TfL Night Safety Manager Neil Pepper MBE considers the psychological skill-set needed to keep everyone physically safe at work.
Keeping people safe in their employment is quite a serious challenge to a person’s mental wellbeing.
On the whole, most humans don’t respond well to being challenged about their personal behaviour. Who amongst us that drives would be prepared to openly declare that they considered themselves a bad driver? And yet those of you that use our roads and footpaths will have been witness to innumerable instances of dangerous behaviour, I’m certain.
These days, as I creep slowly towards an early retirement, I am asked routinely by people about how they might progress in their careers by developing into a professional safety role. The response I’ve developed is to be as open and honest as I can be, and it revolves around exploring a potential candidate’s mental resilience and their emotional response to conflict.
If you are the sort of person who can soak up daily conflict and not dwell or brood negatively upon it, you could have a happy and rewarding career path in safety ahead. If, however, you are in that band of emotional intelligence where you might struggle with much of your daily input being rejected, the story could be very different indeed.
Now, yes I’m aware that we have codes of behaviour and expectations of professionalism and many many corporate mechanisms designed to protect us. A quote I have often heard over the years is “learn to leave it at work” — an utterance that I have found almost impossible to adhere to as many others out there, regardless of their roles, will have found too, I am sure.
There are reams of clinical research out there linking increased stress levels to ill health, and I’ve found the long-term cumulative effect of soaking up continued negative energy in my daily workplace quite a damaging burden.
Have you been that person who opened an email when off-duty to find that the content was a blood-boiling attack on your professional conduct or some such slur — perceived or otherwise? Did you spend the rest of that day (or worse still the entire weekend) brooding endlessly on the situation? I would be willing to bet that the result was neither beneficial to your mental wellbeing nor the atmosphere and relationships at home for that weekend…
Now I’m far from perfect, absolutely no question. Once upon a time, I was so fierce in my email communication (the preferred method for a full-time night worker, I might add) that I was sent on the naughty email persons course. It helped me a lot and gave me some great insight into what I was doing innocuously and how to manage my expectations.
Sometimes people have asked me why it is I stuck with it as a career all these many years. The honest answer is a combination of being both too lazy and too afraid to take the plunge, retrain and start all over again. Parking all the issues already explored above, it seemed I was rather good at what I was doing! I had a reasonably respected voice, I started to win company and national awards, but the conflict never really lessened. Each new team I cycled through brought new challenges that added to that cumulative burden of negative energy I was soaking up.
There were two aspects of my colleagues’ responses to my professional role that became particularly burdensome. The isolation was something I learnt to cope with: the fifty or so staff assembling outside a station who would drop into silence and whispered comments when I’d approach to join the night’s activities were a situation I managed with, as I was generally quite happy keeping that professional distance anyway. The personal attacks though were something I never came to terms with. I’ve since recognised that this is a human behaviour that is aimed at many people who stand away from the crowd (dare I use the word leaders) — the very effective deflection tactic of attacking the person rather than the issue at hand has worked extremely well for so many over the years. I could see it being deployed against Greta Thunberg recently.
So what are the answers to carrying around all that continuous negative energy? Well, in my case I learnt to accept that there was only so much I could achieve at any one time, I found that simply withdrawing slightly from the fray upon occasion gave me a much-needed boost, enabled me to recharge my emotional resilience. I learned to take the long view of all confrontational experience; the chess players amongst you will know the tactic. Put in its simplest terms, don’t try to boil the ocean at any one time — it’s an impossible task and will burn you out.
I found a few people whom I could unload my emotional burden with and that helped too. Never underestimate the emotional release that a friend can provide, but equally recognise that your burden can overload them too if you are too keen in using this particular safety valve.
I took the conscious decision to become a teacher and mentor, focusing on willing people who wished to learn and develop, and this was very rewarding indeed. The balance of energy started to tip: I ran educational schemes for apprentices and graduates and involved myself in the schools outreach programme — the world became a more pleasant place, the negative energy was still projected onto me, but now it had become more balanced.
I volunteered to work with organisations such as Women in Transport and became a STEM ambassador and the scales became almost balanced, the positive affirming experience of such organisations providing the offset. Coupled with this, I found the new tool of Yammer provided by the company gave me a much better grasp on the reality of our corporate world and my place within it, so today for each of those moments when I still find myself in a conflict resolution situation, or on the end of a personal attack (yes they still happen), I have a little tool kit of emotional coping mechanisms supplied by a wonderful network of generous, caring and positive people who I’m absolutely blessed to have as friends and colleagues.
One of those people recently sent me this poem:
No Enemies by Charles Mackay
You have no enemies, you say?
Alas! my friend, the boast is poor;
He who has mingled in the fray
Of duty, that the brave endure,
Must have made foes! If you have none,
Small is the work that you have done.
You've hit no traitor on the hip,
You've dashed no cup from perjured lip,
You've never turned the wrong to right,
You've been a coward in the fight.