Three things you need to know about AB1825 training

For many California employers, it’s time once again to send your supervisors to AB1825 sexual harassment prevention training. California law requires organizations with 50 or more employees to provide two hours of this training every two years. Newly hired or promoted supervisors must attend the training within their first six months. It’s a good idea to make sure your program is up to date before sending your employees to their next class. 

There are three major updates that should be included in any AB1825 training program.

Update 1: Expanding definitions
We tend to think of sexual harassment as being strictly about sex. However, trends in litigation have shown that harassing employees because of their gender can also be considered sexual harassment. Supervisors now have a wider range of inappropriate behavior to watch out for.

Update 2: New definition of retaliation
Several recent Supreme Court rulings have shown that illegal retaliation doesn’t have to be intentional and even third parties may be protected. Supervisors need to understand how to prevent illegal retaliation in the event they receive a sexual harassment complaint.

Update 3: Claims by men on the rise
The percentage of claims filed by men has risen steadily over the past ten years. Additional research is required to fully understand the reasons why, but supervisors should know how to protect male and female employees alike.

Selecting the Right Program
Choosing the right sexual harassment prevention training program can be tricky.  Here are three things to look for when making your selection.

Is it compliant?
Training programs must meet a list of requirements covering content, the trainer’s qualifications, and even the delivery format (classroom, e-learning, etc.) to be compliant with state regulations. You can view these regulations online.

Is it relevant?
Your program should contain scenarios and discussion topics that reflect the workplace issues your supervisors are likely to encounter.

Is it engaging?
California regulations require the training to be interactive. Make sure you choose a program that will capture your participants’ interest through relevant examples, appropriate humor, and interactive activities.

Need more help?
Compliance training doesn't have to be boring! Our AB1825 sexual harassment prevention training program is compliant, relevant, and engaging.

Test our tools and get free consulting!

Toister Performance Solutions, Inc. is searching for organizations to test some of our simple performance improvement tools in exchange for free consulting services. Eligible organizations should notify us by March 15, 2011 for consideration.

Who can participate?
Participating organizations should meet the following criteria to participate.

• Have a clearly defined performance challenge. 
• The challenge should be small in scope, such as one particular process. 
• The appropriate stakeholders (executives, department members, etc.) should be on-board.

A good example might be a critical process that employees frequently fail to follow. Another example might be customers consistently rating your organization poorly in one particularly area.

What are the benefits?
Participating organizations will receive several key benefits.

• Free consulting. Participating organizations will receive free consulting services.
• Exposure. Success stories will be published in our blog.
• Results. Isn't performance improvement the whole point?

How to sign up
Please contact Jeff Toister if you are interested in learning more about how your organization can participate.

Toister Performance Solutions named Champion of Learning

The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) has recognized Toister Performance Solutions, Inc. as a 2010 'Champion of Learning'. This designation is recognition for our efforts to promote Employee Learning Week, an employee learning awareness campaign that is held every December. This is the second year in a row we have been designated as a Champion of Learning.

This year, we also helped several clients and colleagues celebrate Employee Learning Week and earn their own 'Champion of Learning' recognition:

• H.G. Fenton Company
• ResMed
• Welk Resorts
• Nonprofit Management Solutions

Is social media changing customer service?

Let’s get this out of the way: social media is not changing the fundamentals of customer service.  Customer service still boils down to how well you meet, exceed, or fall short of your customers’ expectations.  Social media is, however, changing how service is delivered and how customers expect to be served.  And, in many cases it’s your fault.  (“Your” being a catch-all term for everyone reading this article.  You individually might be completely innocent.)

Resorting to social media
I am currently chronicling the challenges I’m having with the Avis rental car company on my blog (read it here).  It started when I signed up for the Avis Preferred program but I wasn’t receiving the Preferred benefits.  I had a face to face conversation with four Avis employees and none of them resolved the issue.  I even called their 1-800 number for help, but that led nowhere either.  I finally decided to blog about it as a last resort.  Lo and behold, I was soon contacted by an Avis customer service supervisor who had been referred to my blog. The message from Avis was loud and clear: we won't help you unless you besmirch our reputation online for others to see.

For many companies, their traditional service delivery mechanisms are just plain broken.  Two years ago, BusinessWeek ran a terrific article, "Consumer Vigilantes" that detailed how many customers were going on the offensive after companies failed to resolve their problems. A famous example is Dave Carroll's "United Breaks Guitars" video that has now been viewed over 9 million times.  

Despair.com’s customer service page is a more accurate representation of how a lot of companies really approach customer service. I especially like their slogan:

We're not satisfied until you're not satisfied.

Using social media, badly
Last Spring, I ran an experiment to see how companies were really using social media to engage their customers.  The results were surprisingly poor.  The primary challenge was their social media efforts were heavy on the media, but light on the social. (You can read about the experiment here.)

That’s not to say your business shouldn’t be using social media.  Just do it right or don’t do it at all.  I recently discovered a great blog post, “Twitter should not be a last resort for your customer service department” (thanks, @trainingtsar) that makes a good case for proactively using Twitter for service.  Inc. also ran a great article earlier this year (“You’ve been Yelped”) that tackled the good, bad, and ugly of having your company rated in a public forum. You can also check out the BestBuy Facebook page for a terrific example of using Facebook for customer service.

So, what's really changing?
Is there anything really new about service, or is social media just another tool that some companies are using well and some are not? I put that question back to you, dear reader. Post your comments or send me an email. I'll also post this question online so we can all rely on the wisdom of strangers. Let's meet back here next month and see if we have some answers.

Save time by knowing where you are going

There’s a fun activity I like to use when I facilitate leadership training.  I ask the group to imagine they are going on a road trip and give them one minute to brainstorm all the things they would take with them.  There’s a flurry of activity and the groups inevitably come up with a long and impressive list of items.  We do a quick debriefing and then run the activity again.  This time, I give the team a specific destination like Disneyland or San Francisco.  There’s another flurry of activity and another list.  The difference is the second list is usually shorter than the first one, but it contains essential items that were left off the first time when the group was working furiously but had no idea where they were headed.  It seems like you can save a lot of time and get better results if you know where you are going.

Three places to get immediate results

Adding a little direction to meetings, emails, and your daily plan are examples of three places where you can get immediate results.

Meetings

Why do we have so many meetings in the corporate world?  I visit a lot of companies and it is amazing to see people hurriedly moving from meeting to meeting without actually getting much done.  The common thread is often a lack of clear purpose.

I have three requirements for any meeting I organize:

1. Goals. What do we want to accomplish at this meeting?  More importantly, why do we need a meeting to accomplish it?
2. Roles. Who is invited and why?  Each attendee should be expected to have something to contribute.  If it’s just an FYI then I can read the minutes.
3. Agenda. A good meeting should have an agenda that spells out what we are trying to achieve, who is participating, and a rough outline of how we will accomplish our goals.

I double dog dare you to immediately cancel any meetings that don’t meet these requirements!

Email

If you haven’t complained recently about the amount of emails you receive, then you know someone who has.  Our volume of messages is getting over the top, but much of it is avoidable if we email with a purpose.

I follow three simple rules when I email:

1. Think. Think about why you are sending the email before you write it.  It’s amazing how a quick moment of reflection will change what you write and even eliminate some emails to begin with.
2. Clarify. Make it easy for the reader to know what you really want.  This includes writing clear, direct subject lines and putting any requested actions in the first paragraph. 
3. Anticipate. Poorly written emails often result in long email conversations.  Try to anticipate any questions the recipient may have and answer them too. 

Your daily plan

There will always be more work than time, so it’s a good idea to start each day by knowing what’s most important.  For example, this article will be referenced in the email newsletter I am finalizing today for distribution tomorrow, so I know I have to get it done.  That’s why it’s my first item of business. 

Without a clear plan we tend to react to whatever work comes to us.  This starts a viscous cycle of falling behind, arriving late and unprepared to meetings, and sending incomplete emails that generate more useless emails.  The way out of it is to stop, take a deep breath, and focus on what’s most important.