AFP – It’s not easy to know how to comfort that colleague who runs out of a meeting crying, or how to approach someone who suddenly starts skipping all team lunches.
It’s even trickier when a major change occurs in a company’s organisational structure (a takeover or the arrival of a new CEO) and employees can suffer to such an extent that it has (negative) repercussions on their work.
But for certain types of employees, preserving workers’ well-being while ensuring company productivity is a kind of second nature. These workers are known as toxic handlers. In other words, they are people who master the art of diplomacy and conflict resolution.
There’s nothing toxic about a toxic handler – that kind of colleague who has a gift for mediation and who can be called upon to manage tricky situations and defuse conflict. In other words, they’re the kind of person you might dream of having on your team at work.
These profiles are capable of adapting their language and discourse to that of their audience, making them particularly adept at establishing dialogue and acting as intermediaries between employees and management.
Although toxic handlers can be found in any type of position and at any level in a company’s organisational hierarchy, they are more likely to put their skills into action when they occupy key positions and/or positions of responsibility. Getting along with everyone (from management to employees to human resources) seems to be helpful in making someone a toxic handler.
And that’s only logical, since one of the pillars of the toxic handler profile is the ability to play the role of mediator, which can hardly be done without maintaining good relationships based on respect and trust with all concerned.
NOT NEW
Toxic handlers are still little-known, and even undervalued by some companies, but they are far from new. In 1999, two American researchers conducted a study to take a closer look at these workplace mediators.
Published in the prestigious Harvard Business Review, their survey even coined the term toxic handler. “Toxic handlers are not new, but our research strongly suggests that two trends in recent years have intensified the need for them,” the research explained.
At the time, the study already identified two major factors driving the increased need for this type of profile in the workplace: major change within companies and significant downsizing.
“Whenever a company lays off employees, the people left behind feel a backwash of guilt and fear. As the question ‘Who will be next?’ swirls around the organisation, toxic handlers step in to soothe nerves and redirect people’s energies back to work,” the paper’s co-authors write.
A POSITIVE PRESENCE
More than a mediator or a confidant, the toxic handler generally knows how to empathise, and how to find solutions and ways to implement them, as well as anticipating employees’ problems or wishes. In short, this person is anything but toxic.
On the contrary, they can prove invaluable to a company, and most employees will probably be delighted to count this kind of person among their colleagues.
Thirty years on, and especially in the wake of the pandemic that has profoundly changed the world of work, the need for toxic handlers seems more relevant than ever.
In 2019, French authors Gilles Teneau and Géraldine Lemoine published Toxic handlers, les générateurs de bienveillance en entreprise, (Toxic handlers: Generators of kindness in the workplace) by Éditions Odile Jacob.
In this book, the researchers paint a detailed portrait of these individuals. “In the corporate world, we are increasingly noticing that certain personalities can be good for others when there are difficulties or crises to face. Empathetic and altruistic, they are capable of improving the quality of life at work, while curbing stress and suffering,” the authors wrote.
It’s an undeniable skill and a highly rewarding role, but it’s one that also entails risks, starting with that of emotional burnout.
ROLE AND RISKS
To protect from this emotional overload and manage the stress of helping others, the book’s authors recommend practising mindfulness meditation or sophrology sessions.
But two methods described in Teneau and Lemoine’s book seem to stand out as ideal solutions for taking on the role of toxic handler without sacrificing mental health. The first is to take other people’s problems into account, but be careful not to make their suffering your own. The second is based on resilience, and advocates providing other employees with concrete solutions based on your own past experiences.
If you recognise yourself in these descriptions and feel that a toxic handler lies within you, perhaps this is the opportunity to develop a new soft skill that could be worth its weight in gold on the job market in the years to come.
