A Training Project for Improving Effective Customers Communication in Security Administrator’s Team

1、a training project for improving effective customers communication in security administrators team论文摘要本文旨在以保安员的自我效能感为量化标准，通过对保安员不同的时期进行调查问卷，客观的反应保安员在培训前、培训后2个月内的自我效能感的变化情况，从而得出培训项目对保安员的影响。在实验中，按照马奎尔等人创立的培训理论，本文作者在创建于2005年的北京顺安保安公司中挑选了30名不同层次的保安员作为研究对象，并按照年龄、职务等不同特点，将其平均分配在2个小组中，一组为实验小组，另一组为观察小组。在经过5

2、天的培训后，结合3次不同的时期的问卷调查，并加以定量分析，从而得出在实验小组的学员在经过培训后，自我效能感提高了37%，并且在2个月后，这样的提高效果依然有效的存在，而在观察小组的学员中却无显著的变化。最后，通过本次培训项目证明，类似的培训项目能够为有效的提高保安员与客户间的沟通水平提供积极的帮助，为公司保安员的管理提供依据。abstractobjective: to investigate the effect of communication skills training on security administrators self-efficacy, to explore how t

3、raining courses influence the initial experience of self-efficacy and to identify determinants of security administrators self-efficacy.methodology: the project was conducted as a randomized trial. security administrators in the intervention group received a 5 day communication course and the contro

4、l group received no intervention. the impact of the intervention was evaluated by means of questionnaires measuring the effect of communication courses on changes in security administrators self-efficacy.achievements: security administrators who participated in the communication course improved thei

5、r self-efficacy for special communication tasks with up to 37%. the improvements remained constant for the following 2 months. the training course did not influence the initial experience of self-efficacy.conclusion: communication skills training can improve security administrators ability to better

6、 perform their tasks-measured as self-efficacy.practice implications: communication courses can be used to improve security administrators ability to perform some of the essential communicative demands they are facing in daily praxis.contentabstract41 introduction62. methodology72.1 training design8

7、2.1.1 cognitive input82.12 modelling82.1.3 practising key skills92.1.4 context of learning92.2 sample102.2.1 contingency allowance102.2.2 criteria for inclusion112.3 the intervention112.4. questionnaires measuring sas self-efficacy122.5 statistical analysis133. achievement143.1 population143.2 sas s

8、elf-efficacy153.3 determinants of self-efficacy164. discussion and conclusion174.1 discussion174.2 conclusion196. practice implications19bibliography19appendix i211 introductioncommunication between the security administrator (sa) and the customer is important for the customers experience of the sec

9、urity service as well as for the outcome of business. communication is a necessary precondition for elucidating the customers needs, problems and concerns and thereby an important security skill for ensuring safety promotion, assessment, treatment, and solution. furthermore, several studies link qua

10、lity of communication and the sa relation to significant improvements in business outcomes such as complaints reduction and safer perception.despite the growing awareness of the importance of good communication in security services, considerable problems such as misinformation, rough services, lack

11、of information and lack of responsiveness are still among the sas most often reported in surveys about customer satisfaction, and insufficient communication between customers and sas is one of the most significant factors for customers deciding to file a complaint; all stressing the need for improvi

12、ng sas communication skills.recently, our customer service department noticed that clients complaint was on the rise. it was found that the company received 10 letters and 20 phone calls of complaint during the first five months of year 2007. clients complained about parking control at residential a

13、rea and parking space as well as the fact that our company failed to provide prompt responses to their complaints. it was felt that the situation was becoming worse；the company had to take measures to ensure that qualified services were provided to its customers, otherwise it would be faced with shr

14、inking numbers of customersseveral studies have evaluated the effect of communication skills training for sas, and a few of these were randomized studies measuring the effect of the course on customer outcomes. however, lack of evidence of the effects of such interventions on customer security servi

15、ce behavior and safety status has given rise to the assumption that the sas perception of own skills (in terms of self-efficacy) can reduce the overall effectiveness of a training programme and thereby explain the lack of a direct relationship between communication skills training and customer outco

16、me. therefore, training courses should address the issue of self-efficacy by challenging sas attitudes and trust in own communication skills and courses should promote introspection and self-awareness as a necessary condition for self-correction.the concept self-efficacy was introduced by bandura an

17、d refers to a persons estimate of his or her ability to perform a specific task successfully bandura a. self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. psychol rev1977; 84:191-215. self-efficacy is an evaluation of the capability to perform a certain task and the expectation of being a

18、ble to successfully perform certain behaviour.organizational research has shown that self-efficacy can predict the performance of an individual. self-efficacy can change as result of learning, experience, and feedback; and the magnitude of self-efficacy changes corresponds closely to changes in perf

19、ormance. however, a variety of internal and external factors such as personal knowledge and skills, physical condition, self-esteem, interpersonal environment, available time, task complexity, stress, etc., can also influence self-efficacy and thereby behavior. also major changes in personal charact

20、eristics (e.g. skills, knowledge, and psychological condition) can influence the judging of self-efficacy, for example by changing the perception of the initial level of performance during a course.maquire et al. have developed an inter-disciplinary training course based on these experiences and on

21、the assumption that sas who have adequate skills and reasonable confidence in own abilities are more likely to correctly assess and thereby better respond to customers concerns. the course used in this project was built on banduras theory of self-efficacy describing how individuals can learn to dete

22、rmine and to modify their estimate of self-efficacy by using role play and feedback as one of the most effective methods. to evaluate the effect of training courses a questionnaire was developed by maguire to assess sas self-efficacy. although the results of maguire and co-workers relied upon pre-po

23、st-measurements, the participants self-efficacy ratings showed that their confidence in communicating with customers increased over time and that significant improvements of the tasks were obtained. based on the theory of social learning and on the evidence from the studies cited above on self-effic

24、acy, further research is required addressing the following questions: can the effect of communication skills training on sas self-efficacy be evaluated in a randomized trail? is the rating of self-efficacy constant, or does it change as a result of the training course? do other internal or external

25、factors in the sas situation influence self-efficay of sas? based on these questions the aims of this project were to investigate: the effect of communication skills training on sas self-efficacy. how training courses influence the retrospective perception of the initial assessment of self-efficacy.

26、 the determinants of sas self-efficacy.2. methodologythe project is based on the methodology of that developed by magurie et al. in their classical experiment p. maguire, k. booth, c. elliott and b. jones, helping health professionals involved in cancer care acquire key interviewing skills-the impac

27、t of workshops, 23 jan. 1996, pergamon, which was conducted as a randomized controlled trial in which the intervention group received a 5 day communication course and the control group received no intervention.2.1 training designbox 1 lists the teaching methods for helping sas to acquire relevant co

28、mmunication skills and stop using blocking behaviour. these methods have been used in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. a good sa, wanting to audit and improve his or her skills, should ensure that any course or workshop they attend includes three components of learning: cognitive input, mode

29、lling, and practice of key skills. box 1: effective teaching methods petermaguire ,key communication skills and how to acquire them, 2002,bmj 2002;325:697-700 provide evidence of current deficiencies in communication, reasons for them, and the consequences for clients and sas offer an evidence base

30、for the skills needed to overcome these deficiencies demonstrate the skills to be learned and elicit reactions to these provide an opportunity to practise the skills under controlled and safe conditions give constructive feedback on performance and reflect on the reasons for any blocking behaviour 2

31、.1.1 cognitive inputcourses should provide detailed handouts or short lectures, or both, that provide evidence of current deficiencies in communication with clients, reasons for these deficiencies, and the adverse consequences for clients and sas. 2.12 modelling trainers should demonstrate key skill

32、s in actionwith audiotapes or videotapes of real services. the participants should discuss the impact of these skills on the clients and sa. alternatively, an interactive demonstration can be used. a facilitator conducts a service as he or she does in real life but using a simulated client. the inte

33、rviewer asks the group to suggest strategies that he or she should use to begin the service. competing strategies are tried out for a few minutes then the interviewer asks for peoples views and feelings about the strategies used. they are asked to predict the impact on the client. unlike audiotaped

34、or videotaped feedback of real services, the client can also give feedback. this confirms or refutes the groups suggestions. this process is repeated to work through a service so that the group learns about the utility of key skills. 2.1.3 practising key skills if sas are to acquire skills and relin

35、quish blocking behaviour, they must have an opportunity to practise and to receive feedback about performance. however, the risk of distressing and deskilling the sa must be minimised. practising with simulated clients or actors has the advantage that the nature and complexity of the task can be con

36、trolled. time out can be called when the interviewer gets stuck. the group can then suggest how the interviewer might best proceed. this helps to minimise deskilling. in contrast, asking the sa to perform a complete interview may cause the sa to lose confidence because errors are repeated. asking sa

37、s to simulate clients they have known well and portray their predicament makes the simulation realistic. it gives sas insights into how clients are affected by different communication strategies. for a simulation exercise to be effective, sas must be given feedback objectively by audiotape or videot

38、ape. to minimise deskilling, clear ground rules should be followed: positive comments should be offered about what strategies (oral and non-oral) were liked and why constructive criticism should be allowed only after all positive comments have been exhausted participants offering constructive critic

39、isms should be asked to suggest alternative strategies and give reasons for their suggestions any blocking behaviour should be highlighted and the interviewer asked to consider why it was used (including underlying attitudes and fears) the group should be asked to acknowledge if they have used simil

40、ar blocking behaviour and why to reinforce learning, the sa should be asked to reflect on what he has learned, what went well, and what might have been done differently. 2.1.4 context of learning some sas feel safer learning within their own discipline. others welcome the challenge of learning with

41、those from other disciplines; multidisciplinary groups enable sas to understand and improve communication between disciplines. the relative merits of these two different environments have still to be determined.sas are more likely to attend workshops or courses in communication skills if they know t

42、hat substantial time will be devoted to their own agenda. thus, they should be asked to identify the communication tasks they want help with. these will commonly include the tasks discussed already plus more difficult situations, such as breaking bad news, handling anger, and responding to difficult

43、 questions.limiting the size of the group creates the sense of personal safety required for participants to disclose and explore relevant attitudes and feelings. it also allows more opportunity to practise key communication tasks. facilitators who have had similar feedback training are more effectiv

44、e in promoting learning than those who have not. residential workshops lasting three days are as effective as day workshops lasting five days. whether longer courses are more effective than workshops plus follow up workshops needs to be determined.2.2 samplethe project took place in beijing shunan s

45、ecurity servic company (bsssc), which was founded in 2005 in beijing. the company provides a comprehensive range of security services to meet the requirements of individual assignments and client/consumer needs. the main clients of this company are over 16000 which including: residential clients, co

46、mmercial clients and schools and other non-commercial educational clients. at present, it has 230 employees as a budgeted staff, 28 in management team and 202 in service team. the company has 4 functional departments: general manager office, marketing department, finance department, and human resour

47、ce department. as human resource manager of the company, my main responsibility is to organize and coordinate training, recruitment and manpower allocation.all 30 sas whom has been chosen at bsssc were volunteered to participate and were by block randomization allocated into either the intervention

48、group or the control group. managers, captains, and trainees were divided into three different groups in order to ensure that non-experienced and experienced sas were represented equally in the intervention group and the control group.it is provided with budget of rmb 120, 000 to carry out the train

49、ing project. all the training cost will allocate into annual training budget which provided by financial department, so the total financial cost is rmb contingency allowanceif the meeting room is occupied by other department for emergency, we will have to rent meeting room in the nearby hotel

50、. by then, we should consider higher contingency allowance for the project. total cost of project (currency rmb)initial costs:material and equipment8,000sub-total:8,000recurrent costs:labor 80,000finance0contingency allowance20,000sub-total:100,000total cost:108,000cost breakdown (currency: rmb)init

51、ial costmaterial and equipment8,000 subtotal8,000recurrent costslabor80,000finance0contingency allowance20,000 subtotal100,000total cost108,0002.2.2 criteria for inclusionall sas employed at the bsssc for at least 3 successive months from the beginning of the first phase of the project.2.3 the inter

52、ventionthe intervention consisted of a communication course designed for sas based on the method described by jette ammentorp et al jette ammentorp, svend sabroe, poul-erik kofoed, jan mainz, the effect of training in communication skills on medical doctors and nurses self-efficacy a randomized cont

53、rolled trial, dec. 2006, elsevier. the training course offered in this project was conducted by a senior policeman, who had also been trained as a teacher and had considerable experience as a teacher.the course comprised three basic elements:1. structure, a tight structure of the services, to guaran

54、tee that all relevant aspects are considered. a structure that ensures overview and transparency.2. communication techniques, to learn how to listen, how to help clients formulate problems, and how to ask the right questions, etc.3. client-centeredness, eliciting and understanding client concerns an

55、d needs. with the client reaching a mutual understanding of the problem and the treatment.the course offered to the intervention group consisted of 2 sections lasting 3 and 2 days, respectively; corresponding to a total of 34h of lecture. a period of 4 weeks separated the two parts and in that perio

56、d the participants rehearsed and did video recordings of one of their own services. the recordings were used to give feedback to the participants during the last 2 days of the course.due to the number of participants in the intervention group three courses were arranged; all with the same teacher.2.

57、4. questionnaires measuring sas self-efficacyto measure sas perception of the process we used a questionnaire developed that intended for measuring the effect of communication courses on the changes in sas self-efficacy. the participants were asked to asses how confident they felt being able to successfully manage each of nine different communication skills (listed in fig.1a and b) both in relation to the elders and to the younger. a total of 13 questions were used to assess self-efficacy. ratings of