Duty of Care for the Control Room Operator

Hi. I'm Dan Gundry, and welcome back to another episode of knock your socks off. I'm delighted to be here today with two industry professionals that focus on the operator experience, and we're here to talk about duty of care. So I wanna introduce Meghan Koller and Tanya Lee, both with Evans. Megan, Tanya, thank you very much for joining me today. Thank you, Dan. Appreciate it. So we've got a weighty topic to talk about. I think it's the one that's near and dear to all of our hearts and should be for every control room professional out there, which is the operator specifically the duty of care for us. We. I don't know which one's the right word, but those of us that work in the industry towards the operator sitting in the chair, doing their job, in supporting our markets on a daily basis. But before we start getting into talking about the operator, I want you both to talk to the audience and kinda give your your day jobs. So, Megan, tell us about you and, what you do for Evans. Awesome. Well, thank you again for having both Tanya and myself. We are we're proud to be here and, honored that you invited us. So thank you. And, my name is Megan Koller. I'm the director of public safety and transportation with Evans. Evans is a mission critical, manufacturer of primarily, we do, sit stand consoles, but we also get involved as you mentioned, Dan, into the user experience. So really trying to evolve the control room into something that, isn't just, you know, a fly by night you know, nothing that we consider in the public safety realm. So we really wanna make make an impact on, like you said, the user experience and understanding the the needs of the dispatcher. So I've been doing this now for, going into my tenth year of being involved in public safety, on the vendor side. I've never actually done the job behind the desk because I'm way too sensitive and probably couldn't do it. But, I am happy to support those that do because I I strongly strongly believe that they are the first first responders. They are responsible for getting us the help that we need. And they don't get enough support. So I'm very glad that we're discussing this that you have both Tanya and I here because I know it's near and dear to to both of us. Absolutely. That's great. Thank you, Megan. Very much. That's a great intro. Tanya, you got a top line. I know. I don't. I can't. I never find top Megan because it's impossible, but I will I will tag along. How's that? My name is Tanya Lee, and I actually started working at Evans, about five and a half years ago and helped launch Evans care which is a part of Evans that goes in and does preventative maintenance and console cleaning in the centers because As we know, all of these all of these centers are twenty four seven operational non stop and I think that the people that are working behind the console in any vertical really deserves to have the ideal working environment. So we go in, we make sure that the console is working correctly. We remove all of the dirt dust debris, fingernails, which is Megan's favorite thing for me to talk about. I've been in this industry for probably a good ten, maybe a little bit over now. And prior to that, I was actually in the medical industry. So I have a huge passion for just clean, healthy environments, and how it actually impacts the operators when they're sitting at the console each and every day. Yeah. No. I think that's great. And when I think about Evan's care, it's specifically around the consoles. Yeah. I've been in a lot of control rooms, in my time. And, you know, not just can they be a rat's nest of cabling and computers right there, but to your point, I haven't necessarily seen the fingernails, handy work. You don't want to. Huddles and dust bunnies and all that kind of good stuff. So, I think the duty of care conversation speaks in my mind to the mental, emotional, and physical aspects of the operator Evans care definitely speaks, specifically to the physical side of it. So thank you both very much. And hence now the audience knows why you guys are on here talking about duty of care and the operator experience. So let's talk a little bit about that. I I I have my my thoughts on this have matured a little bit over the past couple of years. I came from the technology side of the business, in terms of control room integration. And I've seen this, this migration over to what I'm gonna call the human aspect of the control room And I saw a great quote two weeks ago when I was in Brussels, which is technology is not a technical problem, but it's a human problem. And I think that speaks a lot to what we do in the control room environment. It's very easy for us to overlook the human sitting in the chair. Talk to me and I, you know, this is an open question. Talk to me about that operator. Talk to me about, you know, why it's so important for us to focus on him or in a control room setting and us as technologists. Well, I mean, for me, you know, having gotten into this industry, I've sim similar to Tanya, I came from a medical industry background. So you know, getting involved in nine one one was really eye opening, and I always tongue and I always talk about this. Like, if if the public knew some of the environments that we walk into that these operators are working out of. I think there would be an upheaval of attention put on it. I think the public would be outraged to see some of the conditions that these people work in. And having experienced both the really, really great centers and the really not so great centers, there's such a a shift in and the understanding of of what these people do, what they deal with. You know, there's a huge push right now on the state level to And a lot of people don't know this to get nine one one operators first responder benefits. They are still classified by the federal government as clerical workers. So the thinking just thinking about it from a personal experience, if you took a phone call from a friend who's in trouble, in a car accident or something, and knowing that you can't physically see what's happening, you can't understand the extent of the accident. You can't, your literally trying to visualize your friend or family member in at at their worst moment. And the mental capacity that it takes, the emotional capacity that it takes to understand that, and try to empathize and try to aid that person when you can't see what's happening. I just that I cannot physically mentally wrap my head around it. I've been doing this for so long, and it's still to this day is the one thing that it stresses me out just thinking about it. You know, and and most dispatchers, I think, would say that, you know, probably fifty, sixty percent of the calls that they take on a daily basis, maybe more are really not that bad. You know, it's a little old lady calling because she fell down or she can't, you know, whatever it is. It's nothing super critical. But in those moments of upset, those, you know, the shooting in Las Vegas, the school shootings, unfortunately, that we see too many times now. The Denise Ambberley situations, anything like that that really affects you just as a human being and to know that these people don't get the support that police and fire rescue do. It it boggles my mind. And I think that's the thing that I and that is the thing that I know both Tanya and I are super passionate about, and Evans is a corporate sponsor for the Denise Amber Lee Foundation, which I know we're gonna get into a little bit later. But for me, just if we can affect any little piece of what they do in a daily basis. Yes. At the end of the day, we do furniture. But it's furniture that's essential for them to operate at their fully best capacity for them to operate with less fatigue, with less eye strain, with less physical demands of the job because they have to be so mentally focused. So, again, I think for us, like, were such a small piece of the puzzle, but it is an essential piece for them to do their job on a daily basis. Yep. And I'm gonna I'm gonna jump on there and just say that one of my favorite things about Evans, and I'm just gonna do a shameless plug for the company that we work for. We actually we consider the person that's sitting at the console or in that control room first and foremost. So behind the scenes, There's an insane amount of research and development that goes into making sure that all of our product is ergonomically correct. We're doing research on lighting. We're doing research on acoustics to make sure that we can provide, like, the best possible things for a dispatcher to have the best environment possible because as to Megan's comments. One, dispatchers are not required in all of the states to actually go through any kind of training. So in twenty three states, there is a minimum training requirement. In the rest of the states, there are not. So that means that you or I could actually go into some of those centers today and they sit you down at a console. They put a headset on you and they say go ahead and answer the phone. And I would not be trained to handle somebody who's going into cardiac arrest or talking to somebody who's suicidal and getting them off the ledge, things like that. And you're taking those calls back to back to back. So like Megan said, you can talk to somebody who you may actually listen to somebody take their own life. You may listen to a parent standing there with their child taking their very last breath. And then after that, taking a a critical event, a school shooting, or, you know, things like that, like that emotional and mental toll is going to take it's going to take its effect, like, quickly. So that why all of the things that we're doing are so important. There are studies out there too that showcase the amount of obesity, heart conditions, blood clots, all these physical conditions that affect dispatchers more so than any other job because staffing has always been an issue in in public safety and nine one one, and they have to sit at these desks and work overtime for fourteen plus hours a day. I mean, I it's very rare now that we find a nine one one center that is fully staffed. They are out there. And kudos to to those centers. But We call them unicorns. Unicorns. It's not the norm, and that's Oh, it's sad. And it is because there's no benefits, lack of pay, you know, the demands of the job, the emotional demands of this job which can lead to all of these physical ailments that then force you into early retirement or in having you know, diseases that in any other environment you might not be affected by. Yeah. Yeah. So, Barco, received shameless plugs around Tanya. That's that's okay. That's okay. So so Barca just completed, last year in twenty twenty two, an operator serve. Actually, it wasn't just operators. Control room professionals. They surveyed over a thousand control room professionals at along the lines of a lot of different data points. And there were a couple of things that speak to this topic. One, over sixty percent. I don't think you, you disagree, but be more than interested to hear your concept. Over sixty percent of control room operators at the time of the survey survey, we're considering leaving their job within the next six months. That does not surprise me. I'm surprised it's not higher than sixty. I am too, actually. Like every survey, some people are lying to you. Right? Yeah. No. I love my job. It's great. Right. It it it speaks to what I consider to be the number one problem, which is operator retention in the control environment. But the other part of that's also interesting is those same operators over seventy five percent of them said that, the right technology, the right environments you know, speaks directly to job satisfaction. Yep. Which any kind of, you know, manager of a space should hear that correlation. My people are gonna leave unless I do some things differently in terms of my space, you know, kinda create the unicorn to your extent. I think it boils down for me into, the greatest asset and the greatest risk of any control room is the operator sitting in the chair. Kind of pivoting into, into, you both mentioned the Nissan Relief Foundation and its mission and charge. Tanya. Can you talk a little bit about talk a lot about the Nissan Relief foundation, educate the education educate the community and and talk it up. Okay. I have a little insight to the Denise family information. Nathan and I met, I think, seven years ago at a conference and, became friends for a good long time a couple of years before him and I actually became in a relationship, and then we eventually got married. So we have a blended family now of seven kids. The foundation was actually founded about six months after Nathan's wife, Denise, was kidnapped from their home in broad daylight, leaving their two little boys home alone. Noah was two, and Adam was six months old. Her kidnapper took her and raped her for hours, and then eventually murdered her. And she could have been saved multiple times that day, and it was due to a couple of different things. It was due to a center not having a really, really good environment, just working well together and holding people accountable to doing their job the right way and the best way possible and communication. So there was a there was an onlooker that actually saw Denise in her kidnapper's car. She called nine one one. She told them that she could see that something wasn't right. And at that point of that phone call, there were four different police vehicles that could have been there within seconds to save her. That call didn't get dispatched. And unfortunately, ten minutes after that call we know now that Denise was killed. Nathan started the foundation because he didn't want that to happen to another twenty one year old mother. But he also didn't want that to happen to another center. And so now the foundation has grown. We have an insane amount of classes and trainers that teach for the foundation Nathan teaches his own stories called the victim's plea. He goes through an eight hour class of what happened that day in the center and also what could have been done differently and leaves everybody with that class that attends that class, hopefully inspired and knowing how important doing their job is and how important it is to not become complacent. And to treat every call like it's an emergency and tell you no different. So now we have trainers from that have worked the Las Vegas fire. We have three trainers from there that worked the night of the mandalay base shooting, which was another very traumatic event in nine one one. We have people who train on human trafficking, which is probably one of the number one concerns in the public safety world right now, the more awareness that dispatchers and public safety in general have about that, the better we can save those victims. We have classes on PTSD. We have classes on domestic violence. Just tons, tons of things, tons of resources that can be helpful to a center and motivate them and provide just more awareness and more knowledge because, you know, knowledge is power. The more we know, the better we can help. And so that's the foundation's been going for, over fifteen years now. And, I really honestly couldn't be more proud of Nathan. Yeah. No. It it it since the first moment I heard about it a couple years ago, it it struck a chord I I, you know, and the more that I hear about the deficiencies in a controlled environment, the the things that the foundation is doing in order to train those operators get the quality up. You know, equipping them for the, you know, not just the perfunctory requirements of their job, but also the emotional and mental, in in psychological, trauma that they will deal with as operators, in serving the community. I think it's it's it's it's one of the it's it's one of the bright points of the control room environment in terms of giving back to those people that take care of all of us, those unsung heroes, so to speak. For sure, You you talked about the the webinars and, the community. We're leading into January twenty eighth in Nashville. If I have my dates and city correct. Knoxville. Knoxville. My apologies. It's just about two hours away Nashville. It's fine. See, that's very funny. Talk to me about be the difference. So this will be our second annual conference. And Megan was actually at our first annual. That was in Myrtle Beach this act this year, January. We had forty one states represented. It's a national conference. It was our very first in person. Prior to that, we had done two events on, just virtual, I guess. This year, it's more sorry, next year. It's going to be in Knoxville, and we already have forty states represented. We are almost capped out at five hundred attendees, which is going to be the maximum that we allow for this event just because we're trying to keep it intimate. We want people to create connections. We want vendors to actually be able to attend sessions. So that they can actually hear firsthand what this industry struggles with, what they face, what they need. So it's a unique event. We have all of our speakers, our hand selected. All of our sessions are two hours long instead of one, just because We feel like that's of more value to an attendee to actually be able to hear something and learn at the same time. We're in collaboration with Adam Tim of the Healthy dispatcher who is phenomenal and has his own training company as well. So it's a elaboration between the two of us, and we're really, really excited. This year, we don't have to work out all of the first time kinks. So we know a little bit more what we're doing. All of our kids attend, so you get to meet all seven of the kids. And, Noah and Adam actually speak with their dad last year was the very first time. And, so I think it's really unique to hear from them And, I referenced a caller just a couple minutes ago. Jane Kowalski, she will actually be attending for the second year as well. She's the one who called the nine one one, and we're, you know, told them about seeing Denise in the car. So That was actually really emotional last year. I surprised Nathan by having her there. And so she spoke with him as well up on the stage. She's going to tend again, which I'm really excited about. And we may have we may have another surprise guest at this one, but I can't say more than that. So It's not my husband. Right? No. You won't be there. I don't be there. No. He's there. I love you. Yeah. That's awesome. So so you heard it here first that there's gonna be a surprise guest, but we won't say who it was. That's right. I don't even know. No. I'm excited. And I'm horrible with secrets. So just don't don't don't tell them. Even if you're going to. I'm I'm truly disappointed. I won't be able to be there due to a schedule conflict but count me in for next year. I think I think the mission sounds, enormous. The sense of community especially in the nine one one, you know, industry, I think is it's it's it's there, but it's also lacking. Yeah. People have me, you know, why why do you see so much operator centric activities and support groups and what have you, in nine one one. And and it's an interesting question because there are so many other control room vertical markets. You know, Megan, you mentioned transportation earlier as part of your purview. You know, I have a shotgun approach in that. We have, we have support for all these different vertical segments. Why do you think nine one one, right, has this, this sense of community that maybe we don't see in some of these other markets? Sure. Or maybe they other markets too. And I I just don't know. No. I I think, really, it's been the lack the lack of support that they have had from you know, either a a decision maker level or government level, whatever it may be. And I I do think The foundation to me is a huge part of this. I mean, I may be a little bit biased just because I love these people so much and I love their mission, and you know, I'm fortunate enough that my predecessor created this relationship with them, and I get to carry it on, and I'm proud that we do that. But I do think that peer support I wanna say probably post nine eleven. It became more and more and more and more evident that the emotional toll this job takes on people. You know, sadly, the suicide rate in nine one one is huge, in nine one one dispatchers. And there was no out there's no outlet for them. And so I think, you know, friends of the foundation like Ricardo Martinez who created his own podcast who now has worldwide followers talking about the job and allowing people to express their emotions. And and I do think too it's a cultural shift to, the discussion of mental health is no longer taboo. And I do think that nine one one is one of those industries that has been pushed aside or forgotten for so long that there's now kind of a new realm of of people in charge or in authority who are taking a stand and saying, we can't, we can't continue to do this job the way we've done it for the last forty years. And again, I the cultural shift you know, worldwide of the mental health discussion, is such a a positive one for this industry in particular in particular because there just hasn't been that. You know, I just I kinda related my my fathers of Vietnam veteran. So I kinda relate it back to what they dealt with coming home from Vietnam, and it was like, son, you're okay. You're you're fine. And, unfortunately, that group of men out of anybody has the worst stat on mental health issues and lack of TSD. So, you know, I I kinda relate it back to that in that it it wasn't you didn't talk about it. You just don't talk about it. Don't talk about it. Now, again, I think there's a younger generation coming through and saying it's okay to not be okay, and that's one of the things that Tanya says over and over in our our presentations that we do is, allowing people to express themselves, allowing them to take a a beat after a hard call or, you know, I remember when the Pulse nightclub shooting happened here in Orlando, And, I was working with that center at the time or had just worked with them. And, went to see them couple weeks after it happened and the dispatcher who took the main call, she left. She couldn't she couldn't do the job anymore. But, you know, they were doing things like bringing in therapy dogs and they were allowing peer support groups to to kind of come together and that kind of thing. So I and I do think too there's our world is changing. There's so much bad stuff happening on a daily basis. We can't tell people to just get over it anymore. It we just don't operate that way. I think there's more human emotion nowadays than maybe there was allowed to be in the past. So I do think it's a it's an industry shift. I think it's a cultural shift. It's a worldwide approach to looking at mental health a little more clearly. And it's such a huge part of what the nine one one operators need. More so than anybody else. I think that public safety above all other verticals, I think it's more of a it's a trauma bonding. Like, when they get together at a conference or they take a class together, they start learning that it's not just them. Like, they they start identifying with their peers. They start learning like, hey, I'm not weird. Like, this is this is actually like normal for me to feel this way, and that's what Megan said. I talk about, like, we need to normalize not being okay because that is actually how we're going to help each other. Like knowing, like, If you listened to somebody, take their life and then you struggle, that's okay. That's normal. And there's things that you can do. There's help that we can get you there's peer support as Megan noted noted, we peer support is something that Megan and I are both very passionate about because that is help we help each other. Coming together, doing what we need to offering resources, and it doesn't cost any money. It actually just means that you all come together and help each other in time of need. So, you know, yes, we need to lift each other up, and I think that that's where that family feel comes from in public safety is. We're learning, like, lifting each other up is how we help the most. So Yeah. And and and so just echoing that a little bit for the for the audience that's out there. Right? So denise Amber Lee dot org is the website for the Nissan foundation information on me. The difference will be there. That's a great organization to get tapped into. Not in one wonder woman, right, with what Sarah Weston is doing around building community and empowerment. I think is another organization within public safety. But if you are listening to this and you are in security or in electrical utilities or in transportation and you're looking for the sense of community, you know, look into the nine one one, but pull those in and create something, reach out to people to start the conversation. You know, Denise, I'm not sure where how that started as a group. I know nine one wonder woman started as a Facebook group, so you can do that. But the the idea is you're not alone. You know, the stress that you have in your job, other people are feeling that stress, and there are other people to tie into and relate to what you're going through. Fair? Yeah. Absolutely. Yep. So, again, I'm disappointed. I'm not gonna be in Knoxville. Me too. Hey. Looking down for now. Okay. Sure. I'm going to. I would love to have you both back on, and and maybe maybe Nathan join us too. In order to, kinda share some of those insights, some of those lessons learned, some of those stories, and continue to advocate and amplify the message of not just what the Denise and relief foundation stands for, but also the nine one one community and the operator community specifically if you're willing to come back. Absolutely. I'm in. Pretty sure I can tap the agent into. Yeah. I can't I can't. We won't talk very much on that one then if he's there, but I think that'll be okay. I'm super excited for you guys to share who that guest was. And and, I mean, you guys have an impactful event in January. Thank you both so much for spending some time with me today. This was awesome. Thank you, Dan. Tanya and Megan, thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Merry Christmas, everybody. And on behalf of knock your socks off, thank you for joining us today. Stay tuned for the next episode where we continue to uncover and share stories from the control room. I'm getting Gundry. Thank you.