Training Trends: Sexual harassment, diversity and inner-geekiness

Sexual harassment and diversity are tow hot-button training issues in today’s workplace and two of the hottest topics to be featured in the latest issue of our Training Trends newsletter.

In this issue you’ll find out how to diversify your diversity training, how to engage employees in sexual harassment training, and find the right software training to nurture your inner-geek.

Here’s a quick look at the July issue of Training Trends:

Diversify Your Diversity Training

Improving productivity through sensitivity and understanding

In a world of 6.7 billion differences and counting, it’s often times difficult to understand and conceive why people are the way they are. From a philosophical standpoint, problems, arguments and even wars can occur from simply misunderstanding one another. What’s the obvious answer? Love and peace… and diversity training.

Like the term “harassment,” it’s important to know exactly what diversity is as well. (more)


Software Training for Your Inner-Geek

The importance of software training in the workplace

Let’s face it; we’ve been overtaken by computers… and it’s never been so cool to be a geek. Immerse yourself in the nerdifying glory that is software training. Dig out your favorite Star Trek episode, duct tape those horn-rimmed glasses and grab a pen out of your pocket protector. Let’s take some notes on why now is the time to be well-trained in the use of computer software… Engage!

It’s never been a better time for businesses, big and small, to train employees with the proper skills in tackling software-loaded devices. New programs and computer systems are meant to make your workload easier, allowing you to accomplish more in one sitting. Not only will training improve efficiency throughout your business, it will give it the potential to grow and compete. (more)


Side-Stepping Sexual Harassment Risks

Find ways to engage your employees in sexual harassment training

Sexual harassment. Employers cringe at the mention of these very words. Upset employees, court battles, and heavy fines are just a few of the nightmares that can stem from an inappropriate interaction at the office. One offensive comment or gesture can bring a world of legal and financial trouble from the EEOC or an aggressive plaintiff’s lawyer…

OK, enough pondering the horrors of harassment. What’s the best way to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace? With the proper training, of course!

First of all, it’s important to know exactly what sexual harassment is. And the reality is, it can be many things, (more)

Each month, the experts at TrainingTime.com share all of the latest and greatest tips, trends and buzz from across the training industry in our Training Trends newsletter. If you’re not on our mailing list, please take a few seconds and sign up.

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A “super-sized” lesson in diversity training

McDonald’s settled a gay discrimination case yesterday and agreed to require diversity training for managers at 30 Louisville restaurants. McDonald’s must also pay $2,000 each to two men who said a restaurant employee directed anti-gay slurs at them.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky filed a complaint with the Louisville Human Relations Commission on behalf of the two men last year. According to the Courrier-Journal, the two men alleged that after ordering food, a female employee directed several anti-gay slurs toward them and used other derogatory language. They complained to a manager, who said she didn’t see the matter as a “big deal.”

McDonald’s said in a company statement that the matter has been resolved and that the company has strict policies against any discrimination in its restaurants.

"We work with our restaurant managers and crew to ensure our policies are followed and that we provide a respectful environment for all our employees and customers," the statement said.

The case serves as a “super-sized” lesson that when you have your attorney draft an anti-discrimination policy ensure it states that your company is committed to creating equal opportunity for all employees and customers. State that your company will not tolerate any form of discrimination including age, race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability and sexual orientation.

Your anti-discrimination policy should also include an outlined procedure for making, investigating and resolving complaints. Train managers to follow the policy, know how to identify discrimination and how to respond to a compliant against one of their employees.

Ongoing training on diversity in the workplace and setting clear anti-discrimination policies can be your best way to avoid problems.

What else can employers do to avoid discrimination? What has worked or hasn’t worked in your company?

Leave a comment and share your advice.

Training Trends: PTO, the Grinch at work and religious diversity

The December issue of Training Trends was released today, with information every workplace can use during the holidays. This month’s topics include how to handle confusing PTO policies, “Grinch” behavior around the office and managing religious diversity.

Each month, TrainingTime.com shares all of the latest and greatest tips, trends and buzz from the across the training industry. If you’re not on our mailing list, please take a minute to sign up for Training Trends to have the latest training news delivered to your inbox each month.

Here’s a quick look at the December edition:

Top 10 Things Not to Do with Your PTO

Switching to a Paid Time Off (PTO) system gives employees more freedom to schedule their time, but there are some drawbacks. From “last-minute use” policies and harsh requirements, putting a new PTO system in place can be confusing. Here’s a more lighthearted look at the top 10 things you shouldn’t do with your PTO ... (full article)


Don’t be a Grinch at Work This Holiday Season

Employees who have fun at work have proven to be more loyal, productive and more willing to go the extra mile when crunch time comes. The holidays offer a great opportunity to bring more happiness and fun into the workplace. Here are some simple and affordable ideas to fill the need for fun at work this holiday season ... (full article)


Making Religious Diversity Work at Work

The month of December shines a spotlight on the religious differences among employees each year. What’s the best way to handle religious diversity at work? Embrace it. Embracing religious differences within the office is good for business and good for employees. Here’s why ... (full article)

It only takes a minute to sign up for Training Trends and you will be all set to receive the best training information each month. If you’re a HR or training expert and are interested in writing content for Training Trends or TrainingTime.com’s learning library, visit our “Write for Us” page for information on how to contribute.

5 simple ways to transfer knowledge between Gen Y and Baby Boomer employees

Currently, there are about 76 million Baby Boomers in the workforce, with 19 million ready to retire by 2011, according to the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp). Most organizations have done little or nothing to retain the valuable corporate knowledge retiring employees possess.

In May, i4cp surveyed 118 organizations to find out “what they have done or plan to do about tapping into the knowledge experience of Boomers as they approach retirement.” They found:

• The majority (71%) of survey respondents said their organization did not incorporate retirement forecasts into knowledge transfer practices.
• Only one-third incorporate a skills gap analysis into their retirement forecasts.
• Less than a quarter (23%) said they train managers in the art of critical skills transfer.
  

Another study by the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations backs up the i4cp findings. In a similar survey from February 2008, the Association found only 28% of over 400 small business owners are working on knowledge transfer plans and only 4% have a formal plan to transfer knowledge to younger employees.

Even with all the buzz and statistics about “Boomer brain drains” and lagging knowledge transfer plans, many have found a simple way to get started - teamwork.

Earlier this year, Tammy Erickson from Harvard Business published an article chronicling the ‘love fest’ between Baby Boomers and Generation Y. Her research found that Gen Yers and Boomers enjoy spending time together and learning from each other.

Gen Ys enjoy the challenge:

“Y’s, when faced with a new challenge, tend to function like a heat-seeking missile – single-mindedly pursuing the person in the organization with the most relevant experience. In many cases, this person is a Boomer – often in some distant part of the organization, or several hierarchical levels removed. This approach reflects how Y’s like to learn – from an expert, just-in-time, and in response to the specific challenge they need to address. And it reflects their comfort in relating to Boomers on a peer basis, developed over an adolescence of friendly interaction with their parents and parents’ friends.”

Boomers like the recognition and a chance to learn:

“Boomers are finding they enjoy the questions (once they get over the shock of receiving emails or text messages from very junior employees) and the obvious recognition of their expertise. They are even learning a lot themselves – new ways of communicating and thinking about getting things done.”

We know it has to be done and employees enjoy learning from each other, but how do we facilitate knowledge transfer across generations?

Margery Weinstein from Training Day shared a great idea in a post yesterday:

“To make knowledge transfer efforts more salient, pair up out-going workers with promising Gen Y and X'ers. Giving their presentations together will spice up the lesson. One way to do it is by having the Gen Y or X'er interview the retiring chieftain about his/her legacy and the company's upcoming challenges. Then have the old guy/gal on the block pose a few questions to the fledgling. Rather than let a perhaps partly loved/partly loathed executive get away with self-congratulatory rambling for an hour, this give-and-take approach is potentially more substantive.

Whether savior or ogre, you thought enough of them to capture their wisdom. They shouldn't mind fielding a few questions about their corporate savior/ogre methodology.”

Embrace the “love fest” and get your Boomers and Gen Y/Gen Xers working together. Here are some ideas for fostering corporate knowledge transfer from older to younger generations:

• Set up interviews. Use Weinstein’s idea and pair together retiring workers with promising younger employees. Let the pairs interview each other and create a presentation on their findings.
• Develop a shadowing program. Like an apprentice learning from a skilled craftsman, have your younger employees shadow older workers for a given period of time.
• Teamwork. Many employees learn best by doing, so find an upcoming project that the pair can work on together.
• Let them eat cake. Or at least lunch, on the company’s tab. Send the pair to lunch for some one-on-one bonding time. It will help them develop a personal relationship, rather than strictly focusing on work.
• Make it fun. Set up fun activities around the office for your Gen Y/Boomer pairs to participate in. If they know they can have fun together, there’s something they can learn from each other.

Teamwork between your Baby Boomer and Generation Y employees is the key to slowing the “brain drain.” Find opportunities to connect the generations together and keep valuable corporate knowledge from walking out the door with retiring employees.

Connect new employees with Web 2.0

New employees can feel out of place and lonely during their first few weeks of work and are on the outside of an intricate social network that will take time to become a part of.

Studies have shown that in about 85% of companies, new hire passion and morale dramatically declines after the first six months.

Some organizations are keeping the passion alive by connecting new employees with others in the organization through social networking tools. It involves a lot of trust in your employees to use the tools for strictly work purposes, but the benefits may heavily outweigh the risk.

Thanks to the HR Capitalist for finding this insightful mini-presentation by Sacha Chua, complete with superbly drawn stick figures, on how Web 2.0 can help connect new hires faster than before.

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Employee safety training: Teens on-the-job

If you’re planning on hiring teens to fill summer job positions, be sure that you have the proper structure and employee safety training programs set up to keep these young employees safe at work.

Last week, the Department of Labor (DOL) kicked off the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) national 2008 Teen Summer Job Safety Campaign in downtown New York city.

The campaign is part of a large effort to reduce work-related injuries among teens by teaching proper on-the-job safety, with a goal to reach more than three million teens. By reaching out to workers at a young age, OSHA hopes these teens will carry important safety lessons through as they grow older.

Before considering bringing teens into your workplace, first educate yourself on the laws protecting young workers:

OSHA. Depending on where you do business, employers must comply with certain hazard-specific job safety and health standards. Federal or state OSHA offices can help with regulations and standards. Visit osha.gov for more information.

Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The FLSA protects minors by restricting the amount of hours they are able to work and the types of jobs they can work. Your local Employment Standards Administration office can help with questions, or visit the OSHA site for more information.


If you decide to employ teens, be sure your workplace is ready:

Make employee safety training a top priority.

Review work sites to spot and eliminate potential hazards, ensuring employees are working in a safe environment.

Train adolescent and teen employees how to recognize workplace dangers and how to perform their jobs safely.

Training should include, but is not limited to topics such as fire and accident prevention, workplace accidents, violent situations and what to do if someone is injured on the job.

Educate teen employees on their rights, in the case they are injured on the job, including how to file a claim to cover medical benefits and lost work time.

Choose well trained supervisors who know how to spot workplace hazards and follow safe work practices to monitor new, young employees.

Supervise teens to be sure they are following safe work practices and know how to spot hazards on their own.

Implement a shadowing program where teen employees follow older, experienced employees to teach them valuable safety skills.

Promote an open-door policy and encourage young workers to always ask questions about anything that is unclear.


Keep your teen employees safe this summer while employed with your company. Be sure you know the rules when hiring teens and train your workforce regularly on safety. A safe and healthy work environment will create a rewarding work experience for teen workers and your business.

Working from home. Well, almost...

Tired of staying at home all day? Over-caffeinated from working out of coffee houses? There’s a new option out there for all the folks who call their second bedroom the “remote office.”

Office Nomads provides remote employees, and anyone self-employed, the opportunity to work in an office setting for a monthly fee. “Coworking” lessens the feelings of isolation that often come with working from home, by putting people back into an office setting.

For about $475 a month, you can rent desk space, unlimited coffee and printing, 24-hour access, Wi-Fi and use of three conference rooms. You can also rent by the day for $20 if you don’t need a full month.

Other companies, like Nutopia Workspace and San Francisco’s Hat Factory, are part of the growing coworking phenomenon. An online map shows all of the roughly three dozen workspaces worldwide.

So, if you haven’t changed your clothes in two days or your head hurts from too many double cafe lattes, maybe coworking can work for you.

Harassment training may save you millions

When is the last time your employees participated in harassment training? Are you sure that everyone is aware of your policies and what to do if they encounter harassment?

Maybe you need to hold a refresher course - it could potentially save you some big bucks.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently announced the settlement of a race and national origin harassment lawsuit for $1.9 million against Allied Aviation Services, Inc. The lawsuit was on behalf of African American and Hispanic workers who were targets of racial slurs, graffiti, cartoons, and hangman’s nooses at a the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport.

“It is appalling that racial harassment remains a persistent problem at some job sites across the country in the 21st century, more than 40 years after passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act,” said EEOC Chair Naomi C. Earp. “Employers must be more vigilant and make clear that race discrimination, whether verbal or behavioral, has no place in the contemporary workplace.”

The EEOC advises employers to use proactive prevention when it comes to harassment. Their list of best practices advises employers to:

• Develop a strong Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) policy that is embraced by executive management.
  
• Train managers and employees on the policy, enforce it and hold company managers accountable.
• Provide training and mentoring to give workers of all backgrounds the opportunity, skill, experience, and information necessary to perform well, and to ascend to upper-level jobs
  

Read the full list of EEOC proactive best practices (see section 15-IX).

Whether you’re an employer, manager, trainer or HR professional (or all the above), you can take the first steps to preventing harassment in your workplace.

Implement a policy and enforce it. Educate and train your employees on how to handle and prevent harassment in the workplace. Continue to train employees on all forms of harassment to keep your policies fresh in their minds.

Training for workplace diversity

Once upon a time, America was described as a melting pot. All the ingredients blended into one indistinguishable unit. Assimilation was the goal, and those who came from elsewhere attempted to blend into the stew as soon as possible.

Today, the image of a stir fry might be more apt. Each element retains its unique flavour, texture and shape. And yet all contribute to the completed dish.

In the face of proudly retained ethnicity, religious and lifestyle differences, today’s business leaders face the challenge of managing cultural, lifestyle, gender, and religious diversity in the workplace. Although it may appear to complicate effective team building, wise leaders know that workplace diversity can also enrich their organization.

From: Managing Religious Diversity in the Workplace

It is 3:30 on a Thursday afternoon. A 20-something associate completes a project on her laptop, sends it via e-mail to her supervisor, text messages a client on her cell phone, and then leaves for the day. Meanwhile, her 50-something colleague in the next cubicle, who never leaves the office before six o'clock, is grumbling about the poor work ethics of today's younger workers.

More than ever, workers from different generations are finding themselves in the same workplace, where their differing work styles are sometimes causing conflicts when it comes to communicating and completing tasks.

But managers who are able to accommodate, rather than overlook the different styles, will find different generations working side-byside offers many opportunities, too.

From: Minding the Gap: Generational Differences


Whether it's age, gender, religion, or ethnic origin, diversity is the reality in today's workplace. Managing that diversity is the task facing many Human Resource departments.

The realization that one size does not fit all in the workplace has spawned a variety of new training programs. No longer content with simple sensitivity training, today's HR trainers are developing and presenting programs that tap into the strengths of a diverse workforce.

Global market focus is allowing many companies to utilize the diversity in their labour force to reach and understand foreign markets and segmented domestic markets in new and effective ways.

How is your company addressing the challenges and benefits of diversity? Is there a tool or process you've found beneficial for creating synergy on the job?