Building Trust
Work health surveillance can be a ‘nerve-wracking’ event. The key to a successful surveillance is building a relationship for someone to trust you. People are individual, all very different and its not an easy task. The fact that the shortest appointment time within our company is 15 minutes and the longest being 60 minutes does not give much time to build a relationship of trust, but I do….
The problem is communication.
It lacks in every relationship, whether this be family or business, it happens. I do not believe this is an intentional behaviour, it just happens. We may try our hardest to control it and some may be better than others at doing so, but it still happens. We may get caught up in our own lives and forget to message or call someone, we may just omit information which they did not feel necessary to put in. However, the receiver may need that piece of information. Mistake or misunderstanding, this can cause issues for the other person awaiting the communication.
What does communication have to do with building trust?
Communication has everything to do with trust, beginning to end communication is the key. If I were to sit someone in my office chair and not speak to my client then perform his/her hearing test without speaking this would cause distrust and potentially leave me open to repercussions due to not giving informed consent.
People believe what they see.
If you are in a nurse’s tunic then you must be nice because you are a nurse. Open the door and invite them into your office whilst smiling, instantly this will relax your client. For the first five minutes I talk, asking questions about what they do in their designated area of work, weather, holidays and anything else that may come into conversation. I am always looking for some common ground. Once common ground is found I zone in and at that point even the most sombre person is usually ‘putty’ in my hands. I never rush my clients (although I do try and make the surveillance as short as possible, trying not to keep them longer than needed) and I even laugh at bad jokes. I never worry about my clients as I know they are in good hands with good surveillance and good strong friendly conversation. Sometimes I am asking people to leave as my next appointment is due. This gives me good job satisfaction.
If you talk, people very rarely ignore you.