Hi Shenette,So good to meet you virtually. I work with Roundabout Theatre Company in our Audience Services Department and our additional brand Criterion Ticketing. This is something our management team is very passionate about and I'm happy to share about what we've done to combat this.
A big addition was our company crafted an Audience Agreement that is shared in all of our pre-trip emails, along with being posted in our Ticketing Polices on our website. They also ensure that this is published at various areas of our venues for review and so our house staff can direct our guests to, when engaging.Additionally our Audience Services Department created its own Culture Statement that we shared with our colleagues internally. This shared our department's values and how we intend to interact with patrons that challenge said values. We shared it with the company as a way to affirm our intentions but also empower the other departments that engage with our audiences that their practices would be in line with our overall service. It included not only our ethos about customers, but also how we intended to support our staff and their identifies.Also our Call Center Manager team adapted materials we'd received in our DEAI sessions regarding Dismantling Microaggressions, and focused it on when customers were committing the microaggressions against our phone and box office representatives. We shared the materials along with hosting training sessions to discuss how to interrupt these moments and call in the actions. This in particular empowered our reps to address behavior with customers rather than feeling like they had to accept it and find ways afterwards to manage the after effects. And our managers ensure that they are there not only to support the staff if needed with the customers, but also ensuring that our staff have the resources they need for any after care. This sometimes means making sure other departments understand this might look like having a coloring book at their desk, knitting, or needing to step away for extended periods of time. We're always challenging the concept of "professionalism" and interrogating if certain accepted behaviors are actually necessary to the role. The work continues off of this and we're actually in the process of another Well Being check in with our staff about the resources they're looking for in their roles. Last year we scheduled conference room times and meetings, but when the group came in we played board games while we hosted discussions about the workflow and challenges in the department. This year we're starting with a survey first to find the topics to target and then we'll schedule some individualized sessions from there. But finding ways to not make it feel like it's an interrogation and ensuring people do feel like they can be vulnerable in their feedback.