What We Do For You
Aviation Security, Law Enforcement, and Emergency Management Training and Consulting
Shortly after the events of 9-11, the aviation industry scrambled to quickly hire and staff additional law enforcement, security, and other personnel to meet the new regulations, policies, procedures, and protocols required to address 21st century terrorism and security standards. These new resources were unfamiliar with the unique challenges aviation presented, and the legacy resources required a significant paradigm shift where financial consideration was not the only bottom line that required attention.
Owner and Senior Facilitator LaPonda Fitchpatrick, Los Angeles World Airports Police Captain (Ret.), developed the Aviation Security for Law Enforcement Officers Course, in late 2001, for a nation-wide audience, whether new or seasoned, that addressed the new normal in aviation security and law enforcement response. Since its inception, the course has been given several times per year and is the longest running course of its kind.
As the need for aviation safety, security, and emergency response training expanded along with the personnel that are now charged with these responsibilities, we have developed a number of companion courses to meet the demand. This includes Aviation Crisis Management, targeting all levels of personnel including middle and upper management, Active Shooter/Mass Casualty Response, Emergency Response Manaagement, Insider Threat and Terrorist Motivation, Psychological Preparedness, Suicide/Homicide Bombers, Airport Terrorism and Response, Aviation Security Officers Workshop, and other customized training for a variety of audiences.
With our hands-on, intimate knowledge, and expertise in the aviation and law enforcement industry, LaPonda J. Fitchpatrick, can add value to your company or organization through customized training and security assessments, emergency exercise development and facilitation, and emergency response protocols to build systems, methods, policies and procedures, and courses that will keep your employees, customers, and others as safe and secure as possible.
Whether through consultation, aviation policy development, or training tailored to your specific needs, we can increase your security posture while ensuring you meet or exceed the ever-changing national and international aviation security standards and the new normal in airport safety and security.
Policy and Procedures, Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Development, and Human Resources Training
Your company can have great people, strong capital, a fantastic product, and a clear vision. But, it only takes one inappropriate incident to reduce all of your hard work to a footnote in the annals of "could have been great." If you have not created a strong employee manual, EEO policy or reviewed these policies in quite some time, policies that must include mandatory and recurrent training to include employee coaching on how to treat people in the workplace, you are walking a very fine tightrope.
LaPonda J. Fitchpatrick can be your alarm clock and your wake-up call to ensure that your employees, contractors, and others that work for your company in all capacities are aware of their requirements to treat all people equally and within your policies and procedures and the law. With a passion for ensuring all employees are being treated fairly, we will stress the need for treating people with dignity and respect throughout the working environment and assist you and your staff in creating proper documentation and practices that can be utilized for all of the personnel decisions that your company/organization makes. We'll ensure that the training your employees receive and the policies and procedures that guide their decisions conform to existing and/or new laws.
Creating an environment of strong policies and a corporate culture of doing the right things the right way can positively affect both your employees, your company's reputation, and your bottom line.
EDICT©
The world around us is becoming more diverse. By 2044, the U.S. Population will not have any single ethnic or racial majorities; in essence, there will be no minorities either. Job candidates expect their workplaces to be more diverse and reflect the world around them. For example, 57% of employees expect their companies to improve diversity among the internal workforce, and over 67% of candidates seek out diverse companies. Clients also seek out companies that are diverse and socially active.
Historical, geographic, economic, and leadership experiences define the cultural identity of an organization. Whether public or private, organizations do not operate in isolation. Rather, they are constantly interacting with outside entities within socially acceptable norms that are constantly changing in an increasingly diverse, interconnected, and interdependent landscape. Learning how to navigate this evolving landscape is why understanding how equity, diversity, inclusiveness, culture, and thoughtfulness (EDICT©) can help your organization meet these new and exciting challenges.
Norms within the workplace, such as behavior, dress, gender role expectations, and ethnic expressions, were based on the idea of the nuclear family, with the father as the patriarch of the family within the home and at work. Whereas for most of the 20th century, conformity within the workplace and, to a certain extent, in public spaces, was the standard, we now see ever-increasing exhibitions and displays of individuality and cultural diversity within previously homogeneous work groups and public settings. Add to this the rapidly increasing technological environment that requires continual innovation and creativity to remain relevant. Even a local company must think about its global image. Implementing EDICT© is a necessary business imperative and strategy to stay competitive.
The way we hired (locally) and the people we will hire in the future (globally) requires that companies that want to be successful change the way they do business! The competition for workers will require a differentiator to entice and retain the best and the brightest talent; company culture is that differentiator. Attracting and retaining the best and the brightest employees while providing quality service to your customers, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, country of origin, religion, or race, are critical to the continued success of any company. Focusing on a company's culture, which will become the greatest value-add or the biggest corporation killer as we move from a manufacturing economy to one that focuses on personal service and technology, is a part of EDICT©. Creating a corporate culture where employees can bring their whole selves, backgrounds, and experiences to the organization is where the best and brightest talent will want to work. EDICT© will help you transform your culture into one of belonging and inclusiveness.
LaPonda J. Fitchpatrick utilizes real-world scenarios, best practices, and the latest information to provide guidance and training to your employees. We will coach your executives and managers in the integration of EDICT© practices throughout your management structure and business model.
We emphasize that the “mirror approach” to management - only seeking ideas, employees, and reviews from those that look most like us - is not a solid and sustainable business practice in our ever-expanding global society. LaPonda J. Fitchpatrick will demonstrate that this old model does not yield the best results. Seeking ideas only from a limited number of people will inevitably cause management and the company to lose support and faith not only from its constituents and business partners but from its employees as well.
Our training program EDICT© , based on the core values of equity, diversity, inclusiveness, and a culture transformation that supports a sense of belonging, will keep your organization on track and on focus. This will ensure that diversity, inclusion, empowerment, company culture, a sense of belonging, and fair and equitable treatment are continuously practiced throughout all levels of your organization.
Remember! Your clients and workforce are no longer just their hair, their skin, their gender, or their country of origin. They bring their whole selves to work in furtherance of your organization's goals. Practicing EDICT© daily will make your organization stronger and help to attract and maintain top-tiered talent, build employee engagement, increase innovation, and improve business performance! Let LaPonda J. Fitchpatrick show you how! Contact us for more information.
Intercultural Development Inventory®
Are you and your organization ready to take the next step in the development of intercultural competence to help you achieve diversity and inclusion strategic goals and outcomes? LaPonda J. Fitchpatrick can provide you with Qualified Administrators and organizational development strategists to deliver the Intercultural Development Inventory® (IDI®).
The IDI® recognizes that intercultural competence (humility)
is a key capability necessary for working, providing services, and living effectively with people from different cultures. The IDI® is more than simply an opinion survey; it is an instrument that is grounded in a comprehensive, cross-culturally validated theory of intercultural competence that identifies your truce cultural competency. It provides the foundation for individual and organizational development strategies to increase our understanding of the world around us and how to better work with people that may not necessarily look or think like us but contribute to the overall success of the organization.
Through this assessment and journey of discovery, the IDI® can result in your organization realizing important and practical insights on how members engage in cultural differences and can help you identify “best practices” for increasing intercultural competence. Organizations that can effectively navigate the waters of cultural diversity increase their bottom line, organizational effectiveness, and employee and customer satisfaction to remain an industry leader and an employer of choice that attracts and maintains the best and the brightest employees in our ever increasingly diverse world.
Contact us to start your journey!
The Intercultural Development Inventory, IDI, and IDI Guided Development are registered trademarks of IDI, LLC in the United States and other countries.
Organizational Consulting and Coaching
From the time you enter kindergarten, you are learning to become a part of a team. Dodgeball, baseball, lining up two by two, and other collaborative activities that we participated in at school really had a purpose beyond the score or immediate outcome. These activities taught us that we can get things done better as a team and with a little coaching, we can reach even greater heights.
Companies and individuals that avail themselves to coaching and mentoring services understand that professional coaching helps organizations reach higher performance goals while helping employees maximize their potential and work output. Coaches can assist employees when they have an issue they are having difficulty overcoming and let them know when they are on the right track. Coaches improve employee engagement, help attract top talent, and allow companies to support their employees as they provide services that will keep a company or organization competitive.
With our professional staff and access to affiliate facilitators, we will be able to provide your organization with the personal attention required to build a strong business model or develop a specific plan of action that will place your company at the top of its game. We're here to be that "alternate mirror" as described in our EDICT© training. We can offer you advice when you need it and/or create a specific road map if you want it. This includes employee satisfaction surveys, customized 360° Assessments, DiSC® personal development assessment, The Five Behaviors® team coaching model, The PeopleMap 6 Leadership Coaching System™, and customized coaching plans.
Walking your staff through these engagement and performance tools is a great investment in your employees and your company or organization. As an example, in their book, "The Economic Value of Competencies: Measuring ROI", Lyle Spencer and Charles Morrow revealed that 360° feedback systems can yield a return on investment of as high as 700%. Now that's worth its weight in gold!
As a client, you will continue to have access to our staff and information to create the type of business environment that will idenify you as one of the best places to work. When the phone rings, we will answer it because we are a part of your team. As your consultant and coach, LaPonda J. Fitchpatrick understands that you become a part of our company's team and ultimately our success. Your goals and plans continue to be important to us.
From inspiration to facilitation, short term goal creation to long-term strategic planning, our goal is to meet your needs and set you on the highway to success while keeping your organization and its most important assets driving in the right direction!
Psychological Resilience
Life can be a roller coaster; work may add additional twists and turns to it. Whether they are the everyday challenges of caring for our families, traumatic events that have the potential to have more lasting impacts, or the stress of meeting expectations at work, our world is changing at lightning speed…along with our lives. From global pandemics to racial and social injustice and supporting movements, to personal challenges navigating our day-to-day, workers at all levels of an organization must prepare mentally in advance of a situation(s) that may have a traumatic and long-term adverse effect on them and others.
It takes psychological resilience. Building resilience takes time and intention. Resilient employees are less likely to call in sick, make errors, or cause workplace disruption.
Building capacity for psychological resilience and understanding the processes of successfully adapting in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress are critical to the day-to-day physical and mental health of every employee and recovery from a stressful or traumatic event. In these unprecedented and uncertain times, taking care of your mind, body and spirit are critical to productivity, creativity, as well as individual and organizational health.
Attendees of this 2-hour intense virtual workshop will learn from personal experiences and receive expert recommendations on:
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Recognizing the signs and symptoms of mental health challenges.
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Building the mental strength needed to handle psychologically taxing events.
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Developing the courage to ask for help.
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Providing leadership with information on how to build a mental health support system in the work environment.
Born from personnel experience, LaPonda J. Fitchpatrick along with experts in the field of mental health will provide your organization and its most important asset - your employees - with tools and coping skills to manage and bounce back from difficult experiences and everyday challenges.
This course is fully adaptable and can be tailored to all levels of your organization. We can also help you create an organizational mental health strategy and program.
Implicit Bias: When Your Brain Takes a Wrong Shortcut
In our increasingly diverse and interconnected work environments where employees are encouraged to bring their whole selves to work to increase innovation and creativity, and to serve a more diverse populace, employees must learn both the hard and soft skills necessary to actively contribute to a productive and successful workplace. Implicit (unconscious) bias and a lack of cultural competency can hamper these efforts. Implicit bias impacts everyone and everything we see and do.
Implicit biases are social stereotypes about certain groups that individuals form outside their own conscious awareness and intention. These attitudes or stereotypes that develop early in life can strengthen over time, and affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner. However, they are not created in isolation; they function within a defined culture. Hence, the need to address both implicit bias and cultural competency.
Everyone holds unconscious beliefs and biases about various social or identity groups. We derive these from the human tendency we all have to organize our social world by categorizing people and things. We are trying to make sense of the 11 million pieces of information per second our brain receives, when we are only able to cognitively process about 40 of those per second.
Implicit bias is often incompatible with one’s own conscious values - which is why people often deny they have specific implicit biases. LaPonda J. Fitchpatrick's implicit bias training provides a clear distinction between explicit and implicit bias where explicit bias, whether positive or negative, is a bias that the individual is aware of and chooses to consciously act upon; while implicit bias is more insidious and we may not be aware it is actively engaged in our decision making and how we perceive others.
Participants will gain an understanding and acknowledgement that as human beings, we all have bias and that it is a part of the basic human condition. Learning that these biases can be based on prejudices, encounters, false information, assumptions, groupthink influences, and/or what we have been taught, the important factor is to recognize we have bias and act mindfully to reduce its effect on our decision-making processes.
Learning how bias occurs whenever we have a perception of threat to our own survival or a threat to our physical or property safety, identity or sense of being. With this concept in mind, participants gain a unique understanding of how our implicit biases stifle creativity, innovation and problem-solving. By utilizing "real-world" Case Studies and examples of how easily these damaging effects occur we will provide participants an opportunity to work through examples while learning to minimize the occurrence and/or overcome implicit bias when it occurs.
We need our brains; they cannot be replaced or "switched out." So learning how the brain works when it comes to implicit bias and how we can be more conscious of why we have the impressions of people we do not know, and the impact of these impressions on our decision making, customer service, and organization is crucial as our world becomes more diverse and volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA).
Workplace Violence Prevention
It's All About Respectful Discipline
No business or organization wants to be prepared for an active shooter or other workplace violence response. Unfortunately in today's society they must.
An active shooter response or other workplace violence begins well before the event! It starts with respectful discipline, employee mental health, and prevention.
Training for the Real World has a 4-hour Workplace Violence Prevention and Safety course that focuses on ethical leadership, respectful discipline, and early intervention when dealing with difficult employees. It culminates with best practices for emergency response to an active shooting or other hostile event at your workplace.