Customer Profile
Highlighting ResolutionsRTK partnership with the City of Melbourne – Parking & Traffic Branch

Anna Vagias
Director

ResolutionsRTK has been the EAP provider for the City of Melbourne since 2002. In this time, there has been significant support provided to the Parking and Traffic branch in relation to parking enforcement and post incident interventions arising from daily interactions with the public.

Deidre Granger has recently been appointed as the Senior HR Consultant for the Parking and Traffic Branch at the City of Melbourne. Along with Graham McKinnon, the Branch Training Coordinator, Deidre has embarked on a new initiative to build a culture of resilience through the implementation of a Workplace Support Program in partnership with ResolutionsRTK.

The aim of the program is to proactively provide a ‘wellness pulse check' at the end of each shift to ensure that each Parking Enforcement Officer has the opportunity to raise or discuss any issue or incident that may have occurred during the course of their day. By purposefully engaging with the Parking Enforcement Officers on a daily basis, it is envisaged that the ability to identify and provide attention to issues raised will:

• Enable a proactive dialogue that aims to defuse events of the day;
• Allow the individual to recover a sense of wellbeing after encountering an unexpected or unpleasant event;
• Assist in building relationships based on concern and trust;
• Help identify emerging risk factors that can be addressed earlier by the Branch; and
• In the longer term, develop a cohesive, engaged and resilient work team.

In recognition of this unique and ambitious resilience building initiative, Deidre Granger and Graham McKinnon, of the City of Melbourne's Parking and Traffic Branch have been interviewed for this edition of our ezine.

Q&A with City of Melbourne's Parking & Traffic Branch

Q1: What was the impetus for developing this wellbeing initiative?

Deidre: “It was recognised by the Staff Consultative Committee that the Branch handles post incident events very well but that there was a gap in how we deal with the Officers' everyday exposure out in the field. What we are noticing is that some staff are bouncing back less well after each incident and that we are not as proactive as we could be in recognising the signs to further improve follow up post incident.”

Deidre explained that being proactive in OH&S and Wellbeing requires a commitment to continuous improvement both in leadership development as well as the systems and processes to support the building of relationships with staff.

“If Team Coordinators and Managers are not consistently following up staff at the end of a shift or not responding well to staff after an incident, what incentive do staff have to come and discuss what has happened in their day? The key to building resilience is to improve relationships between office staff and outside staff.”

Both the Branch Management team and Staff Consultative Committee are supportive of the Workplace Support Program. The intent is to roll out the Program in February 2010 by commencing with the Parking Enforcement Officers; recognising it has application across the Branch with other public contact officers.

Deidre also facilitated a ‘Building Team Resilience' workshop at the Australian National Parking Steering Group in October 2009. Deidre had the opportunity to present this concept to delegates around the country and New Zealand. As a common problem for the majority of Councils in Australia, the notion of a Workplace Support Program was taken up very well.

Q2: What are some of the occupational events that officers are exposed to?

The City of Melbourne's Parking Enforcement Officers are exposed to a range of incidents and emotions on a daily basis as a result of public interaction. These can include anger, bullying, violence, assault, cars driving at them and then swerving away at the last minute. Sometimes in issuing a parking fine, Officers are followed or sent death threats, “We have even had a person come to the front counter with a baseball bat. There are also the sad stories such as being on the scene at the recent bus fatality in the city.”

“After a while this can get to you” says Graham who has over 20 years experience as a Parking Enforcement Officer prior to undertaking the Training Coordinator role. “People don't see the ‘invisibles' such as notifying authorities to remove syringes in the streets, giving directions, assisting children locked in cars, reporting hazards such as traffic flow or power line issues, helping distressed people, educating people where they can park and providing alternatives, keeping clearways clear, providing relief support to School Crossing staff. Officers are often misunderstood yet they look after Public Safety on a daily basis. We are trying to recruit Ambassadors not just Compliance Officers.”

Q3: What are some of the challenges in implementing this initiative?

The Workplace Support Program would be established for Branch staff who experience reactions as a result of stressful work-related situations or who need assistance to cope with issues they are facing in their work and personal lives.

The Program would consist of selected Branch Managers and Team Coordinators from the workgroup. They would be trained in appropriate methods of assisting staff, colleagues or others in their Branch who have been subjected to a stressful incident or situation, to provide first line contact and short term assistance. The Workplace Support Program is not a counselling service or a substitute for any professional expertise.

Deidre believes that the major challenge in implementing this initiative is ‘engagement'; being able to normalise these leadership behaviours as a normal part of a Team Coordinator and Manager's job.

“Initially it may be seen as an additional responsibility but with training and support it should make their roles easier and be beneficial to the team by setting up a supportive environment. We will need to look carefully at how we support the people who need to develop the skills on an ongoing basis.”

Both Deidre and Graham believe that it is such an obvious need that any initial resistance would be worked through successfully.

Q4: How will you know you have achieved your wellbeing targets?

We know that building resilience can protect mental health and wellbeing by helping to offset certain risk factors such as lack of social support or engagement, being challenged or bullied, experiencing trauma and social or cultural discrimination.

In developing a workplace program, understanding the connection between resilience and stressors is critical to the delivery of support.

Deidre noted that the UK Health & Safety Executive Management Standards for Managing Stress has a free online survey to identify issues around stress. Deidre has already utilised this evidenced based tool for benchmarking improvement with a test team in preparation for the October 09 conference. The tool looks at presenting stressors versus underlying stressors and is completed at the beginning of the program and then re-administered after working with the group. The primary issue identified by the test group was feeling bullied out on the road.

Deidre described the process as empowering as it showed the test team that they had the potential to change their circumstances, it gave them strategies to better manage these situations and were able to talk about building the supportive relationships they required. The results demonstrated that whilst 12 out of18 staff in the test team felt bullied in the first survey, the number reduced significantly to 5 of the 18 after the stressors were discussed and strategies implemented. Attendance rates were also tracked and had improved. “We would use similar benchmarking techniques moving forward.”

Deidre and Graham are clear about the overall vision for the Program - “we want people to want to come to work”.

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© ResolutionsRTK 2009