Debates about harassment prevention training are all the rage. Does it work? What’s the ROI? Who is best suited to design and deliver training? Will it help us change behavior? Will it reduce the risk of being sued?
In the wake of #MeToo, the issue of harassment prevention training has taken on a life of its own. Numerous state legislatures have passed mandatory training laws. These laws require harassment prevention training and though they vary in detail, what they have in common is that training, whether you love it or hate it, is seen as a necessary piece in the larger puzzle of harassment prevention.
So what’s the best way to design and deliver training that has its intended effect?
First, let’s take a look at why so many researchers, academics, and even lawmakers have determined that training hasn’t achieved its intended result—to move the needle in terms of improving workplace conduct. When you dig deeper into what the data show, you see that it’s not that training is bad, it’s that bad training is bad.
And once we’ve uncovered the reasons why training hasn’t moved the needle, let’s explore practical, easy-to-implement ways that can make your training program a cricital element to not only prevent misconduct but also to help make your environment drama-free.
The bottom line is that, while workplace training isn’t the magic bullet that will alone create a healthy culture, when done well, it is an essential component of it.
It’s important to briefly cover what doesn’t work, and why we know that certain efforts have been ineffective. I’ve identified four categories that fall under “what not to do”:
So now that we know the current state of affairs, let’s turn our attention to why we’re here—to find solutions. Solutions that will not only be effective, but also doable.
Starting with the last of the items in the “what not to do” list, the most important aspect of designing and developing an effective training program is to focus on fostering a positive, respectful, and inclusive workplace culture. Without that, training is a waste of time, energy, and other valuable resources. Most entities have been hyper-focused on unlawful harassment (the symptom), while ignoring the disease (an unhealthy workplace culture).
In order to get maximum effectiveness from your training program, make sure your “cure” to the disease of sexual harassment is in line with other pieces of the healthy workplace puzzle. Ask yourself these questions as you get started:
As more and more companies focus on training, particularly in states that now require harassment-prevention training for all employees, employers are wondering how to make it effective. The key is to be thoughtful and methodical in planning, designing, deploying, and tracking your work. It will take effort and commitment, but going through these steps will be well worth the journey since training done right will provide you with a critical component in your quest to become drama free.
So here are the steps:
It will be vital for you to do some planning up front to make the training program successful. Equally important will be setting the tone so that your program flows with your other harassment prevention efforts. To accomplish that, you’ll need to:
Before designing your training program, you’ll need to make sure the entire leadership team is on the same page about tone and content, and you must secure a budget for deploying the training. Use the skills of persuasion presented in Chapter 8 to make an indisputable case for why your training ideas are a necessary component to achieve a healthy culture and why the ROI will be good for the company.
Collect any information you have; it could be in the form of hard data or anecdotal information.
Hard data might include:
Anecdotal data might include comments you’ve heard. For example, I sometimes spoke with employees who told me in no uncertain terms that they felt their voice was not really heard by management. They would agree to speak with me for my investigation and would speak openly and candidly, but would also tell me they expected nothing to happen. These types of comments (or if you’re lucky, positive comments) will help guide you to better plan what you need to highlight in your training.
Coordinate your training efforts to make sure they align with the other work you’re doing to improve your workplace culture. For example, make sure there is a consistent message between policies and training. And, of course, make sure you’re authentic and consistent when it comes to reporting and resolving claims of misconduct.
Now that you have solid guidance about what you need to emphasize in your training program, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and start designing it. Here are the questions you need to ask yourself first:
The first order of business is deciding whether to design our own training, hire consultants to provide live training, engage with an e-learning company to provide online training, or opt for a combination of these choices. This decision will mostly be based on your employee population size and whether you’re planning to train all your employees, or only a subset.
I highly encourage organizations to train ALL employees, especially on the topics of harassment prevention, respect, inclusion, and communication. Design a program that clearly distinguishes between illegal behavior and behavior that might be objectionable but isn’t unlawful. And provide communication tools for employees and managers to address low-level drama long before it reaches the point of illegality. A great tool to incorporate is Emtrain’s Workplace Color Spectrum (as discussed in Chapter 8).
Prioritizing the order in which you’ll roll out training is critical. You need to be sure to start with topics you know need the most attention. Perhaps you’ll start with a focus on issues related to communicating clearly and precisely, because you’ve identified that issue as an underlying cause of much of your workplace drama. Or maybe you’ve identified unconscious bias as the root that needs to be addressed before moving on to another topic. Use the information you’ve collected to make these decisions and it will make your training program impactful and relevant.
Address training topics (and populations) that are critical in your quest to have a drama-free workplace. For example, make sure that those who are tasked with receiving complaints, conducting investigations, and implementing measures to address drama are well versed on how best to do their job. And I don’t mean a training session entitled “How to Make Your Investigations Bulletproof at Trial.” This type of session only addresses the legal obligations and doesn’t help investigators learn to sharpen the skills that are vital for their job. This includes developing curiosity, addressing any biases they might have so they can be truly impartial, developing a methodology for investigating that is equal parts structured and flexible, and honing interview and analysis skills to make it easier to find out the truth in all investigations.
Create the content based on what is required (if you’re in a state that requires training), what your workplace needs most, and what other skills will help you achieve a healthy culture. This will include looking at the following:
Yes, in some cases you’ll have to check some compliance boxes. But don’t stop there. Even if you’re required to cover certain topics, weave in helpful learning lessons that are about the larger issue of respect so that the message is that compliance is a goal, but not the singular or most important goal.
Did your research uncover hot spots that need to be addressed? For example, you might know that managers have a hard time giving honest feedback and you’ve seen that this deficiency can lead to claims of unfairness. That means incorporating the how and why of evaluations is critical (or perhaps developing and deploying a separate course on evaluations). Or maybe your company has a long-standing tradition of not enforcing policies, or of selective enforcement. This is an opportunity to design content that not only addresses the need to be consistent, but also provides tangible tools for how that’s achieved.
This step also allows you to map out supplemental content. What type of skills training should you prioritize? Once employees complete formal harassment prevention training, what other content should you develop? If you see that employees are afraid to intervene when they see bad behavior, teach them ways to do so. If you know that retaliation has been an issue in the past, create a micro lesson on that. If you’ve noticed that many in your organization lack emotional intelligence and know that’s at the root of a significant percentage of your workplace conflict, then research and recommend books on EQ, along with a list of thoughtful questions about the content, for department managers to use.
This is also the step during which you need to ask yourself a tough question: Do you have the internal team to develop this type of content, or should you look for help from the outside? (Or maybe another question is: Do you need to beef up your training team with more professionals who can develop content with this level of focus and detail?)
Make sure you develop material that is written in English, not legalese. Yes, the definition of unlawful harassment includes technical language, but break it down so that everyone understands precisely what you mean.
Now that you’re ready to put together the content, make sure to incorporate relevant, nuanced, and interesting examples to drive home your main points. If you want to make sure your employees understand the distinction between unlawful and inappropriate behavior, use an example and have the audience give you feedback to explain the distinctions. If you want to make sure managers understand why it’s important that they let you know if they observe or hear about misconduct, don’t just tell them that “they’re required to report.” Instead, use an example that not only paints a realistic (not legalistic) picture for them, but an example that also provides usable instruction on how to handle difficult situations (including sample language they can use).
No matter the exact content or methodology, focus on interaction. This not only makes the training more engaging, it increases retention. Here are some ways to make your training interactive, engaging, and compelling:
In some cases, I don’t want people working individually on a quiz, so instead I use a small group activity. One of my favorites is one I call “Two Truths and Two Lies.” Much like the well-known icebreaker, I give each small group four statements; two of the statements are true and two are lies. The object of the activity is not only to get the group discussing the right answer, but also expressing their views as to why they think a particular answer is right or wrong.
Make it fun; this increases interaction. I often will make my “Two Truths and Two Lies” activity into a competitive game. The group with the best answers and explanations wins gift cards or swag.
By using an activity up front, you not only get engagement and buy in, but you can go through a portion of your agenda in a seamless and natural way (rather than having a presentation deck that doesn’t allow anyone else to talk until one hour into the training).
Use stories: Bring your stories to life by making them into an activity. Here’s one I use (based, of course, on one of my actual investigations):
Start with a basic set of facts like:
Marianne complains that Thurston asked her why she didn’t tell him his fly was open … twice. She says she finds this behavior “creepy” because he is old enough to be her father, because he talks about his preference to date young women all the time, and because she doesn’t think it’s her job to monitor his fly. Ginger investigates and finds no harassment. Her “fix” is to tell Thurston to “stop talking about his fly.”
On the next slide, I ask what happens next and give the following options:
In real life, all of these things happened. Using an example like this accomplishes so much.
First, it depicts a real-life and very relatable scenario. Many of us know a “Thurston” in our lives – someone who just doesn’t get it.
Next, it is an excellent way to discuss the distinction between unlawful and unprofessional (“creepy”) conduct. The initial facts don’t give rise to a legal claim, but Thurston’s actions cause Marianne reasonable distress. What can and should be done to address that?
The next part of the facts makes it clear that Ginger lost an opportunity to make the workplace better. By simply saying “no harassment” and “stop talking about your fly” she failed to let Thurston know that while his behavior wasn’t unlawful, he needed to stop oversharing, and needed to realize that the impression he was creating of himself was not positive.
In the section with the answers, I emphasize the fact that by saying he “learned to stay away from Marianne,” Thurston is revealing something incredibly important—he doesn’t understand the impact his behavior has on others. This is a problem and will dictate the type of remedial measure you decide to implement after your investigations (see Chapter 11 for more on this). One of the answers also reveals the fact that while the initial conduct wasn’t unlawful, by failing to fix the problem, Thurston has created a legitimate legal issue with his seemingly vengeful (retaliatory) behavior.
And finally, discussing the fact that Marianne left the company allows you to discuss the real-life tangible consequences of not dealing with drama effectively.
Be creative and resourceful. Find examples, research activities, learn about best methods for teaching and retaining these nuanced topics, read books and articles that inspire you—do whatever it takes to develop content that is engaging, informative, and interactive.1
Once you’ve decided on whether your training will be live, online, or a combination of both, it’s time to develop an actual calendar and a methodology to track who will be trained and when. This work will include:
Decide who you will train and in what order you’ll deploy the training. This might be influenced by legal requirements (in those states that mandate training).
Decide how often you’ll train or in what intervals you’ll deploy training. Again, this might be partially dictated by legal mandate, but go beyond what you have to do and develop a schedule that sends the strong message that you are embarking on a long-term program.
Put together a schedule for what you’ll deploy after the initial, formal training. Will you deploy micro lessons? Will you develop discussion questions so that those lessons can be used at department meetings? Will you create a space on your company’s internal site or a social media channel to provide continuous resources to managers and employees?
Be creative and consider all sorts of educational activities to incorporate into your schedule. Maybe you develop a calendar to email, on a regular basis, a workplace scene, a guide, an activity, a call to action, or anything else that puts the issues of respect, civility, going from bystander to upstander, communication, conflict resolution, diversity, and inclusion top of mind and continues to reinforce the importance of these topics. And remember that “training” is really educating and raising awareness, so share stories, articles, books, and other resources that might not technically fall under the definition of training, but that will go a long way toward making it clear that you value these skills.
And, one final note, make sure you check in with the folks in operations to avoid scheduling conflicts. You don’t want your training schedule to interfere with projects or priorities. You want to make sure that your schedule is conducive to employees paying attention and learning.
Too many companies miss all three of these critical points. Failing to establish a method to deploy the training, especially if you have a large workforce, will make your efforts infinitely harder and more confusing than they have to be. The failure to set up an easy way to track who has completed training sessions makes it that much harder to run reports that are critical to prove compliance, and also critical for measuring important components of your training efforts (such as which courses are the most popular, which are the least popular, which have been the ones employees have commented on the most, etc.). And celebrating milestones is also critical if you want to authentically present training as a core component of your quest to achieve a healthy workplace culture.
Create a training calendar and start scheduling sessions or rolling out e-training. Stay mindful of deadlines for mandatory training and deploy it in a way that makes it easy for everyone to be trained on time.
Make sure you have a way to track who has attended/taken training. And if you’re in a state that requires a certain amount of time for training, make sure you can show compliance. Ideally, you’ll be able to develop an electronic tracking system that will allow you to monitor any reports about attendance.
Also, set up a system to remind employees if your records show they have not yet taken training.
Not enough companies celebrate training. As a result, it’s seen as a “must do” item rather than a “get to do” item. Set up a system to recognize a job well done. Consider giving a prize to the department who has the highest training attendance. Send out periodic updates about introspective questions you’ve received that you think everyone should read about. Involve employees and managers in the process and give them public praise for their help.
Track anything and everything related to training:
The bottom line with workplace training is this: While it’s true that decades of designing and deploying bad or mediocre training has done almost nothing to rid our workplaces of drama, you now have a great opportunity to rewrite that script and make training a signature piece of your drama-free workplace puzzle.
Figure 10.1 shows a method of creating a training program for preventing sexual harassment in the workplace.