Tuesday Training Tip #TTT
Everybody’s got one in their office, or worse yet, on their team- the tyrannical toxic student service staff who sucks your patience dry whenever you conduct a training!
It’s hard enough to get folks away from the front line for a training opportunity, especially with shrinking staff resources. You can’t afford to have your planning efforts squelched by a toxic naysayer on training day.
You know how they behave – arriving late, sulking with crossed arms, watching their phones, answering email instead of participating, while complaining to all around who will listen about what they really should be doing instead of the training you have planned! These are chronically busy people, or so it seems!
Can you tell I have been there? I’ve had to deal with this too! And it is horrible!
But I got you!
Here’s a plan to get out in front of a toxic troublemaker that truly works, trust me!
Follow these six simple steps to take back your training!
- Start with a survey: Give a quick survey to everyone for suggestions about what staff desire to learn. Ask them also for the optimum days, weeks, and months to schedule training and where they’d like to train, if possible.
- Establish transparency: Make these results public, and ask for staff volunteers for a committee or team to help you create the best training experience balancing the wants, needs and realities.
- Keep the toxic close: Make sure that your curmudgeon is right at the planning table. If they don’t volunteer, ask them to join, saying you value their opinion, just be sure that the squeaky wheel is part of the solution.
- Assign them a role: At a first meeting, let them vent about prior trainings that were bogus, in their opinion. Then politely explain that was then, and that what you have planned speaks to what staff truly want and need this time. Assign this person a key role just like everyone else, with real work to be done and deadlines to be met.
- Create Learning Goals: Get consensus and clarity from the entire team on final training topics and techniques to be covered in the training, along with solid measurable learning outcomes attached.
- Expect Collaboration: When a process is this transparent, the more positive voices will drown out the toxic one that always complains! The openness makes it very difficult for one to co-opt the training time that you have carved out carefully in response to multiple expressed needs!
- Assess Success: Now you also have a training process that can be evaluated and assessed at the end of the day! Gather participant satisfaction at the end of the training, but also plan to reach out once or twice later on to ask how the techniques are actually working. Gather those stories as evidence!
These service improvement staff narratives will provide a powerful defense against the naysayer when staff training is brought up in future!
Willing to give it a try? Let me know how it goes! Have questions or concerns? Let me know your thoughts and how I can help.
Remember, I really have been there and have worked through this frustrating experience. And I want to help!