What innovative ways do you have of successfully conducting annual refresher training? I received a request to develop refresher training for 150 employees in two sites. The requestor wants the training session to be an annual requirement. The subject matter is processing a transaction one time per year under strict and tight deadlines and complicated regulations.

quote:

Originally posted by Debbie88:
innovative ways ......conducting annual refresher training.........150 employees in two sites........the training session to be an annual requirement.....subject matter is processing a transaction one time per year under strict and tight deadlines and complicated regulations.

But what is/are the objective(s)or rather learning outcomes?

Strict regulations? Once per year? So is it tax or pharmaceuticals....or Santa Claus's travel schedule?

I'm guessing this has something to do with some type of regulatory compliance? If so - here's an innovative way to do this -- innovative because I've yet to see anyone do this -- stop calling it training (because it isn't) and trust that you have qualified, professional adults working for the company, give them whatever it is they're supposed to read, and let them sign a form that says they've read and understood whatever it is they're supposed to read and understand.

Ensuring that employees are adhering to rules, regulatory guidelines, etc. is a management, leadership, communication, corporate culture issue. "Refresher training" is neither training, nor refreshing.

Experience has demonstrated time and again that what requestors of training solutions want and what they actually need are rarely in sync.

Debbie88,

You might try something similar to the refresher training that airline pilots have every year. (Without it, they would lose their licenses.) They practice all types of emergency procedures - things that rarely happen. Since that is the only time they have to practice these maneuvers, they take it very seriously. And it is indeed "refresher training." If they did not have this "refersher training" their skills would become so rusty that they might not know how to react in a real emergency situation. This refresher training is also the time when they are evaluated on a yearly basis.

I don't know exactly what type training you are talking about, but perhaps you could use the airline pilot model and give them the opportunity to practice using ever stricter and tighter deadlines. Like Stari ribar says, figure out what the objectives are and then build some scenarios for practice that meet those objectives.

I'm not sure I agree totally with LoveLearning's claim that it isn't training. I know that for the pilots, it is training. And even for regulatory compliance issues, it would still be training if you present them with scenarios that they normally don't deal with. They would certainly "learn," so it seems to me it would be training.

The very idea that all they need is to read something and then sign a form saying they read and understood it is really BAD practice - especially if you take it seriously. Even though they may be adults doesn't mean they will comprehend everything they read and even if they do understand every word, they will not necessarily know when and how to implement it correctly should the occasion arise, nor will they remember what to do in the first place.

A lot of people have suffered through the "read and sign" type activity and have suffered the result; loss of life, equipment fires, and all manner of hazardous situations - for the public and the workers themselves. The next time you hear about an oil refinery fire or other industrial accident, you can bet that someone took the easy road - probably management, and followed the "read and sign" approach.

Let's give Debbie a break here!! First off, we can imply from the post that it is in fact something close to regulatory. Now why would managers want that? Hmmm. Not too hard to figure out or at least take come good guesses. Somewhere someone could suffer big losses if the transaction is not processed correctly. This is what LoveLearning is alluding to and I agree.

So, what do you call it if you train someone and then they have to perform the task a year later and likely won't remember so they take a "refresher course". While they did know it, they are learning the bits they have forgotten. There is some kind of learning that needs to take place here. This is clearly not the kind of training where someone learns something and then goes and uses it frequently. How else would you get them back up to speed? There might be ways other than classic training.


I totally agree with KaliKo's take that it is BAD PRACTICE to just give them something to read. I especially could not have said KaliKo's last paragraph better.

Ok, now back to the original request. Let's get some more suggestions on the table. How about these for starters.
- Repeat the original training - boring but complete
- Impact sessions - Bring groups into a room and have them solve problems identify the impact of certain deadlines not being met or regulations not being followed.
- Divide the groups into two teams and have them develop train each other on key areas
- Design problems that were created by not following the regs or not meeting deadlines, present just the results and have them backtrack - CSI like - and figure out what caused the problem.