Tag: employee training

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You Quick Guide to Workplace Bullying

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Training on preventing bullying in the workplace is crucial in creating a workplace that is inclusive and safe for all.

Your company has a responsibility to prevent bullying and its impact.

But what is bullying in the workplace and its different types? Why do people bully in the workplace? And what do you do if you or someone in your workplace is being bullied?

We answer these questions and more in the below Quick Guide to Workplace Bullying.

WHAT IS WORKPLACE BULLYING?

Workplace bullying is repetitive and excessively unpleasant actions and behaviors put on an employee or group of employees, that negatively impact health and safety in the workplace.

This type of harmful behavior in the workplace often goes unreported, mainly because of its shameful, intimidating effect on the victimized employee.

In even more extreme cases, workplace bullying may not come to light due to the victim working a lower-level position, and feeling intimidated. However, it’s not always a boss or manager who is doing the bullying, and it can very well be a co-worker on the same level as the person feeling victimized.

TYPES OF WORKPLACE BULLYING/BULLIES

There are several different types of bullying. Having an understanding of the different types of bullying can help you know when to identify it. These include:

Verbal bullying: With verbal bullying, the bully uses their words and/or writing to be hurtful or mean. This can be done via teasing, calling someone names, unsolicited sexual comments, making threats to harm, or mocking.

The aggressor seeks to achieve dominance over the victim by demeaning or lowering his/her self-esteem.

Cyberbullying: With cyberbullying, the bully uses sources such as cell phones, computers, and social media to spread false or unkind information about someone else, which can cause humiliation. Emailing and texting are two common forms used to perpetuate this behavior.

Types of Bullies: As previously mentioned, workplace bullying can come in many forms. One of these is the prankster, someone who doesn’t know the difference between what’s mean and what’s funny. Another one would be the saboteur. This is a person who tries to take credit for work that you did or go out of their way to make your job harder than it has to be.

There are also critics. These are the folks who, no matter how good a job you do, it’s never good enough for them. Some workplace bullies simply shut you out. For example, they won’t tell you when there’s a meeting among employees (where important information may be dispersed), then blame you for not knowing the proper procedure or course of action when the time comes to use that information or training on the job.

There is the boss bully, the person who controls whether or not you keep your job. This type of bully feels that you are required to agree with them about everything they do or say (job-related or otherwise), whether they are morally right or wrong. Boss bullies also may attempt to treat you like a puppet and try to force you to do tasks that are abnormal or seemingly only for their amusement.

Whether verbal or cyber, any form of bullying is detrimental to the one being bullied.

WHY PEOPLE BULLY IN THE WORKPLACE

Bullies hardly ever bully because they think they’re bigger and Badder than anyone else. In fact, quite the opposite is true, and they actually have issues with their own confidence. Below are some common reasons as to why people may bully in the workplace.

Lack of Self-Esteem: One of the main reasons that a person bullies is because they are not confident in their own abilities. The way they choose to respond to this incompetence is by being extra aggressive or belittling to others. They are very sensitive to even the smallest comments. Actions or words directed toward them that are even slightly critical of their work performance will very likely be found offensive. This is one reason some workplace bullies act out the way they do, they feel threatened by their coworkers who outperform them.

It may be a boss who is doing the bullying; they may feel threatened by a worker who is doing an excellent job; someone who could potentially replace them.

A Need to Control: Bullies can be controlling. One way they measure their productivity is by pushing others around, and by talking down to them. This person may not necessarily be someone who does the hiring and firing; they may be same-level coworkers trying hard to impress the boss. This type of bully wants the boss to see that they are in charge of workplace activities and that they are in control of their fellow employees. In a bully’s mind, this is the type of behavior they think will eventually get them promoted.

Being Bullied: Instinctively, a person will know when they are being bullied simply because of the way they feel. A workplace bully may try to make their victims feel isolated. For example, an entire office knows about a new rule, but one person isn’t informed. When that person breaks that rule (one that they didn’t even know about in the first place), they get punished for it.

A workplace bully may also try to make their victim do impossible tasks; or give them so much work to do that they could not possibly meet a deadline. When the deadline is not met, the bully may shout at the worker in front of other people, making them feel horrible and embarrassed. A bullying victim may let Human Resources know about this situation, but HR may suggest trying to work the problem out with the person. This approach will not likely be helpful, especially if the bully is in a higher position than the victim. The victimized worker feels they may lose their job if what they say to the bully is perceived as insubordinate.

A Toxic Work Environment: A toxic work environment can feed into a cycle of workplace bullying. This can stem from anything from unhealthy power dynamics to gossip to poor communication. If employees feel burnt out or unhappy in the workplace due to toxicity in the workplace, it can cause further decreases in self-esteem or a need to regain control, which can lead to bullying in the workplace.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE BEING BULLIED IN THE WORKPLACE

Would you know if you were being bullied at work by a co-worker? And if you were, what would you do about it? Below are our tips for what to do when you feel that you are being bullied in the workplace.

Seek Support: After being bullied at work, you may feel hesitant to seek support due to embarrassment or shame. It’s important to remember that personal health (physical and mental) should be prioritized when dealing with these types of situations, especially if they had been going on for a long period of time. It’s okay to see medical professionals, mental health specialists, or to seek therapy. It is important to not isolate yourself.

Speak Up: Speaking up to a bully is likely the hardest thing for a victimized employee to do. Confronting your bully alone is a good method to get straight to the point. In this conversation, the victim should be completely honest with the bully about how the situation affects them. If this private conversation doesn’t work, and the bully doesn’t back off, then the next step would be to talk to upper management.

Document/Report: Documenting incidences of workplace bullying can help you better identify it. Being able to provide evidence of consistent bullying will help you build a case when you report it. If you don’t know who to report workplace bullying too, you should ask your human resources department, supervisor, or even just a trusted colleague.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU WITNESS SOMEONE BEING BULLIED AT WORK

The actions you take when you witness someone being bullied are just as important as the ones you take when you are getting bullied in the workplace. Below are some things to consider when you see someone in your workplace get bullied:

Support Victim: If you find yourself sitting on the sidelines overhearing or even bearing witness to someone being bullied on the job, the best thing that you can do initially is pull that victim to the side and ask them if they realize that they are being bullied. It’s important to establish this knowledge because sometimes they may not even realize that the way someone is continuously aggravating them, isolating them, gossiping about them, or treating them badly in other ways is actually labeled as workplace bullying and that actions should be taken to stop it.

Document/Report: When you witness the bullying, pull the victimized person to the side and encourage them to document these incidents. They may be hesitant to do so, but let them know that without proof there will be no record or building of a case against the bully. Offer to help them as a witness or to support them when they report the case to a supervisor.

CONCLUSION

Workplace bullying happens a lot more than people actually realize. It doesn’t just affect the person being bullied, but can make the entire workplace toxic. A strong first step to reducing this behavior in the workplace is providing effective training. Get a head start on this with our Workplace Bullying Workshop today!

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Adult Learning is Unique – Apply it to your Corporate Training

It can be easy to assume that the way individuals take in information is fairly consistent. However, have you ever considered how the dynamics of learning change as we age? Consider the strategies used to teach early elementary students, versus someone in high school. How is the classroom laid out? How is information delivered? What are the expectations of the students to help them learn?

This also carries over to how adults learn. It is called andragogy, and it is the study of how adults learn differently from children. We often associate the majority of our structured learning with our younger years. And while this is true, learning is a life long process that changes overtime, so understanding adult learning theory and its styles is crucial to delivering effective corporate training.

Learn more about adult learning and empower yourself to deliver your training accordingly with our guide to adult learning theory below.

MALCOLM KNOWLES’ 5 ASSUMPTIONS OF ADULT LEARNERS

Adult Learners

While the word andragogy can be traced back to the 1800s, the most popular research and theorizing of it can be traced back to Malcolm Knowles in 1968. Malcolm Knowles was an American adult educator who used scientific methods to determine the most effective ways to teach adults. Through this and his experience teaching at the YMCA and working for the Adult Education Association, he developed four assumptions about how adults learn (he added the fifth assumption several years later). They are:

1. SELF-CONCEPT

As an adult, our experiences give us a stronger self-concept. This helps us better understand our learning needs, style, and preferences. Along with this, as we move further into adulthood, we become less dependent on others, and shift to having a strong sense of independence. This can make it more challenging to sit in a classroom and learn from another instructor. This means that adult learners tend to prefer a more self-directed approach to learning, rather than instructor-led. Furthermore, because of this independence, adults tend to prefer to be involved in the planning and evaluation of their instruction.

2. ADULT LEARNER EXPERIENCE

The experience an adult has already gathered before entering a training workshop through previous education, work experience, and life in general is significantly higher than a child entering a learning environment. Adults have hands-on experience, accumulated knowledge, and have learned from making mistakes. This must be considered when teaching adults, as it can help them make meaningful connections that will help them better retain information. As a trainer, being mindful of the things your adult learners have experienced can help you better engage them.

3. READINESS TO LEARN

As adults, our readiness to learn is most prevalent when the topics resonate with our everyday lives, such as growth or advancement in our career. When there is a strong and relevant reason to learn, adults are significantly more interested in learning. If adult learners can’t see how they can apply what they are learning to their life – whether personally or professionally – they will be significantly less engaged in your workshops. If learning can help them better fit into their roles in society, they will be more likely to value the training they take in.

4. ORIENTATION OF LEARNING

The orientation of adult learning is less focused on content, and more focused on practicality. Adult learners want to learn things that will help them solve problems in their lives or careers. This shift in perspective means that adult learners prefer to take in information that they can immediately apply to better hone their skills, increase productivity, and advance their career and organization wherever relevant. This is also referred to as problem-centered learning rather than content-centered learning.

5. MOTIVATION TO LEARN

A child’s motivation to learn generally comes from the guidance of adults, such as parents, teachers, and mentors. Adult learners generally have a desire to learn based on internal factors. This includes personal reasons such as increasing self esteem or progressing in their workplace. An adult building maturity overtime leads to them better understanding what they need to learn to progress in life, and they will be motivated to train based on that.

TIPS TO SUIT YOUR TRAINING TO ADULT LEARNERS

So what does this mean? And how does it impact your corporate training? Below are our tips for providing corporate training to adults based on Knowles’ Assumptions for Adult Learning:

  1. Ensure you can back up your credibility as a trainer to build trust with your learners. This can help you keep your adult learner’s attention despite their increased independence compared to a child.
  2. Provide self-directed learning options if possible. As a trainer, it may feel like you are losing a sense of control in your training by providing self-directing options. However, for adults it can be just as – if not more – effective, as it better aligns with many adults learning preferences. Self-directed learning can be implemented through eLearning for convenient, instructorless training.
  3. Involve your learners. Adult learners like to feel involved in the learning process. As a trainer, sending notes or agendas ahead of time to your learners about what will be covered in your workshop can help your learners prepare any questions or other topics they would like to see covered when they enter the training. Giving your learners an opportunity to evaluate your training can also give you strong feedback that you can implement in the future and give your learners more of a say in their training.
  4. Encourage your learners to draw on their previous experiences. Take opportunities to let your learners share their experiences and relate them to your training. This could be through group conversations or activities that allow them to reflect on their experience. Being able to share this experience and apply it to your workshops will help the content better resonate with all the learners.
  5. Highlight the benefits and focus on the impact. Being strategic on your promotion and opening of your training workshop can set the tone for how engaged your learners are for your entire workshop, especially when it comes to adult learners. Consider your learner’s wants and needs. Career advancements? Increased professional value? General improvement of soft skills? Make sure you have some of these points ready to communicate to your learners so that they can understand the benefits of your training and how it can help them grow personally or professionally.
  6. Focus on training that can solve problems for your learners. This boils down once again to understanding your trainee’s needs. What challenges or obstacles are they facing that would make your training worth their while? Ensuring these solutions are incorporated into your training will make your workshops truly stand out.
  7. Increase motivation by focusing on the internal impact. Understanding your trainee’s motivation and how motivation is unique to adult learners will help you plan your workshops in a way that will keep your trainees engaged. Make sure your training is relevant to the factors that will motivate your trainees such as advancements in their workplace or personal development.

CONCLUSION

As adults develop more skills and knowledge, their learning style and experience impacts how they best take in information. By referring to adult learning theory and applying it to our training, you can ensure you are providing the best possible corporate training to your learners.

 

Posted by Katelyn Roy on 

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Your Guide to Trainee Feedback Surveys

IMPROVE FUTURE TRAINING SESSIONS WITH OUR FEEDBACK GUIDE

There’s no doubt that accepting and collecting feedback is important when providing any product or service, and corporate training is no exception.

And while any feedback is crucial, being strategic with how you ask for it can allow you to get the most useful information you can from your participants.

Ask the right questions and get effective feedback from your trainees with our training workshop feedback survey guide below. Copy and paste the most relevant questions into an experience management software like Survey Monkey or simply incorporate it into a feedback request email. Get more email templates for your trainees from one of our recent blog posts.

Remember, research has shown that to get optimal data, you need to consider how long you make your survey. Studies have shown that the longer the survey, the less amount of time your participants spend on answering each individual question. This means it is important to balance your survey to make sure there is enough questions to get all the information you are looking for, while still ensuring that there is a good amount of thought going into how each question is answered. While there is no magic number for how many questions you include in your feedback survey, 5-10 questions is a good rule of thumb.

FEEDBACK: WHY YOUR PARTICIPANTS’ OPINION MATTERS

The opinion of your participants experience in your training programs is highly valuable. Feedback is great for learning purposes, for suggesting improvements, and for inspiring creativity in your training programs. It will also help to determine which ideas are most valued for the company. There are a few different levels of feedback you should be seeking post-training.

Feedback

LEVEL ONE: REACTIONS

The most basic level of evaluation is the participants’ reactions to the training. To gauge this, you should be asking questions such as the following:

  • How did you like the training?
  • How did you like the trainer?
  • How did you feel about the training environment?
  • Did you think the training was useful?
  • Did you feel comfortable?
  • Did you feel as though you had ample opportunities to participate?

Level one questions can be asked in post-training surveys or even in the form of verbal feedback before or after the training session.

Reaction feedback is fairly easy to gather and measure. It should be gathered as close as possible to the desired time period. (For example, if you wanted to measure reactions to the first day of a workshop, you should gather reactionary feedback at the end of the first day).

LEVEL TWO: LEARNING

The next level of evaluation assesses how much the participant actually learned in the training session. It looks at two basic areas which are if trainees learned what we (the trainer) wanted them to learn, and if the training session was the experience participants wanted it to be.

This level is typically measured via tests immediately before and immediately after the training. It is important that these assessments are tied closely to the learning objectives.

Note that this level can be measured on an individual or group level. For example, you could have a verbal group-style quiz, or you could have individual assessments. When assessing group performance, however, make sure that each individual can be evaluated.

Since this level of feedback is very specific to the topic you are training in, we can’t generally tell you what you need to ask. However, with our Soft Skills Library, we provide post tests for each of our Soft Skills courses. This allows you to assess your trainees prior knowledge and what they have learned quickly and easily.

LEVEL THREE: BEHAVIOR

This level of question evaluates how trainees could see themselves applying the learning they took in and how it may have changed their behavior towards the training topic. Key questions for this level may include:

  • How quickly do you feel you can put your knowledge from the training into effect when you go back on the job?
  • Were the skills presented today relevant?
  • How confident do you feel you could correctly implement the skills you learned in the training?
  • Do you feel the training you received today will contribute to positive sustainable change in your workplace?
  • Has your outlook on the training topics discussed today changed?
  • Do you feel that you could confidently share the knowledge you learned in the training session with others?

It can be challenging to evaluate changes at this level, particularly with soft topics like communication and leadership. This is why it is important to develop a well-rounded, accurate evaluation system before training begins. This may need to be evaluated on an ongoing basis in a way that is not intrusive on their daily duties. It may take time for the skills learned in the training to be implemented and impacting their results.

LEVEL FOUR: RESULTS

The final level of evaluation is quantifiable results. This assesses the effect of the training on the person’s environment (their workplace, home, etc.). These questions (like the behaviour questions) may be better to ask a period of time after the training was conducted. Alternatively, you can ask questions that can help you gauge if the trainees can visualize themselves using what they learned in the training to help achieve quantifiable results in their organization.

Consider asking if your trainees can use what they learned to better their metrics in regards to:

  • Number of sales
  • Percentage of customer complaints
  • Timeliness
  • Absenteeism
  • Quality ratings and failures
  • Third-party inspection ratings (such as food and safety)

This is an important level of evaluation, as it is often what high-level executives look for when evaluating the training. They want to know numbers and figures, with proof to back the data up, also known as key performance indicators. This ensures that the goals of the business are being tied into the training.

These evaluation processes should tie in with day-to-day business procedures and not cause a lot of extra work. It is important, however, that the trainee knows what measurements are tied to the training before the training begins. This will help them apply context to the training and achieve better results.

As a final note, be careful of outside factors that can cloud ratings in your quantifiable data. For example, let’s say that you send your salespeople on training and you expect their sales to increase by 5% per month as a result. If the economy crashes two months after the training, your results will be clouded by outside circumstances.

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

Your goals as a trainer will impact the questions you will ask your trainees. This could be in regards to quantifying success, training logistics, knowledge retention or something completely different. Here are some other questions you may want to consider asking when gathering feedback on your training:

  • What is your main goal for taking this training?
  • What was the most useful part of the training?
  • What was your least favorite part of the training? Why was it your least favorite?
  • What are your biggest challenges in your role/organization?
  • Where did you first hear about us?
  • How would you rate the training space?
  • How would you rate the trainer’s delivery of the session?
  • How would you describe your experience of booking/registering for your training?
  • Is there any way we can improve to make our future training sessions better?

CONCLUSION:

We hope that this blog post sparked some inspiration for your next training session. Don’t forget to check out our Soft Skills Library for post-test quizzes on 140 training topics, and let us know of any feedback questions we forgot in the comments below!

Posted by Katelyn Roy on 

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Icebreaker Cheat Sheet to Kick off Your Corporate Training

How does trust and comfortability allow for more effective corporate training? Ensuring your participants feel safe and comfortable in their training workshops  allows everyone to feel empowered to express their thoughts and ask questions. This helps everyone being trained better their understanding through meaningful conversations. By creating this environment in your training workshops, you will create an enriching learning experience for all of your participants.

Bu how do we do this? Finding ways to get your participants open to discussions requires some strategy. However, by putting this extra effort in, your participants can be reminded of their commonality of objections for the training they are receiving. One of the best way to do this is through incorporating icebreakers into your training sessions.

Icebreakers are exercises used in training workshops as a warm-up and to build trust and comfortability within a group of participants, typically presented as games or exercises that can be done to help gain a better understanding of the topics being discussed, or simply to give your participants an opportunity to get to know each other better. This can help promote collaboration throughout your workshop, increase engagement, or make your training more light hearted and fun.

Looking to facilitate icebreakers in your training but don’t know where to start? We have you covered. Below is our cheat sheet for your corporate training icebreakers.

Icebreaker Benefits

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE?

Great for: Helping your participants get to know each other with zero materials or preparation, making it an ideal online training Icebreaker with the use of breakout room features. It takes about 10-15 minutes.

Instructions: Divide the meeting participants into groups of four or five people by having them number off. Tell the groups that their assignment is to each identify and share their favorite work activity, favorite work goal, etc.

Next, ask group member to share why the selected item is their personal favorite.

Debrief the activity in the large group by asking each individual to share their favorite, but not the “why” with the larger group. This moves quickly.

Lastly, ask participants to share with the larger group what they learned about their fellow group members during the small group discussion.

TEAM TRINKETS

Great for: Getting participants comfortable with conflict resolution in a low-stakes context. This activity will help participants get to know each other while doing a non-conflict laden task. It requires some basic materials such as a flip chart, paper, colored markers, craft supplies, etc.

Instructions: Ask participants to number off to create groups of six to eight. Their task is to come up with a team name and slogan, preferably based on something that they all have in common. They should then create two of the following items:

  • Name cards for each participant
  • Team sign
  • Team hats
  • Team work area
  • Team song/poem

Give participants about ten minutes for this task. If conducting training online, put participants into breakout rooms and modify the list to just items that have options that don’t require supplies (just the name, slogan, and song/poem).

After all groups have completed the task, ask each group to present their team name, slogan, and items, and to explain how they arrived at a decision for each. Ask participants if conflicts arose over choices, and how those conflicts were managed.

Encourage groups to work together throughout the day and strengthen their bond.

FIND THE LEADER

Great for: Helping participants get to know each other. Only requires enough chairs for all participants minus one, arranged in a circle. This icebreaker is most ideal for in-person training.

Instructions: Identify the person in the group whose birthday is closest to today’s date. Identify that person as Spot and ask them to leave the room. Then, have the remaining participants choose a leader from the circle. Explain that when Spot returns to the room, they will have three guesses to name the leader. The group’s job is to ensure that their leader stays a secret. Bring Spot back to the room and give him/her three chances to identify the leader. If they succeed, the leader will become the new Spot. If they fail, they will stay as Spot for another round. This activity works best with a group of 10-20 participants, and no one should be Spot for more than three rounds.

Use the following questions to debrief:

  • How did you keep the leader a secret?
  • How did Spot guess the leader?
  • How difficult was it to be Spot?
  • How difficult was it to be the leader?
  • What can we take away from this exercise?

CATEGORIES

Great for: Helping participants get to know each other. Requires no materials. Can be done in person, or modified to be done online with the hand raise feature.

Instructions: Prepare a list of categories, such as:

  • Favorite color
  • Favorite season
  • Number of siblings
  • Astrological sign
  • Shoe size
  • Favorite subject in school

Ask participants to stand. Say that you are going to ask them to arrange themselves by different categories. For example, you might say, “What is your favorite color?” Participants will look for other people who share their favorite color and form groups. Once everyone is in a group, ask the groups to identify themselves. Repeat the activity with four or five different categories.

GETTING ENGAGED

Great for: This activity will help the group to get to know one another, and to connect to each other by working on a common goal that they can refer to throughout the workshop. It requires minimal materials such as flip chart paper and markers, but could easily be modified to suit online training.

Instructions: Have everyone introduce themselves by stating their name, where they are working, how long they have been in their current role, and one thing that they love about the work they do.

Form the group into smaller teams of four to six people. Each group must come up with the name, logo, and motto (if time allows) for their newly formed HR consulting company. They can capture the information on flip chart paper, or simply communicate it verbally if doing the activity online.

BALL TOSS

Great for: Helping participants get to know each other. It requires only a small, lightweight ball that you can easily toss around the room, like a NERF ball.

Instructions: Toss a ball to one of the students who then makes the first introduction and shares one interesting fact about himself or herself. He or she then throws the ball to someone else. Challenge the group to complete the introductions without throwing the ball to the same person twice. If facilitating the icebreaker online, participants can simply choose the person to go next rather than throwing a ball.

FIVE ADJECTIVES

Great for: Helping participants build relationships with each other. Requires no preparation and only paper and pens, and can be modified to online training.

Instructions: Divide the meeting participants into groups of three or four (depending on the number of participants). Breakout rooms can be used if facilitating online. Explain to the groups that each person must write down five adjectives that describe how they view themselves emotionally. Each participant will have a chance to present his / her adjectives to the group.=

Bring the smaller groups together to form the larger group and ask three or four participants to share their adjectives. Note the similarities and differences between how the participants view themselves.

This teambuilding icebreaker takes 10 – 15 minutes, depending on the number of groups.

GROUP RÉSUMÉ

Great for: Getting participants acquainted with each other and promote positive conversation.

Requires little to no materials and can be easily modified for online training using breakout room features.

Instructions: Ask participants to create a composite résumé for their group. They might include such things as:

  • Total years of experience
  • Education
  • Skills
  • Positions held
  • Outside interests

Ask each group to present its résumé to the rest of the participants.

HOUSE OF CARDS

Great for: Helping identify participants’ goals for the training session. Since this icebreaker requires the use of playing cards, it is more appropriate to facilitate this icebreaker at an in-person training session.

Instructions: Pass out one playing card to each participant, face-down. On your cue, ask participants to turn over their playing cards. They are to find others with their suit, but they are not allowed to talk or show their card. For example, if a person had a spade, they may illustrate that by pretending to dig a hole. Once participants are in their groups, they are to introduce themselves and come up with a list of five things that they would like to learn during the workshop. Once groups have created their list, bring participants back together. Have each group present their list and combine topics on the flip chart. Use this as a guide during the workshop. If there are any topics that will not be covered, let participants know where they can find more resources.

CONCLUSION

Icebreakers are an actionable way to meet objectives that will set the ideal tone for the remainder of your training workshops. Our on-line training materials provide everything you need to deliver effective corporate training, including plenty of icebreakers that you can follow to a tee or customize to better suit the context of your organization and your training workshop.

 

Posted by Katelyn Roy on 

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Running Your First Training Workshop? Ease your nerves with our tips and tricks

nervous man

nervous manIf you’re reading this, it means you are probably finally scheduled to conduct your first training workshop.

Or perhaps you are getting back into training after a hiatus.

Or maybe you are just looking to brush up on your training skills and confidence.

Regardless of your situation, we all get a little nervous time to time when it comes to presenting information to others. As a trainer, being the “expert” in the room can be intimidating. But it doesn’t have to be. Below are our tips and tricks for easing your nerves when running your training sessions.

Delivering Training

PREPARATION IS KEY

This may be the number one way to ease nerves when delivering your first training session. And the reality of this blog post is that many of the tips and tricks boil down to this one simple concept: preparation. By reviewing and developing training content ahead of time, we increase our familiarity with it. Familiarity decreases nerves. If you go into your training workshop with a clear and comprehensive knowledge of your content and how you want to deliver it, you will significantly reduce any fear of the unknown, because you have eliminated it. There’s no doubt that preparation for a training workshop is time consuming, and a lot of work, but it will be worth it when you are able to confidently deliver your training. And luckily, our training materials allow you to have a strong baseline for your content to jumpstart your workshops.

CONDUCT A TRAINING NEEDS ANALYSIS

Employee training is sometimes an obvious solution to fixing an organizational challenge. But ensuring you are training on the correct topics is crucial to making your workshop worthwhile. Sometimes training can be a quick and simple solution to overcoming organizational challenges, but it is important that it is done strategically and with intention. If you can understand the needs of your trainees, you can give them impactful, captivating training that you can feel confident in. Conducting a training needs analysis will help you ensure that you are deliver training that is actually conducive to fulfilling your organizational needs.

CONSIDER YOUR STRUCTURE

Structuring your training ahead of time will be your roadmap to successful training. Having an agenda for your training session can help you stay on track and even keep your trainees more engaged. By having a structure, you can provide preview statements. Preview statements let your trainees know how you will present your information overtime. An example of a preview statement is:

  • “First I will define Unconscious Bias, then we will spend ten minutes describing ways it may come up in the workplace, finally, I will go over how to create an Unconscious Bias awareness plan for your workplace.”

Making these statements using transitional words such as “First, second, third” or “Then, next, finally” and providing timelines keeps your audience in the loop on what is to come and can actually keep them more engaged throughout the training session. It also mentally prepares them to take in the information and can increase knowledge retention.

Considering your structure also means deciding what to include in your training to make it interactive. This could be through breakout rooms, gamification, quizzes, etc.

Another simple way to structure your training workshops is through asking questions. This is more than simply asking if your trainees have any questions. Consider check-up questions pertaining to the training as well. Questions could be as simple as:

  • “Has anyone ever heard the term unconscious bias before?”
  • “A few minutes ago, we went over signs of unconscious bias in the workplace. What was one of those signs?”
  • “Does anyone want to share how their last job handled unconscious bias?”

These simple knowledge checks throughout invite trainees to share their experiences and compare and contrast different ideas being taught. Starting with simple one-word questions then moving into questions that require more discussion will ease your trainees into meaningful conversation that complements your training.

BE PERSONABLE

When providing training for the first time, it can feel much easier to simply stick to the script of your training. When nerves are high, it can be intimidating to go off the path you’ve have had time to prepare and revise and feel confident in. However, being personable with your trainees, while it can require you to go a little off script, can be very helpful in building trust and rapport. It can be as simple as starting your session with some conversation. And it doesn’t even have to start with conversation on the training topics. Start by asking about their weekend, or their hobbies. Share things about yourself to contribute to the conversation and encourage them to do the same. This informal practice may seem trivial, but it accomplishes a few different things. It can open up the door to conversation and allows your trainees to feel safe talking about anything, including the training content. It also builds momentum for a conversational tone throughout the entire training session. If you make sure your trainees feel welcome to speak up at any time in the presentation, creates more engagement and allows you to get more feedback on your training. Furthermore, this eases any nerves for both the trainees and you as the trainer. By breaking the ice with these more approachable conversation topics, you can ease your way into topics relating to the training content by asking about their position in the workplace, their work experience, and how they most prefer to be trained. Making your participants comfortable with opening up in lower stakes conversations will make them more likely to open up in more advanced conversations pertaining to your training.

Another way to be more personable in your training workshops is through adding commentary to your training. If you are working off of premade training materials and PowerPoint Slides like ours, consider going beyond your reference materials to provide personal input. This could include the importance of certain parts of your training, how it may be relevant to your trainees’ roles, or personal stories of how it has impacted your professional life.

Remember, your commentary is the value you provide to the trainees. It’s the purpose of having you stand up there and deliver the training, rather than simply having everyone read the content themselves. This conversational tone is what will make your workshops memorable.

TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS

Like we said earlier, when you are delivering training to a group of employees, you are the “expert” in the room. To get to where you are, you have built some creditability and have developed a strong awareness of the topic you are training on. Despite all this, a lack of confidence in trainers is all too familiar. This can lead to imposture syndrome, which can result in underexplaining your training content due to low confidence, which will make your training less effective. Building confidence may be the most important step other than preparation in easing your nerves for your first training workshop (mind you, preparation builds confidence, so they go hand in hand).  The reality is that you are the trainer, and your input means something. Be sure to remember that going in and the confidence will grow overtime with experience.

LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES

It is crucial to give yourself grace when conducting training for the first time (or when doing anything for the first time for that matter). In your first training session – and probably in training sessions to come – there will be moments where things don’t go according to plan. Even if you have done everything listed above to help prepare you, there will still be external circumstances that may impact the delivery of your training. Once you accept this and willingly prepare to have to sometimes solve problems on the fly, you will confidently be able to deliver your training no matter what gets thrown at you. And don’t forget, feedback is your friend.

CONCLUSION

We hope this blog post has helped you feel better equipped to deliver your first training session, or ease your nerves about future training sessions.

Originally posted by Katelyn Roy on 

Posted on

YOUR QUICK GUIDE TO ANGER MANAGEMENT IN THE WORKPLACE

Anger Management Skills Workshop
anger management
Angry Man

As a Courseware Developer, Maria Eagles identifies the needs of trainers and designs/creates training and development programs to deal with anger management in the workplace.

In this week’s blog post, she gives us her quick guide to
anger management in the workplace.
Corporate Training Materials

Anger is complex and often a misunderstood emotion that goes beyond simply being mad. Anger is a natural response that follows a pattern of phases, and can transpire from many factors, including other hidden emotions.

Anger Management training in the workplace can help employees increase their self-awareness and self-management when it comes to anger. This can positively contribute to employee morale, conflict resolution, and creating an overall improved workplace culture.

MYTH BUSTING: COMMON MYTHS ABOUT ANGER, DEBUNKED

Anger in a complicated emotions that brings up many different associations and assumptions in people’s minds. For clarity, below is some common myths about anger, debunked:

  • “Anger needs to be ‘unleashed’ for it to go away.” – It’s true that anger needs to be expressed to relieve symptoms. However, expressing anger in verbally or physically aggressive ways is not the only way to ‘unleash’ anger. Nor is anger an excuse for a person to be aggressive. The expression of anger can be tempered by rationality and forethought. Venting anger does not necessarily result in the anger disappearing, although venting can relieve the symptoms. At times, processing personal experiences, seeing concrete change and genuine forgiveness are needed for anger to go away.
  • “Ignoring anger will make it go away.” – Generally, all kinds of emotions do not disappear when ignored. The anger just gets temporarily shelved, and will likely find other ways of getting expressed. It can get projected to another person, transformed into a physical symptom, or built up for a bigger future blow up. Some of our behaviors may even be unconscious ways of expressing anger. While there are situations when it’s inadvisable to express your anger immediately, the very least you can do is acknowledge that it exists.
  • “You can’t control your anger.” – This myth is related to the second one. As discussed earlier, the fight and flight instinct can make anger an overwhelming emotion. However, this instinct does not mean that you’re but a slave to your impulses. Awareness of anger dynamics and a conscious effort to rise above your anger can help you regain control of your reactions.
  • “If I don’t get angry, people will think I am a pushover.”’- It’s true that a person can lose credibility if they make rules and then ignores violations. However, anger is not the only way a person can show that there are consequences to violations. In fact, the most effective way of instilling discipline in others is to have a calm, non-emotional approach to dealing with rule-breakers. Calm and rationality can communicate strength too. GETTING TO THE ROOT OF THE ANGER

Anger is a normal response that is often experienced as a secondary emotion. This concept can be represented with the Anger Iceberg. The Anger Iceberg illustrates the idea that emotional reactions are not always one-dimensional, rather there are many hidden causes. Although anger may be presented and expressed on the outside, there are other underlying emotions that give energy to this anger.

anger management
Sources of Anger

Emotions that frequently prompt anger include:

  • Frustration – When a goal is blocked from reaching the desired result, individuals will become frustrated. This frustration will provoke anger as an emotional response, directed at the object recognized as the cause of the frustration.
  • Hurt/Loss – Individuals will turn to anger, as a substitute to feeling pain. Anger is a normal stage during a grieving process. This can be done consciously, or unconsciously.
  • Disrespected – This occurs when individuals are not given the respect that they deserve, or feel that they are always under attack.
  • Fear – Fear and anger derive from feelings of control; while fear will typically arise from a loss of control, anger is a means of gaining back control.
  • Shame – Anger is used as a defense response when individuals perceive they are being humiliated, criticized, or rejected. Anger is a way to distract us from feelings of shame.
  • Guilt – Reacting with anger is used as a way to protect our ego, and remove ourselves from the blame. Unfortunately, this means that blame is taken from within and placed on another individual.
  • Sadness – When we feel sad, we feel vulnerable and as though we have loss of control. To avoid these feelings of sadness, we will subconsciously shift into an anger mode to mask feelings of disappointment or discouragement.

Anger: Understanding the Cycle

Anger is a natural emotion that usually stems from perceived threat or loss. It’s a pervasive emotion; it affects our body, thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Anger is often described in terms of its intensity, frequency, duration, threshold, and expression.

Anger typically follows a predictable pattern: a cycle. Understanding the cycle of anger can help us understand our own anger reactions, and those of others. It can also help us in considering the most appropriate response.

anger management

  1. The Trigger Phase

The trigger phase happens when we perceive a threat or loss, and our body prepares to respond. In this phase, there is a subtle change from an individual’s normal/adaptive state into a stressed state. Anger triggers differ from person to person, and can come from both the environment or from our thought processes.

  1. The Escalation Phase

In the escalation phase, there is the progressive appearance of the anger response. In this phase, our body prepares for a crisis after perceiving the trigger. This preparation is mostly physical, and is manifested through symptoms like rapid breathing, increased heart rate, and raised blood pressure. Once the escalation phase is reached there is less chance of calming down, as this is the phase where the body prepares for fight or flight.

  1. The Crisis Phase

As previously mentioned, the escalation phase is progressive, and it is in the crisis phase that the anger reaction reaches its peak. In the crisis phase our body is on full alert, prepared to take action in response to the trigger. During this phase, logic and rationality may be limited, if not impaired because the anger instinct takes over. In extreme cases, the crisis phase means that a person may be a serious danger to himself or to other people.

  1. The Recovery Phase

The recovery phase happens when the anger has been spent, or at least controlled, and there is now a steady return to a person’s normal/ adaptive state. In this stage, reasoning and awareness of one’s self returns. If the right intervention is applied, the return to normalcy progresses smoothly. However, an inappropriate intervention can reignite the anger and serve as a new trigger.

  1. The Depression Phase

The depression phase marks a return to a person’s normal/ adaptive ways. Physically, this stage marks below normal vital signs, such as heart rate, so that the body can recover equilibrium. A person’s full use of his faculties return at this point, and the new awareness helps a person assess what just occurred. Consequently, this stage may be marked by embarrassment, guilt, regret, and or depression.

After the depression phase is a return to a normal or adaptive phase. A new trigger, however, can start the entire cycle all over again. Some people also skip certain phases, or else they go through them privately and/ or unconsciously.

CONTROLLING ANGER: ACTIONABLE STEPS

Since anger is an instinctive emotion that comes unbidden, we often do not have a choice in whether we would be angry or not. What we can do however, is take control of our anger when it comes. Anger management is not about suppressing your feelings of anger, but rather to find meaning behind your anger and determine healthy ways to express this anger. Uncontrolled anger can be extremely problematic; thus, it is important to find strategies to keep anger in check. The more you practice the strategies of gaining control over your anger, the easier it will become.

Relaxation techniques to control anger include:

  • Breathing Exercises – Deliberately controlling your breathing can help a person calm down. Ways to do this include: breathing through one’s nose and exhaling through one’s mouth, breathing from one’s diagram, and breathing rhythmically.
  • Meditation – Meditation is a way of exercising mental discipline. Most meditation techniques involve increasing self-awareness, monitoring thoughts, and focusing. Meditation techniques include prayer, the repetition of a mantra, and relaxing movement or postures.
  • Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) – PMR is a technique of stress management that involves mentally inducing your muscles to tense and relax. PMR usually focuses on areas of the body where tension is commonly felt, such as the head, shoulders, and chest area. It’s a way to exercise the power of the mind over the body.
  • Visualization – Visualization is the use of mental imagery to induce relaxation. Some visualization exercise involves picturing a place of serenity and comfort, such as a beach or a garden. Other visualization exercises involve imagining the release of anger in a metaphorical form. An example of this latter kind of visualization is imagining one’s anger as a ball to be released to space.
  • Music – Some people find listening to music as very relaxing. The kind of music that’s calming differs from person to person; traditional relaxation music includes classical pieces, acoustic sounds, and even ambient noises.
  • Art and Crafts – There are people who find working with their hands as a good way to relax. This is especially true for people who feel their tensions in their hands. Drawing pictures, paper construction and sculpting are just some of the ways to de-stress when faced with an anger trigger. Arts and crafts are helpful because it keeps a person from obsessing on the anger while he or she is still in the recovery phase of the anger cycle.

CONCLUSION

Anger management is a process. It is impossible to remove anger out of our lives, but it is possible to find healthy outlets for this anger. Anger management involves being informed, self-awareness, taking control, and taking action. These changes take time and practice, however when you stay motivated with controlling your anger, you will have powerful, positive outcomes.

Did you enjoy our anger management quick guide? We’ve just updated our Anger Management course, making it more relevant than ever for your participants. There’s no better time to tackle anger management training in your organization. Learn more about this course or get started on your corporate training today.