Make Staff Training Fun!

This year, 2 Minute Trainer is taking a different approach. The aQuire team will be sharing concrete ideas to help you put into practice some of the concepts and theories we’ve been talking about over the past year.

This month, we’re kicking off the new series with some ideas to help you build FUN into your classroom-based training.

Even though you are using aQuire’s online training program for basic staff training, I hope you’re at least holding periodic team building meetings – celebrating birthdays, updating staff on policy or staffing changes, and reinforcing the idea that TEAM is what gets the work done.

So here are a couple of ideas to help you make those team meetings – or classroom trainings – FUN!

Staff Training is one of those “catch-22” type things: we have to do it, but it often isn’t very much fun. Consider the primary goals of staff training: to impart additional knowledge and to affect outcome or behavior based on that increased knowledge.

You can, on a good day, achieve those goals by lecturing to staff – maybe. But think how much more interesting it would be to develop a format that allowed staff to laugh together, to share their own thoughts, ideas and perspectives, and to form a more cohesive team bond with co-workers – all while learning new information.

If staff find learning fun, chances are you’ll see a greater change in outcome or behavior based on the learning, and that’s the ultimate goal of staff training.

Create Your Own Learning Game

Check out some well-known resources for developing team-building and learning games, such as John Newstrom and Edward Scannell’s book, The Big Book of Team Building Games (McGram-Hill, 1998). Then, follow some simple rules, and you’ll soon see staff having fun and learning at the same time:

• Develop questions that elicit learning information – on whatever topic you’re teaching
• Design questions to have no right or wrong answers – just “your” answer
• Allow for personal or team competition – or do it just for fun
• Create inter-shift teams to help build bridges between shifts
• Take time between questions to give additional training information
• Develop games for department heads or team leaders that give them opportunity to stretch their skills, and learn from each other

If you’d like to check out your staff’s reaction to a learning game, try this simple starting game. Use the questions at the end, or make up your own questions, and take a few minutes to watch what happens to your team. Here are two different approaches to try – pick the one you feel most comfortable with, and go for it!


Learning Game #1:

1.  Using a variety of brightly colored pieces of construction paper, lay out a “game board” on the floor. Make a semi-circle, or curve around in an “S” shape – be creative! Use about 20 squares of paper (more squares will make the game last longer, but you’ll also need more questions).
2. Use one large die from an activity set of dice, or put the numbers 1-6 on slips of paper and place in a basket for drawing.
3. Divide your group into two teams. You can count off (1-2-1-2) and send all the “1s” to one side of the room and the “2’s” to the other side, or divide in any way you choose. Consider mixing the teams up a bit from the way they might naturally divide.
4. Have each team choose a person to be its “marker.” That person stands next to square # 1, and moves each turn the number of squares rolled on the dice. If the “marker” lands on a square that the other team’s “marker” is already standing on, the “marker” already in place is bumped to the first square, and starts over. The first team reaching the last square “wins” the game.
5. Each team selects an individual to answer the first question; the second question goes to another team member, and so on until the game is complete. Try making some questions “team” questions, to be answered after a team conference rather than by one individual.
6. While winning has its own reward, a small Hershey’s kiss or other token prize will liven up the finish of the game.

Remember, the game has no right or wrong answers. Sharing, learning from each other, and growing in team relationship, knowledge and skills is the point.


Learning Game #2

This structure is easier to plan, but won’t facilitate the same competitive spirit as Game #1. Use this approach if you have a small group that’s already quite cohesive, or if you run out of preparation time, but still want to use a game format for learning.

1. Get a small foam ball, beach ball, or even a tightly wadded piece of paper.
2. Start by tossing the ball to one individual in the group. That person is now selected to answer the question, or pass. He or she then tosses the ball to another person, who must answer the next question, or pass and toss the ball on.
3. The game ends when all the questions have been asked and answered. Individuals who answer questions can be cheered, and then rewarded with the token “prize,” or recognized as a group at the end.

Sample Questions for Team Building Games

• Go to another person in the room and tell him or her something he/she does exceptionally well at work
• Give someone you don’t know well a sincere compliment
• Share one thing that could be done to make our staff a better “team”
• Name one thing that could help your team have more enthusiasm
• Name one thing that could help your team have more fun together
• Share one thing about yourself no one in the room knows.
• Finish this sentence: If someone on the team has a problem with me, I’d like them to:

Engage, Learn and Grow

This is my last entry for the year 2009. Next year, we’re planning something completely different for the 2 Minute Trainer – I think you’ll like it (but you’ll have to wait ‘til 2010 to find out).

It’s fitting, then, that the last in the series of 12 key indicators of employee engagement that we have been discussing is this:

“In the last year, have you had opportunities to learn and grow?”

Employees who are fully engaged will answer “YES!” to this question. Which makes me wonder, have I had opportunities to learn and grow this year? Have you?

It’s been a tough year for many people. More people than I can fathom lost jobs this year; real people, with real mortgages, electric bills and mouths to feed.

Others of us retained our jobs but saw the way we do business change. We tightened some belts and adjusted some spending, all the while grasping with both hands to hold onto our turf in an increasingly challenging playing field.

I have had moments – not this year, fortunately – when I simply asked for boredom; a year with no “opportunities for growth” that were really euphemisms for “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

I’m pretty sure that’s not exactly the kind of growth the Gallup folks had in mind.

I like to think that they had in mind the kinds of opportunities to learn and grow that are fun and innovative; that take us out of our comfort zone and stretch us in a wonderful, exhilarating way.

Like the way I learned a whole new language when I got my iPhone (apps and app stores, for example). And then the way that I learned how to find almost anything at the touch of my finger, including where I left my car and what subway line to take back to the airport. It was fun to learn, and fun to explore a whole new area of knowledge and information.

Or the way my heart simply grew in size when our newest little god-daughter was born. It didn’t hurt a bit, and it was wonderful and amazing.

Could we embrace learning and growth at work in the same way? Could we help our team members experience this, too?

Have you seen the newest ads by the language company Rosetta Stone? The headline says, “What’s the best way to learn a new language? Act like a baby!” The ad points out that learning, for babies, is a thing of exploration and wonder. It’s magical and natural. It’s effective, too.

Somewhere along the line we started treating adult learning like a task – a requirement. It stopped being fun and joyful. It ceased being a natural by-product of our desire to learn more and more about our job, and continually increase our job skills.

Perhaps my wish for you, at the close of a year that may go down in the history books as the last year of the “decade from hell” (if Time magazine has its way), is that you will find, for you and your team, opportunities to learn and grow in the coming year that will inspire, enrich and energize you.

And that you’ll grow and prosper, both as a manger and as a member of this wonderful human family of ours.

Engage, evaluate

“It’s time for your annual evaluation.”

I don’t know about you, but that phrase sounds suspiciously like, “Please come to the principle’s office.”

It’s not a request, it’s a summons. You know that nothing good is going to come from it. In fact, you suspect that something very, very bad could be sneaking up on you in the form of “annual eval time.”

Interesting, Gallup’s #11 item on the list of 12 key expectations that measure employee engagement is this: “In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress?”

Note that an annual evaluation only yields a “yes” answer for 6 months out of the year. So is the answer another evaluation meeting? Yuck!

Here’s what I’ve been trying, in my on-going effort to become a boss who fully engages every person on the team: I schedule a monthly “job review” meetings individually with each person on my team. Usually I schedule these for Friday afternoons at the start of each month. By Friday afternoon, we’re all ready for a more relaxed pace to wind down from the week. At the beginning of the month we can talk about last month’s accomplishments and plan for this month’s tasks.

Together, we’ve come up with a clear description of each person’s tasks, including goals and how we know when they’ve achieved their goals. It took a few months for us to get there, starting, as we often do with a list of goals that include, “Doing work assigned to me.”

Gradually, we started to see patterns. Desiree answers the phones and helps solve people’s problems. Wendy and Sara work with new and potential new clients to make sure we meet – and exceed – their expectations. Other team members have their own areas of work. In each of these jobs there are ways we measure success – how quickly we solve people’s problems; how happy our existing clients are with service. As we realize our big goals, we can start setting little goals, too; goals that help us grow in depth and breadth as individuals and as a company.

It’s been fun for me, and I think even the staff members look forward to it. We get a few minutes of one-on-one time to focus on expectations; to give feedback and to say a simple, “thanks for your efforts.”

I remember telling someone early in my career that any time an employee failed at their work, it reflected negatively on me, too. Over the years I’ve come to accept that some people are simply not a match for the job they’re placed into, and that has no negative reflection on them or me. I’ve also learned, though, that helping guide each person to success means taking the time, on a regular basis, to give them feedback on goals and expectations.

It means, in a nutshell, taking the time to talk to each person, regularly, about their progress.

Engagement: building friends

Someone once asked me who my best friend was (husbands don’t count)…and I had to think a long time before I could answer.

I work full time running a busy, growing company. I have three daughters, each of whom would like a little of my attention. My husband requests his 60 seconds of undivided attention each week, too. While we are involved in church and other organizations, few there would qualify for “best friend” status.

I could think of only one person in answer to that question: a co-worker. I spent hours every week with her, planning projects and carrying out these plans; solving crises large and small. Often, we’d end a busy day with a quick glass of wine or, when we had accomplished something really outstanding, a celebratory margarita (or two). Of all the people in my life, she was the only one I could call a “best friend.”

If you’re like me – and many other people in our fast-paced world, our best friends are often our co-workers or colleagues. They’re the ones we spend the most hours of our day with; and the ones with whom we share our agonies (“Can you believe the boss did that – again?!”) and our ecstasies (“We totally nailed that one!”).

The researchers from Gallup found that, in fact, having a best friend at work was one indicator (#10 on the list of 12, if you’re counting) of employee engagement.

I like that concept. It seems like a very long way from the thinking of management in my early career. Those were the days when we discouraged work relationships. We said, “They’re your co-workers; not your friends. Don’t get too cozy with them.”

We worried that if we had to discipline one person, their “friends” might get upset, causing a chain reaction of resignations or bad behavior.

What we discovered along the way was that treating people fairly caused generally fair reactions. Even “friends” understood and respected management decisions that were fair, balanced and focused on improving quality care.

Today, knowing how important friendship at work is to employee engagement, good managers actively looks for ways to encourage friendships. Mentoring new hires by pairing them with experienced staff who seem to have compatible personalities is one way that works for many; secret pals and scheduled social events are others.

As you’re working on building a more engaged team, think about ways that you personally – and systematically – encourage the development of friendships among team members.

Ask your team members, “Who is your best friend?”

And hope the answer they give is someone you know.

12 Keys: Are your co-workers equally dedicated?

My daughter came home from the school the other day with steam pouring out of her ears. Being a mom, I can see these kinds of things.

I asked her what on earth was wrong, and she began to tell me, with a great deal of emotion, about a school project that was supposed to be completed by a small group of students. Each student had a part to complete, but the final grade would be made on the project as a whole, no matter how well each part was done.

Of course, there was a slacker, one student who was too busy with sports or musical tryouts or boyfriend drama (or in this case, all of the above), to complete her assigned part of the project.

The entire group got a bad grade and my daughter was fuming. Who could blame her? She worked hard on her part, focusing on detail and design as well as the assigned content. She felt great about her part of the project, but lousy about her final grade and the outcome overall. Most of all, she felt that the final project didn’t reflect on HER ability or effort.

If you’ve put your heart and soul into a project, it really sucks to have someone else come along and mess it up. If you’re working with a frail, vulnerable person and you’re passionate about providing quality care, it more than sucks if you feel your co-workers may be taking short-cuts when they come on shift to take over for you.

Maybe that’s why day shift always complains about how few rounds night shift made, or evenings complain about how much laundry day shift left them to do.

Or your caregivers seem less than fully engaged.

It takes a team to accomplish great things; it takes a team focused in the same direction, each pulling relatively equal weight, to reach your organization’s fully engaged potential.

12 Keys to employee engagement: Your job is important

I love talking to people who are passionate about their jobs. You find them in all walks of life. Our UPS guy is passionate about delivering packages to my door. He bounds up the walk in his brown shorts and shirt, reaching into his pocket with his free hand to pull out a biscuit for my dog. Bella knows that brown truck and her tail starts wagging the minute she sees it.

The other day I heard a guy who made car parts talk excited about his job – he was definitely passionate about it.

Over the years I have had friends and relatives (not naming names here) who always seemed to hate their jobs. They complain about their bosses, their hours, their benefits. Still, they show up for work, put in their hours, collect their paycheck. Not ideal employees, I imagine.

Gallup asks this question, number 8 in the top 12 questions that measure employee engagement: “Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important?”

Those of us in the business of providing care to seniors ought to be easily able to give our employees the advantage of answering a hearty “Yes!” to this question.

Isn’t every single job in senior care important? In my book it certainly is. I’ve known a few managers, however, who managed to convey the sense that there was a hierarchy of importance in senior care: The top manager or executive director was clearly the most important person, followed by department heads or team leaders, followed by care staff. Housekeepers, maintenance workers and kitchen staff were often at the very bottom of the manager’s list of important workers.

If you look at pay structure you could certainly get that impression.

A good manager, however, knows how valuable every single member of the team is to the overall organization, especially the ground-floor employees. They are usually the ones responsible for delivering the hands’ on care and making the property look great.

You can’t pay them manager’s wages, but you can recognize the value of their work.

You can greet them by name.

You can introduce them to visitors and guests, and mention something they do extraordinarily well.

You can thank them for the work they do, and tell them how important you know it to be.

You will soon watch them glow, as they recognize – and know that you recognize – that their job, their work, is truly important to the mission of the organization.

12 Keys to employee engagement: My opinion counts

Have you ever worked for a boss who genuinely wanted to hear your opinion? How about one who wouldn’t listen to anyone’s opinion – certainly not yours.

Which one made you feel more valued as a person? Which one made you want to think harder and do better work?

If you’re now a manager, think carefully about which one describes the way you manage.

Do you ASK for ideas and opinions from your team members, or just tell them the way things are going to be?

Do you stop talking and actively LISTEN if a team member offers an opinion or idea?

When was the last time you changed a plan because of the opinion of a team member? When did you last implement something based on the ideas of a team member?

Among the keys to employee engagement is this one thing: “My opinions count.”

I’ve sat in on employee meetings and heard managers say, “I want to remind you about our policies for being late, tardy or sick. If you’re sick, you’ll need to get a doctor’s excuse or it will be an unexcused absence. Does anyone NOT understand this policy?” Sometimes, the review of policies goes on and on, in a tone that wouldn’t make me feel valued or engaged if I was the recipient.

What if the manager had said, “I’ve noticed a lot of people being late or sick lately. Does anyone have any ideas on how we should handle this?” Perhaps, through active listening and open discussion, the manager may have arrived at the same place as the company policies, but perhaps some other conditions may have surfaced that could be handled in a way to build and strengthen the team, and the loyalty to the company.

New managers often believe their main job is to enforce company policies. Experienced managers who are focused on building a strong, engaged, successful team know the importance of collaborative decision making, and of seeking – and valuing – the opinions of each member of the team.