key: cord-0059365-38rbln5n
authors: Daniel, Teresa A.
title: Why Organizations Need Them
date: 2020-09-05
journal: Organizational Toxin Handlers
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-51685-7_7
sha: 20fdbd35b2d3b0e5e2c2ccd95b47ccf2d5773c0d
doc_id: 59365
cord_uid: 38rbln5n

In this chapter there will be a discussion of the myriad of ways that organizational toxin handlers help their organizations to remain effective and functioning, despite significant distractions and emotional events (e.g. downsizings, mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcies). TAKEAWAYS FOR PRACTITIONERS: Clarity about how toxin handlers improve productivity, profitability, and organizational effectiveness. An understanding about how to explain the role to senior leaders and to make the case for why it is important to allow toxin handlers to spend their time with employees engaging in this important work;

If you do not have that person who can sit down with people and be compassionate, be a good listener, be a good communicator, I think problems fester, they escalate, and you have huge problems in the end. So, if organizations do have people who are capable of being the toxic handlers, you're going to have a more efficient operation. You're going to have an operation who handles problems at a lower level and they never get out of control. So I think it [having a toxin handler] has a huge impact on an organization.

It is important work for the organization. It helps employees to be able to manage their workflow and continue being productive when they are not distracted by their personal/professional struggles. I've had this said to me by the executives I work with that they think that the support that I give them enables them to do their jobs and to be successful in their roles. Therefore, it drives the success of the business. When people are bitter or sad or frustrated or mad, they are devoting a lot of their energy towards that. I would assume that makes them less productive and less likable to be around … so having a toxin handler around has to have a positive impact as far as you know allowing people to vent … so I think it must be a positive if it's handled well.

I believe they have a major impact on organizational effectiveness. Something as small but so important as communication can be the difference between a successful and unsuccessful outcome. Take for example the massive reorganization and downsizing that I was working on. If it's organized, if you bring HR and everybody together before you act, and you make sure to communicate with employees throughout the entire process, making sure that it's transparent and that you are being candid, that's huge.

Because when you're dealing with people's feelings, there is high anxiety and high tension. It's the way those issues are handled and communicated that can be the difference between employees coming to work being unfocused versus being confident that their employers and companies have their best interest at heart. A happy workforce is an effective workforce. People are happy when they feel supported and they're more effective and/or they work better in teams. If people aren't allowed to bring their personal lives to work or if they feel that there's a line when I walk in that door and I can't bring any of it [their personal lives] with me, you're not getting the best out of that employee.

In addition, because the toxin handler helps to de-escalate emotional situations and make employees feel valued in the process, their work also helps to reduce the potential for lawsuits and claims of discrimination and harassment. I think if you do not have somebody in the role to respectively deal with it that you get a lot more claims of harassment and discrimination, and maybe potential lawsuits because you don't have the stable calming person who can deescalate and help people move through these issues that they have with one another, and that they have with managers. When you get in the middle of all these investigations and people are not doing the work of the business. They are involved in these lawsuits or investigations because it [the toxic emotion] wasn't dealt with well.

The work protects both employees and the organization. Having HR deal with emotional situations helps get rid of bad employees and helps other employees to feel appreciated and respected by the organization when someone will listen to them and act to assist. The work helps the organization stay in good legal standing and to "stay on the high road" all the time.

The work of an organizational toxin handler is both valuable and important, not only to employees, but also to the organizations where they work. The evidence is unequivocal that organizations need them in order to stay focused and productive (not to mention continuing to be profitable). Given this, it remains somewhat paradoxical that this work is so often undervalued and somewhat invisible.

Managing toxic emotions at work: An empirical study of HR's role and its Impact on personal well-being and organizational effectiveness