Mandatory Training CAN be Effective AND Fun - here's how

Business As Usual

Mandatory workplace training is weary – HazMat, HIPAA, company specific topics like ethics or sexual harassment, they’re all real eyelid droppers. Statutory training is on everyone’s agenda however, public and private sector organizations, the military, government and manufacturing. It’s a higher concern for regulated industries like health care, insurance, and education. Noncompliant training can cause licensure issues, grounding of pilots, you name it.

Attendance gimmicks range from the positive (giveaways and food) to the negative (reprimands). Delivery strategies similarly run the gamut from self-paced workbooks, online, classroom, and the ever popular, “Read this and sign.”

Mandatory training is mandatory because it is important. Content changes little, so participants’ receptions are unlikely to change. Mandatory training’s rhythmic, never-changing tone can have the opposite affect and actually turn off employees to its importance. But, does it have to be expensive and dull? Does it have to be business as usual?

“I know you already know this, but…”

Somewhere on the Internet or scribbled on a lambskin scroll buried deep in a mystical land is the quotation, “When the student becomes the teacher…” Boy, does that apply here. Let’s make this simple.

1.     If employees can display knowledge of mandatory topics, don’t teach it to them.

2.     Let them teach you.

3.     If employees cannot display knowledge of mandatory topics, let the other employees (see no. 1 above) do it for you.

4.     Repeat as necessary to reach compliance.

Ohmygosh, doesn’t this guy understand verification? Employees can’t teach other employees! Content and delivery must be generic and standard because confirmation of standards is required! We’ve got forms to fill out!

Take a breath. I faced this very situation as a one-person training department in a mid-sized hospital. Hospital employees detested mandatory training because it was insufferably dull. The hospital had measurable errors in areas like infection control and general safety. We revamped our mandatory training, reached compliance, cut costs in a big way, and far more importantly, actually got employees engaged in topics that they previously ignored.

Recognize and build upon the existing knowledge and skills of your employees and use them in your mandatory training. You’ll be amazed at what can happen. With the right tweaks, this approach can be applied across all statutory training in education, military, health care and others.

“Tell me what you know about…”

If you’ve seen one mandatory training approach, you’ve seen one mandatory training approach. Classroom, on-line, self-paced and decentralized tactics work just fine. This narrative uses classroom as the delivery example. It can be modified as need be to other delivery strategies.

Begin with simple, sound instructional design, and regardless of delivery, make the learning student-centered. Break up the content into manageable chunks. If you’re teaching mandatory flight safety to a bunch of veteran pilots, content is likely segmented into pre-flight, engineering check-offs, communication requirements, etc. If the topic is less technical like customer relations for retail employees, try categorizing it into phone etiquette, in-person exchanges, refund processes, etc. Typically, these subtopics include need-to-know information such as “All pilots must demonstrate knowledge of the pre-flight checklist.” Or, “All employees must receive annual training on how to respond to irritated customers.” From these subtopics prepare discussion cards..

Use assigned seating, and organize attendees cross-functionally. You’re trying to get people to learn from one another. Assign attendees to groups in size from seven to twelve. Direct the groups to elect a facilitator and recorder.

Assign each group one sub-topic from the main category. Or, if you’re covering multiple topics, each group gets one topic. If you’re lucky enough to have subject matter experts (SMEs) in the room, they should act as facilitators to the respective groups.

Distribute your discussion cards. These serve as your primary learning aid. The discussion cards:

1.     Direct attendees to focus on one topic, issue, etc. The topic can be general or specific depending on the level of instruction.

2.     Stir group discussion. Dissension is healthy, if facilitated properly by the SME or group facilitator.

3.     Task the group to do something, complete something, list something. People expect assignments. Remember the whole thing about compliance? This is where you can get written verification that employees can locate fire extinguishers, use a pre-flight checklist, whatever.

Following completion of the group assignments, direct the groups to report out on their discussions and findings. Now, this is where the fun and hard part comes. As the groups report out, direct questions to the other groups. “Someone share with me how this group’s findings apply in his or her department.” “What part of their report did you find new?” It’s the old compare and contrast game.

Heterogeneous participant organization realizes a range of dynamic outcomes, or as I like to say, this is where mixing up the groups is really cool.  There’s nothing like pairing doctors with plumbers and having each share their opinions regarding patient rights. Or, listen in as a bookkeeper and loading dock employee talk about customer service. The phenomena of employees learning from one another is the apex of good training.

When the groups’ reporting is complete and everyone has had their say, consider wrapping up with a rapid-fire Q&A session. This is when you can ask all those pesky mandatory items. Get the groups to compete. People love to compete.

Money

This approach can save you money. This approach can cost you money. Typically, whenever a student-directed approach is used in training, learning time reduces. Teleconferencing, pre-work and other strategies will impact the bottom line too.

When Not To Do This

New Employees – We made a huge assumption here, that employees already know the mandatory content. New employees may or may not know, so be careful. If yours is a huge multi-national corporation, there’s a good chance your new hires already know quite a bit about their new company, so don’t be afraid to use a strategy to build on that. But, they won’t know your company-specific policies or credos, so don’t assume a whole lot.

Public Education – if your audience doesn’t work for you, determining base knowledge will have to come first in your instructional design, but you don’t have to use the same old syllabus. For example, if your agency mandates annual refresher on a proprietary software application, determine if some veteran users can demonstrate their knowledge first, and possibly help lead the class.

Skills Based Training – Sure, you can talk about how to drive a school bus, or how to measure output from a nuclear reactor or how to execute a perfect landing on an aircraft carrier, but let’s face it, sometimes your audience will have to demonstrate their skills for compliance.

 The Real Advantage

People love to talk about themselves and what they know. The above mandatory training approach simply uses this axiom and places a structure around it. Simply acknowledging your employees existing knowledge and then expanding on that with others opens a new horizon for learning. Will people really learn anything new? Yea, a little. Will they appreciate your effort to ask? Absolutely. Will opinions and suggestions uncover issues? Yup. Could there be dissension among groups? Yup again. Don’t shy away from this. As a trainer, it’s your job to find the learning that surfaces from that dissension, even when there’s no final agreement.

Appendix - Real-life stories

Driver Training – Have you ever attended a safe driver’s course? Likely, you didn’t learn a great deal, but just being in the class and sharing stories with other drivers upped your awareness of safe driving tips. This interaction with others is what you remember. The same can apply in the workplace.

Ethics Training –In my town, an audit uncovered pilfering from a state agency’s cash drawers. Some bad guys were fired. The remaining honest employees had to endure mandatory sessions on, “How Not to Steal from Us,” or something like that. I would have loved to have been the trainer. “I’m going to teach how not to do something that you’re already not doing.” Seriously, I would have queried existing employees on how stealing happened in the first place, and capture their ideas and suggestions for improving the system.

Diversity Awareness – I met a woman charged with teaching this topic who worked for a very large, very diverse New York City government agency. Following the mandatory two-hour session, a particularly ruffled old-timer told her in no uncertain terms his disregard for a certain group of employees, and there’s no way he’d ever like them. “That’s okay,” she responded. “You don’t have to like anyone. But if I ever get a report of you discriminating against anyone, you’re fired.” I’m editing here for effect. Bottom line, mandatory training can’t mandate thought or opinion. It can however, mandate behavior.

Correcting Behavior – This really happened. A nurse gave the wrong pint of blood to a patient. Fortunately, it was caught in time with no medical offset, but healthcare professionals call this a reportable event. The VP of Nursing’s response was to reprimand the nurse and send her to training. Training? On what? On how to read? I tried to weigh in as the education manager that the system of administering blood needed a QA review, but that never happened. Please, don’t use mandatory training as punishment. 

Be Wary of Experts – Years ago, as a local elected official, I had to attend annual mandatory training. The entire two days was horrible. Worse was the law professor who simply read verbatim from her notes, notes that we already had. She just read for two hours! The next week, I commented to the person in charge about the horror. “But she’s a law professor from a distinguished law school!” was the reply. I wasn’t doubting her expertise. She was A  LOT smarter than me, but a parrot could have given the presentation, charged a lot less and been more fun. When using SMEs, be cautious about their platform skills. One neat little tactic – interview the person live and in person, a la Larry King.