Unit 4, 1.2 "Describe challenging behaviours & issues in the workplace" and 1.3, "Explain the role of the key people to inform in relation to these examples."

Unit 4, 1.2 - "Describe challenging behaviours and issues in the workplace" and 1.3 - "Explain the role of the key people to inform in relation to these examples."


Life isn't plain sailing. If it was, we wouldn't be able to form ourselves as 'proper' human beings (to an extent anyway). Certain things we come across in life, whether they are negative or positive, can make us better people for it, so of course, in the workplace, you're going to face difficult hurdles you'll have to overcome.


One prime example of a challenging event that may come to light during a working day is the infamous rude person on the phone. This can happen in mostly any office-based job you have, and to try and communicate with someone via the phone who isn't being very nice, well, we all know that is a difficult task to carry out.


Other examples of challenges and issues you may come across can be double booked meetings (where you have booked one meeting at the same as the other) or mixing up a delivery time and date.


When either of those issues arise, you will usually have to speak to someone, particularly when it comes to something as important as a delivery.


Let's go with the delivery scenario, here. I have had this problem before at work, where I have had to change the time of a delivery because there will be no one in the office, or that whatever package is getting delivered has to be couriered ASAP.


Depending on who this is going to effect, you need to make sure that you are in constant contact with this person. A good example is when we were shooting our film, the production office was based in the North (way outside of London), so a lot of packages would be delivered to our London office where I worked.


If something was sent to me and I had to get it couriered to a London address, I would have to be in frequent contact with the Production Manager and Production Coordinator; possibly the Line Manager on occasions. They would need to know, if that were through phoning or emailing, whether the job had been done, and if complications would arise to stop me from carrying out the task.


Another example of a challenging behaviour and issue that has arisen in my work is something I have reprinted from Unit 5. 


(Note for this example I’m going to change the names of the people involved in the situation.)

Recently, I came across Martin, who was dissatisfied with the service he was receiving from another colleague, Sarah, working on the film we were shooting.

The colleague in question had family issues and couldn’t return to work for a few weeks, and she was the only person who could deal with Martin’s problems. I told Martin I would do my best to contact Sarah (sending her emails/ringing her up), but that is all I could do.

I went about trying to get in contact with Sarah, and found, when I rung her up, I caught her at a really bad time. Doing so put me in a bad position (this could be looked upon as being ‘unprofessional’) but this was the only way that I could resolve the situation – by getting in contact with her

When I spoke to Martin, I informed him that I spoke to Sarah and that she would be in by the end of the week, (though it wasn’t 100% certain this was going to happen).

I completely understood Martin’s situation, but since this was something that was out of my hands and I couldn’t deal with personally, I had to give him as many contact numbers and emails as possible for people that possibly might have been able to help. 

In the end, I managed to get in contact with one of our companies contacts who then took on board Martin’s case and tried to resolve it the best they could.

Situations like these, I’ve found, arise a lot when working in a production company. Particularly when people are away and you are the only one to deal with their request, knowing that you can’t deal with it personally is aggravating sometimes. You want to help out the person in need as best as you can, but when you don’t have the information or the means to do so, then it is practically impossible.

All the issues that we face at work, or life in general, can either be self-inflicted ones (due to harmless mistakes and misunderstandings), or being at the receiving end of someone else's problems that you have to try and fix out. It's impossible not to face tasks in the work place, as there will always be something that crops up that will put us in a situation where we are faced with challenging behaviours issues. And, when these complications do arise, we need to be aware of the people that we need to inform about these situations.