13 Tips For Dealing With Stress In Your Contact Centre
With Lance Burdett, founder of WARN International
Show Notes
Lance Burdett is the founder of WARN International. He spent 22 years with the NZ Police, becoming their lead crisis negotiator.
In that time, he was also responsible for recruitment and training at the Police Emergency 111 call centres, where he delivered programmes on handling emotional conversations and personal resilience.
As a result, he has extensive experience in operating in stressful environments, and has practical tips to deal with stress in your contact centres. Today, he shares them.
Lance’s Top 3 Tips:
Connect with others. The best way is to have face-to-face conversations, one-on-one (05:51).
Exercise. A 15 to 20 minute walk a day will burn off the stress hormones we get throughout across our day (17:46).
Get a better night’s sleep (18:39). Lance’s ‘sleep tips’ document shows you how. To get it, click here, and in the ‘Interest’ dropdown, select ‘Sleep Tips’.
You'll Learn:
7 ways to check whether you’re overwhelmed - even if you don’t feel it (01:18).
The simplest way to calm your entire body in an instant, thanks to a special nerve (02:25).
What to do every hour to feel better. It only takes a moment (03:54).
2 quick actions agents can do after calls to keep in balance (04:39).
The 4 pillars of mental wellbeing (05:38).
Why working half in the office and half from home doesn’t work well for most people, and what to do about it (06:02).
Lance’s take on group meetings that you might find controversial (06:40).
The temptation which gets in the way of your work-life balance when working from home (07:18).
Lance’s catchy phrase that helps you bring your best-self when working from home (08:01).
A great way to switch off from work at the end of the day, that’s also used by undercover police (09:18).
How a blanket can make the difference in your work-life balance (10:24).
The 3 stages people go through when struggling with their mental health. You’ll learn the warning signs of each and what to do to help them (11:40).
The food to eat just before bedtime which will help you have uninterrupted sleep (18:51).
Get Lance’s sleep tips document: Click here, and in the ‘Interest’ dropdown, select ‘Sleep Tips’.
Connect with Lance on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/warninternational/
Transcript
Blair Stevenson (00:00)
Welcome to the Secrets to Contact Center Success podcast, connecting you with the latest and greatest tips from the best of the brightest minds in the industry.
I am Blair Stevenson, founder of BravaTrak. Our Agent Motivation System helps contact centres lift agent performance by 11% in 7 months, guaranteed.
Today I'm joined by Lance Burdett, who has expertise in wellbeing and personal resilience.
Lance, welcome along, great to have you here.
Lance Burdett (00:26)
Thanks so much. Thanks for the opportunity.
Blair Stevenson (00:26)
You're welcome. So just as a starting point, tell us a bit about your background and your expertise.
Lance Burdett (00:33)
Oh, that's the whole 30 minutes filled up there! I was a builder until the age of 35 and joined the police for an easy lifestyle. And after having depression and being suicidal, I was New Zealand's lead negotiator - crisis negotiator - for New Zealand police.
And then I ended up falling into the 111 call centre, where I became in charge of recruitment and development of staff across all three 111 call centres. I was taken in there originally to deal with de-escalation of angry people, but also how to look after staff, post incidents.
Blair Stevenson (01:07)
Okay, cool. We're in the midst of this COVID-19 pandemic. What impact is that having on people's wellbeing and resilience in terms of what you've noticed?
Lance Burdett (01:18)
Massive. So you'll know if it's impacting on you if you wake up four times in a night where you never used to, if your mouth becomes dry after about three hours in your day, if your dreams are kind of unusual, if you're finding your mood swings up and down, if you are overthinking everything, if you're checking your emails four times before sending them.
If you're doing any one of those things and more, if you, when you go shopping, you have a list and you double what's on that list.
All of these things are an indication that our subconscious is going flat out. COVID plays on our mind and people don't really understand, "Oh, it's not COVID". No, no, it's not COVID, it's the fear that comes with it. And it's impacting on everybody.
That's why violence has escalated about 15% around the world. It's global.
Blair Stevenson (02:09)
Wow. That's astonishing. You talked about a number of things. So I'm just wondering if people feel overwhelmed in the moment, or notice that stuff for themselves, what are some of the practical things they can do to deal with that situation?
Lance Burdett (02:25)
The simplest thing you can do is breathing and it works on the vagus nerve. So inside of our brain - the brainstem - there is a vagus nerve and it goes to every organ.
So this is all people have to do right now. And I'll get you to do this too, Blair, is to sit up straight, big, deep breath through your nose, completely fill your lungs into your gut, and then sigh as hard as you can.
Now try and think of something. You can't. It's impossible to think of anything after that, right? And you feel better and you smiled and laughed.
The vagus nerve senses when there's not enough oxygen in the lungs. And if there's not enough oxygen in our lungs, it says to the brain, "Sigh".
The vagus nerve keeps us alive. Gut instinct? Vagus nerve. It goes into your gut and senses when the microbiome is in flux, because we sense there's danger. And as soon as that happens, it goes "Stop". And we have that, "Oh, is that okay?" And then we usually go ahead and do it anyway and then find out we should have listened to it.
So it goes into every major organ in our body. So when it senses that there's not enough oxygen, because we're chest breathing at the moment, right? We're not diaphragmatically breathing. So I bring along about five different breathing techniques, but sighing, just not in front of people, right? Or not while you're on the phone. Don't do that.
So I'm saying before the call and after the call, sigh both times. All it does is clear the head and I'm ready to go for the next one. And then about every hour, do the big deep breath and then stretch out. And we stretch out and we stretch up or we stretch down, squeeze every muscle, and it just absolutely pushes all those horrible chemicals - adrenaline and cortisol - out of our system and we feel better.
So we sigh before and after the call, every hour, stretch. You're good to go.
Blair Stevenson (04:16)
So if someone's an agent just had a difficult call, they finish the call, they can employ that.
Lance Burdett (04:21)
Stand up. Yeah never stand up during the call. Because chances are, you'll escalate the call because your brain will say, "I'm good to go. Let's bring this on". So you sit up straight, you get the call done. As soon as you finish the call, stand up, big deep breath.
And then a glass of water is actually better than a stretch. If you stand up and drink a glass of water, it will wet the inside of your mouth, therefore hydrating the brain, but also telling the brain that you're no longer in fight or flight. The mouth becomes dry when we're having those difficult calls to stop us from eating food.
Blair Stevenson (04:55)
True. Very true. And the same is true for leaders, you know, if they have a tough meeting.
Lance Burdett (05:03)
Just don't sigh in the meeting. It's not a good look. "Is that right?" Sigh.
Blair Stevenson (05:12)
So if we think about this from a wider perspective, there's so many more people working from home now. And it's very clear that that's not going away. And many contact centres now are planning to maintain work from home. For some people full-time, or at least part-time.
If you're thinking about both contact centre agents and contact centre team leaders who are working from home, what can they do to ensure their mental wellbeing?
Lance Burdett (05:38)
Yeah, that's a great point. So the three things that will keep us well are socialization, exercise and sleep. Those are the three. And diet can come in there as well, if you like. You know, the food we eat.
We have to have socialization. That's not just talking. It's more than what you and I are doing now, although this is second best to actually being face-to-face. The organizations I've noticed at the moment - 50% of my work is in contact centres - what I'm noticing is the companies that do the half (in the office) and half (at home), the staff are struggling.
Because "I don't want to go into work" or "I do want to go into work and we're doing this back and forward and back and forward" and the brain's going, "Where are you working?". So it seems to work out better if we could do that perhaps one day a week, go into the office. Or one day a week, work from home. Either or. Not do two and three and two and three. It doesn't tend to work as well. It does for some but not for many.
Now connection is the key. Connection is not talking on the phone. It's not doing this either. But if they're working from home, the staff are all over the place, it's the next best thing. And for team leaders, for managers, it's about reaching out to people individually, not holding a group meeting. And I know it's going to cause an issue, but that's the truth.
When you’re having big meetings, even at work, you're not connecting with every person. And the same on this. You know, we've got all these little pictures and we can't see those little micro expressions. We miss those cues, those social cues.
And when you work from home, stay in the same place. Work from that same location, do not move your laptop all around the house. Because you have to be able to switch off at the end of the day. The brain associates places with events. So if I'm at work, and I'm working from the kitchen table and then from in the office and then from the lounge watching TV, you're spreading your work across your sanctuary.
Blair Stevenson (07:47)
Yeah. So this work-life balance I think is really super important.
Lance Burdett (07:51)
Absolutely. It's critical. Can I say next to sleep? It's the second most critical thing you can do.
Blair Stevenson (07:57)
Yeah. So what are your tips around making some defined points?
Lance Burdett (08:01)
And it does have to be defined. For years we've been working in a workplace. So we want to try and replicate that at home as best we can. So I call it, "Get up, dress up, front up".
So get up at your usual time. Don't stay in that extra 30 minutes that you didn't have to drive in the car. Get up, get ready, get prepared. Get dressed in the same clothes that you had to wear when you went to work. And there's some great research on this.
I'm giving some stuff away here, but on a Sunday night shift, the 111 call centres will often have - not every Sunday, but will on occasion, perhaps once every three or four months - have a casual Sunday night. Where they will have a shared dinner and it's just a great team building.
And that might be a pajama night. It might be a sports night. And you turn up in your pajamas or you turn up in your sports gear. There's a noticeable difference in the responses, because we're relaxed.
Blair Stevenson (09:03)
So those three steps, get up, dress up...
Lance Burdett (09:06)
Get up, dress up, front up. So you've got to get out of bed the usual time. You've got to get dressed in your work clothes and you've got to front up as though you're at work.
Blair Stevenson (09:15)
And what about at the end of the day?
Lance Burdett (09:17)
Yeah. So at the end of the day, there's a great way of switching off your brain. And comes from the police undercover program, the way they go in and out of being undercover these days, they don't go undercover full time.
Now at the end of the day - and this is working for many, many people these days - if you are logging off at the end of the day, when you log off, the screen does that little spiral. Just sit and watch that screen and just say to yourself, "Logging off" in your head. Not out loud, in your head.
Because thoughts in your head help more so than saying it out loud, because it's the subconscious that wants to keep going. The subconscious actually rules us, believe it or not. It's not the conscious mind. It is the subconscious that rules us. And so it guides us, how's that working out?
And so when you just sit there, then you switch off, you log off. Most people have laptops, some desktops. So if it's a laptop, you shut it down. You step back from your desk, big deep breath, sip of water, and you say in your head, "Works finished". That's all you have to do.
And if it's a desktop that you're working from, you do the same thing. Step back, big, deep breath. "Work's done. I'm over, I'm finished, I'm at home". Cover over your desktop and cover over the laptop.
Because every time you walk past, you're reminded of work. There has to be, at the moment, separation for most people. Some people can get away with it. And oftentimes, they'll say in my sessions, "No, I'm all good". And I'm like, "I bet you're not".
Look, I'll ask you the question, Blair, do you walk past your office - your work that you do at home, I'm sure you've got an office at home there's somewhere - and you walk in, or you walk past and go, "Oh, I should really be doing that".
Blair Stevenson (11:11)
Yeah. Or “I've got an idea. I just have to...”
Lance Burdett (11:16)
"Let me do this". If you've got an idea, just write it down and leave it in the office. Don't log in.
Blair Stevenson (11:27)
Good tips, Lance. So let's now imagine someone who's a contact centre leader. It could be a team leader, could be a centre manager. How can you tell if someone's struggling with their mental health?
Lance Burdett (11:40)
Well, the biggest one for me is they won't look at you when you talk with them.
And I get this all the time, "Oh, what about culture?" Forget cultural issues. Now everybody - and I do a lot of work with Tangata Whenua, with Maori, with Polynesians, with Chinese - and they all say the same thing, right? Yes. They don't want to look at you, but there's a difference between looking at you and looking away.
Their head will always be down, and they will be shuffling. So we go through three stages. We go through the - it's my terminology, so excuse me to the professionals that might be watching this - “are you in a washing machine, are you in a movie, or are you drowning?” Is the question I ask people, and they know straight away what I'm saying.
So washing machine, we can’t shut off the thoughts. So the person's busy. They're shuffling around at their desk. They can't sit still, their hands are going on their knees. They don't know how to sit. They're fidgety, right. And they get busy. Man, their productivity absolutely goes through the roof and you think, "That's not them". There's a noticeable change in their behaviour.
After a while we get tired, we get run down, we get flat. We're just exhausted. And so the brain goes, "Have some chemicals". And that's where that, I guess, misnomer about 'chemical imbalance' comes from. It's a natural part of the fight or flight response. "Here, have some just to slow you down".
And so they become completely slow. It's almost like an automaton. They become robotic in nature. Their productivity drops. They will isolate themselves. We isolate. I say 'we', because I've been there. We isolate ourselves from others. We won't speak up in meetings anymore. We don't want to be in meetings. We'll make excuses not to be there. We completely avoid people.
Not only will they not look at you like they once did, they will not even be near you to look at them. And everything becomes slow, and they won't move. And if they're reading something, instead of flicking pages, they just look at the page and they don't turn it over. Because they've got something on their mind and they're reading it over and over and over again.
So that's the second stage. And that's where you've really got to get them some help.
And in the third stage, after that, is the drowning. They actually look waxy. They look like yellow soap. And the reason for that is that they're in the bottom of the brain, into the stem, basic survival. All the blood has gone through into the heart and lungs and vital organs, to keep the body moving. And so they get this pasty waxy look, and that's very dangerous. That's when you take them to the doctor.
Blair Stevenson (14:34)
I was just going to ask you, what would you recommend.
Lance Burdett (14:36)
You've got to take them to the doctor, right? And there's no, "no". You say, "No, come on. We're going in the car right now." Or you take them home to somebody who will take them to the doctor, because that's quite an important part. Because if you're down in there, the brain gets into excessive fight or flight.
And we start to have something called 'suicidal ideations'. Suicide, as you know, is my expertise. The ideations - and I had one - are the most frightening thing. And lucky for me, I knew what it was. And I was lucid enough. I looked out the window and went, just had this thought that came and said, "It's not high enough, go higher." And I went, "Holy cow. What is that?" And then I went, "Oh, you had an ideation you dick. Go and get yourself sorted."
I gave myself an uppercut and I took myself off to get help. And I should have done it much sooner. And now the resilience stuff I do is way back here. Like we just talked about, switching on and off the brain. Prevention is the key absolutely, Blair.
Blair Stevenson (15:47)
Cool. What sort of resources do you have available? Because there's a whole bunch of really good stuff here, but what sort of resources do you have available for people?
Lance Burdett (15:58)
We've got plenty, and it's all free. So if you go to our website www.warninternational.com, click 'CONTACT', click the dropdown box, and click 'Sleep tips'. It's a comprehensive document. Sleep's not important, it's critical.
We have a YouTube channel. During lockdown - you'll see me dressed, not like this, just in a t-shirt - talking about some deeper techniques on how to keep yourself well. We've got a video on there 'Looking after loved ones'. So if you've got somebody in your family who's struggling with depression and perhaps suicide, how to care for them by caring for yourself first.
So there's lots of resources around the place.
Blair Stevenson (16:39)
Fantastic. So your YouTube channel, what's the name of it?
Lance Burdett (16:43)
It's just 'WARN International'.
Blair Stevenson (16:45)
And your website address is...
Lance Burdett (16:49)
Is www.warninternational.com.
Blair Stevenson (16:53)
Perfect. Let's just finish up. What would be your top three tips for team leaders and centre managers for managing their own mental health and the mental health of others?
Lance Burdett (17:04)
Going back to those four basics, and we get those right, we're good to go. So I've got a deeper programme, but Maslow nailed it, right? Food, water, shelter, air, sleep, reproduction - don't worry about that one. The basic physiological needs is what you focus on. Exercise is part of those physiological needs.
And so it's about, one, connecting with people, but Maslow said that's about three layers up. So change your diet. Here's a novel idea; eat unprocessed foods.
A 15 to 20 minute walk a day will burn off the adrenaline and cortisol that are keeping us awake. They are stress hormones that we get when we're in fight or flight across our day.
I'm writing a third book - I've been asked this time by my publisher - called The Anxious Child. That's the working title. Now the research that I've read recently is that when you exercise, endorphins make us feel good, they numb pain, but that's when we get ideas, right?
The reason is, it reconnects the limbic brain to the prefrontal cortex where, this part here (the cortex) is where decisions are made. Logic sits. And that's why you get those ideas. So 15 to 20 minutes exercise everyday will burn off adrenaline that is keeping us awake - adrenaline and cortisol - will dump endorphins, reconnect your brain to the logic part, and you will feel much better.
And the biggest thing you can do is sleep. And so get that 'sleep tips' document. There's about five different breathing techniques, sleeping ones. There's a cool, cool technique in there.
You know, if you have a small piece of protein before bedtime, this will stop most people waking up in the morning - in the early hours of the morning. Just a small piece of protein, about 20 minutes before bedtime. 45 minutes before bedtime, hot shower. There's a six second breathing technique on that document, do that immediately before bedtime. You'll be good to go.
Blair Stevenson (19:11)
Awesome. Brilliant. Thank you very much, Lance.
Lance Burdett (19:14)
My pleasure, it's great to be with you, Blair. Thanks so much.
Blair Stevenson (19:17)
For listeners, you'll find the link to the show notes in the episode description below.
And if you'd like to connect with Lance on LinkedIn, you'll find a link to his LinkedIn profile in those show notes as well (https://www.linkedin.com/in/warninternational/).
And if you'd like to follow me on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevensonblair/) or connect with me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/blair.stevenson.980), you'll find links to my profile there too.
Well, that's it from us today. Have a productive week.