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BCBusiness + Cross Canada Corporate Services Every technological advancement has a downside, but what plagues today's connected populace is the lack of face-to-face social skills.
Every technological advancement has a downside, but what plagues today’s connected populace is the lack of face-to-face social skills.
In light of advancing digital and social media technology, what comes as a shock to employers is how potential employees may disregard the standards for business behavior. An example is when employees don’t show up for work after agreeing to accept a position. Or worse, they have been employed for months—even years—only to stop showing up for work and failing to notify anyone else of their departure..
The term for this is ghosting and it flies in the face of common business and employment standards.
This breakdown in what used to be routine business communication has led Drew Fockler, an experienced mediator and HR consultant, to create a change management model and apply it under his new company, Cross Canada Corporate Services (CCCS).
Launched late last year, CCCS offers HR consulting, training and mediation to a wide range of businesses. Its consultants work with clients to overcome all HR obstacles as they impart a keen understanding of current industry trends and practices to ensure that the company is competitive within its industry.
For training, CCCS is certified to administer a large assortment of assessment tools to support business growth, as well as offering train-the-trainer certification. In mediation, CCCS listens carefully to everything that is said by parties involved in a dispute and uses the information to assist them in building a lasting resolution—such as trained mediators that focus on employment; collective agreements; bargaining; human rights; negligence; personal injury; housing; small business; wills and estates; and workplace conflict.
But if Fockler has a special area of interest, it is his change management model for employers and employees called LEAD: Listen, Explore, Act and Develop, which seeks to establish honest relationships between staff members and management in a work setting.
“In very simple terms, I use this model to listen to the individuals’ needs, which establishes trust; explore the options for a positive solution, which creates inspiration; act upon those solutions, which builds commitment; and then develop the relationship from that point because when one person is teaching LEAD, two or more people are learning the values of its ingredients. Potentially, an entire organization can grow via the ongoing training and development of its team.”
Used properly, LEAD can assist a manager in anticipating upcoming, incremental change within his/her organization as well as improve overall communication, and Fockler has an unsurprising stipulation regarding this practice: “I require that all parties remove their smart phone from the situation.”
Fockler stresses: “I’m really just applying the elements and the value of old-fashioned human interaction, which is more difficult all generations—to embrace. Engaging in face-to-face interaction, which is still an integral component of daily business, may not be second nature to a lot of people and LEAD teaches them to be honest and candid, which takes bravery to achieve.”
As CCCS continues to attract new clientele, Fockler says: “I truly want everyone to aspire to LEAD. It took years to formulate based on the tenets of other change management systems—and it works.”