The Paramedic ‘7Cs’ Service Paradigm: The Right Way to Take Care of Business and People

'7Cs' PARAGON PARAMEDICS, Regan Haydu and Sylvia Walters, BCAS/Photo: Sheree Haydu

On the first sweltering day of summer 2012 here in Gibsons, B.C., and just after struggling up a steep hot hill with my bicycle, I suddenly grayed out (just shy of a full blackout) and flopped onto a grassy roadside patch.

That was because of a physiological and circumstantial perfect storm that descended on me mid-afternoon, on that sweet sweat-soaked broiler.

I learned two lessons from the experience: one about the dangers of hot weather, the other about the “7Cs” of outstanding professional service (that should be a template for other services)—thanks to the terrific ambulance paramedics who came to my rescue.

Carting Off More Than I Could Chew

My initiation into the “7Cs” of model client-care happened this way: I more or less keeled over just as I finished bicycling up the “Hellmalayan” slope of one of Gibsons notorious small-town replicas of the real Himalayas. That was also on top of an immediately preceding strenuous, weird, one-off forty-minute drippy trip with a fully-loaded clattering supermarket shopping cart packed with very perishable frozen foods (the result of my missing the infrequent bus, having rapidly thawing food and finding no available taxis).

On the first leg of that ill-advised trek, I had to keep a very tight and shifting rein on the heavy, unwieldy cart that lurched forward like a huge hell-bent rodeo steer not easily steered, down another steep hill, and basically carry it down a long staircase that has 35 steps.  Then I had to trundle it along a highway, for about a half-mile, uphill, for the final sweaty stretch. Pretty much ensuring the inevitability of that near-blackout, I ate and drank nothing that morning or afternoon before the second, bicycle-based wobbly leg of the trip.

Fortunately, my splatfall quickly drew a Good Samaritan couple out of their home to help, and to recruit a coincidentally passing paramedic (on the same road, to retrieve a wandering dog), who then called an ambulance that was immediately dispatched.

Not only was I promptly rescued, looked after and thankful, I was also impressed. Very impressed.

The “7Cs” of Outstanding Paramedic Ambulance Service

In writing a thank-you note to the B.C. Ambulance Service offices (and after paying a thank-you visit to two of my three initial rescuers, Donna and Randy), I tangentially realized that what I was thanking and admiring the paramedic responders for were highly specific, yet professionally very broadly applicable considerations—specifically the associated

• Competence(clear control and expertise in dealing with the emergency)
• Care(concerned, completely involved and careful handling and treatment)
• Consideration (in addressing my concerns and en route special requests, e.g., for a completely bump-free ride, since I was queasy)
• Caution (e.g., in gently moving me and in ensuring that all possible causes of the episode were investigated en route, as well as in the hospital)
• Comfort (e.g., dimming the overhead lights for me, putting me on a stretcher that could double as a great beach lounge)
• Confidence (displayed and inspired)
• Closure (prompt testing, diagnosis and resolution of the condition)

As a mnemonic, these “7Cs” would make a great training-course component and model for any ambulance service, or, for that matter, many other, if not most, professional services, including recruiting.

Even if individually familiar, the items collectively constitute a useful performance checklist for many, if not most service-based jobs.

Clearly, however, these outcomes and procedures were either instinctive or otherwise well-mastered by the paramedics who attended me. Still, having them conceptually crystallized as “7Cs” can set a standard for others to set for themselves, while contributing to our understanding of what makes service not merely good, but, more than that, excellent.

Their application to recruiting is, despite the hope that they should be individually obvious and commonplace, useful and subtly instructive—especially since the 7Cs perfectly map into the job of a recruiter.

The Recruiter Version of the 7Cs

Here’s how they match:

• Competence:Obviously, a recruiter needs to be and appear to be competent. Enough said about that.
• Care:This has a double meaning. On the one hand, and behaviorally interpreted, it means taking care in providing service, i.e., being “careful”; on the other hand and additionally, emotionally it means caring—i.e., actually attaching importance to the outcomes and being “care-full”.
• Consideration:This is trickier than competence and care, because it’s much more open to misinterpretation over a spectrum ranging from impeccable attentiveness to the needs and legitimate desires of clients to under-the-table special deals, indulgences or caving in. Properly construed, consideration is sensitivity to and accommodation of the needs and desires of clients, but only to the extent that the benefits and costs are measured exclusively in service terms and benefits to those served, while allowing that rules may be “bent” only so far as those terms and their mandate allow.
• Caution: In a recruiting setting, this means practices such as due diligence in vetting jobs, clients and candidates; noting and prioritizing red flags in resumes, jobs, etc.;  and not over-glamorizing or over-stating opportunities, benefits or the “goodness-of-job-fit”. By the same token, it means not understating the negatives, costs and limitations of a job or job-applicant.
• Comfort: Unless you are recruiting for the NFL, the likes of Yale’s Skull and Bones, or the Army, it’s to be hoped you will make candidates and recruits comfortable. The psychological technique of making an applicant feel humbled, intimidated by or physically uncomfortable in the interview or other recruitment stage in order to gain negotiation leverage or to lay the groundwork for future on-the-job submissiveness and “loyalty” comes with no guarantee of success.

In fact, allowing candidates or recruits to become or remain uncomfortable can easily cause them and the interviewer to lose focus, as well as interest. Example: There is the case of the Japanese company that hired only those applicants who kept on their suit jackets in sweltering interview rooms when invited to remove them (as proof of “dedication” and “professionalism”). By deliberately exploiting, if not creating, discomfort, the company was inadvertently or stupidly weeding out sensible people and losing the right focus on and interest in the rejected applicants, while increasing the likelihood that paramedics would be have to be summoned.

• Confidence: A recruiter wants to inspire as well as display confidence. The display is obviously important as an adjunct to and evidence of his or her own confidence. However, inspiring confidence not only in the services provided and service provider, but also in the applicant in the form of self-confidence and confidence in your shared judgments about the career choice, is absolutely critical—even and especially when the job applied for will not be offered.

A good recruiter will do as much as is authentically possible to leave every candidate’s (and applicant’s) self-confidence intact, to the extent that the facts allow for that.  This can be as simple as an automated, yet encouraging rejection email or as sophisticated as an objective, yet constructive review of how realistic the career goals and expectations are.

• Closure:When I left the hospital emergency ward, I was satisfied that my condition had been thoroughly tested, accurately diagnosed and satisfactorily resolved. I had closure regarding an incident that, despite having initially being consistent with some very spooky medical scenarios, turned out to be the least worrying—simple heat exhaustion that developed without warning and treated with rehydrating juice, a cool space and some rest.

A good HR department, like a good ambulance service and hospital emergency ward, will make whatever closure that is possible a priority. In recruiting, often the most appreciated form of closure is also the simplest: a clear “yes” or “no”—in the form of a courtesy rejection letter or email that requires no specialized training.

Additional Service “Cs”

To these 7Cs, I am, based on this very positive medical experience, inclined to add one more: “Cost-effectiveness”, given that the ambulance ride; EKG; blood-sugar test; blood-pressure tests; paramedic, physician and nurse services and everything else are all covered or kept to a minimum by the comprehensive BC Medical Services Plan (which costs between $0 and $64 per month and $0-$80 for emergency ambulance transport, given MSP enrollment and depending on the beneficiary’s financial circumstances).

In a recruiting and HR context, “cost-effectiveness” translates into getting the best bang for the buck, time and energy of all parties—the recruiter, the applicant and the client. As a beneficiary of those medical services, I greatly appreciated how cost-effective the experience was.

As a recruiter, you should carefully review how cost-effective your own professional experience is—for yourself, the candidate and the prospective employer (while allowing for and balancing likely tradeoffs among these), e.g., weighing time you save at the expense of the candidate and vice versa and how to minimize its expenditure for both of you.

If, in addition to offering the 8Cs just enumerated, you really want to earn from your job candidates the kind of gratitude I felt toward not only my attending medical professionals, but also for all the associated provincial facilities, equipment and tests, you may want to consider dangling something like the 9^th great “C”.

“Canadian health insurance”.

(With still-pumping-heartfelt thanks to Donna, Randy, the roadside paramedic, the staff at St. Mary’s Hospital, Sechelt and Regan and Sylvia—the Gibsons-based ambulance paramedics whose great stretcher-side manner made my first ride in the back of an ambulance a very cool experience on a very hot day.)