almost anyone.

One of the things that we wanted to focus on was Empathy.

It was critical for the staff / team that engages with the customers to understand, deeply, what it is that they go through. of course short of having a stroke yourself, it would be hard to imagine let alone feel the pain, but we found there were some interesting things we could do.

Indulge me, a little. See the video below, before you proceed to read the article. Please.

I keep telling my students in my story telling workshops - don't tell them, show them. Nothing shows empathy better than that video!

The Cleveland Clinic has addressed empathy as an important element of its institutional mission. Consider the following initiatives and interventions: 

? The health system’s CEO publicly prioritizes empathy as a path to better patient experience and caregiver well-being

? There is a chief experience officer position.

? All employees receive specialized H.E.A.R.T. (Hear, Empathize, Apologize, Respond, Thank) training; embedded approaches and practices support ongoing prioritization of empathy.

? All employees are trained to see themselves as caregivers.

? Physicians and trainees receive training in communication with patients.

? The health system holds an annual national summit on empathy and patient experience.

source - https://my.clevelandclinic.org/

Hiring

One of the first things we decided was that we wanted to hire people with empathy and help them improve the ability rather than try and evoke it in one and all, but considering the scale of hiring - pan India; multiple centres, we still had to think about and plan for people who may be low on the empathy scale.

So, the starting point had to be, how to measure empathy.

We found the following tool to be most effective in our work

Five Facet Mindfulness. It includes five component skills: 

1. observing, 
2. describing, 
3. acting with awareness, 
4. nonjudging of inner experience, and 
5. nonreactivity to inner experience. 

These elements of mindfulness can be measured with the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ). 

link - https://goamra.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/FFMQ_full.pdf

We did two additional things

1. Interviews 

some sample questions we asked

- Are you helpful by nature? Give us examples.

- Have you contributed to society / community ? What did you do, when and how. What do you think you were able to contribute and create? How did you feel?

- Have you been disappointed in life? Tell us what happened and how you overcame it.

- How do you react when people make you angry? Share with us an incident that happened recently.

- Do you have anyone in your family with special needs? Would you mind sharing your experience with us?

- Have you ever wanted to start your own business ? If yes, what. If no,why?

- Tell us about your most important friendships.

- Can you teach me something? Anything. Pick something you know really well and try to teach it to me.

- When did you last work in a team? Share the experience with us. 

we added some situations to the mix. the traditional making them wait, asking them to remain standing etc.

2. Personal Experience

We asked about family and friends. Was there anyone in their circle of influence who was a stroke patient. If you have cared for one of your own, you will know what the care-givers, the family of the patient go through.  

Training

Having established the base line scores for the team, we set about trying to increase it.

How do we get people to walk in someone's shoes so to speak? Once again, the medical field provides a wonderful idea and method.

Take a look at this

The National Health Service (NHS) in England is using a new tool to help providers understand what it is like for geriatric patients who must navigate the healthcare system with diminished senses and capabilities.

Providers put on an age-simulation suit (www.age-simulation-suit.com) that mimics the impairments of aging. Special goggles fog the vision and narrow the visual field. Head mobility is reduced so that it becomes difficult to see beyond the field cuts. Earmuffs reduce high-frequency hearing and the ability to understand speech clearly. The overall suit impedes motion and reduces strength. Thick gloves make it difficult to coordinate fine motions. Wearing this suit and trying to go through a hospital or clinic setting instantly makes the wearer gain empathy for our patients’ needs.

We created our own training protocols to help the team step into the shoes of the patients / customers and the care givers. (some stuff I have to leave out, client IP etc)

But the above should give you enough ideas to implement the same in your workplace.

If you need more ideation, leave your particular empathy training requirement / pain point and I will try and revert with what I think you could do.

Processes.

Planning for empathy, providing the tools, time and resources and measuring the same.

How does one create a process for empathy? Seems counter-intuitive. Something that is warm, fuzzy and from the heart, putting it in a processes seems cold, even calculating, manipulative.

But you see the same happen to warmth, personalised customer service.

We have created and perfected processes for both. Hospitality has been doing day in and day out, with pretty good results.

So, how does one create a process for Empathy?

One does not.

You do not create a process for empathy, you imbibe a process with empathy. Every customer facing / touch point adds an additional dynamic - empathy.

We call these "Emprocesses"

for e.g.

> All Check Ins will be under 3 minutes

empathy added - If a family needs more time to check in, ask questions, know a little about the place, hotel or needs to wait for a family member who would needs special care, one staff member will join them in the lobby and offer refreshments. The family is not to be hurried.

In the Check In process sheet, please add under remarks - Family Empathy.

This is not considered a process failure in any audit by us.

> Directions To The Centre

In our process, we have a script to direct people to the centre, but we also have some questions:

1. Where are you right now; What can you see around you?

2. Would you like me to guide you to the centre and stay on the line till you get here?

3. Would you like me to text the directions?

This is empathy in action.

The real victory is not in creating a direction script that is so awesome that martians could land here using it, but to help the customer get to the centre as soon as possible.

All processes should look at what the ultimate goal of the process is and what are the stresses on the customers while they are in the process. Find a way to minimise / remove the stresses while getting them to the goal envisioned.

Emprocesses - The Eclat Way Of Doing Things

This has become a long post, so I will split it into smaller ones on a later date. The links will appear here (if and when I do write them)

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So there you have it, a primer on Empathy - Hiring, Training and Creating Processes.

As mentioned, please leave your comments with ideas, what you do for Empathy, what you would like service providers to do for you as customers and of course you are free to write to me about any specific thing in your work place/ business.

Happy Empthasing!