Question:
We’re trying to prioritize our training on preventing sexual harassment. Can you give us an idea of where the biggest problem spot is for most companies?

Answer:

Of the roughly 5,000 sex-harassment complaints filed with EEOC last year, the majority of them were based on supervisors’ not responding to initial complaints. That comes from HR consultant Hunter Lott, who’s done harassment-prevention training for firms such as Anheuser-Busch and FedEx-Kinko’s.

Most firms get into trouble because supervisors don’t take complaints seriously, so employees feel forced to go outside the company to get someone to listen to them.

Her story:

When we recruit people, we sell them on the idea that our company believes in continual learning and improvement – meaning we support training as a way to reach career goals.

The problem with that: Our supervisors and HR were always
challenged to come up with new and different training employees could attend offsite and onsite.

Plus, of course, the training had to be relevant to the goals of the employee and the company. Keeping on top of that was almost a full-time job in itself, and we couldn’t
afford a training coordinator to do it.

Our solution: Make employees their own training coordinators – but it took some work.

Two stipulations
The cornerstone of the solution was to have employees find and choose their own training. No one really knew for certain whether employees would like the idea – many were skeptical or didn’t want the responsibility – or whether it would work.

• So we tried it for about a year on an experimental basis with a few employees. We told them they could choose their own training, but approval would be based on two major stipulations:
• The employee had to show the connection between the proposed training and their jobs and careers.

Cost would be a factor in approval. The more expensive the training, the greater the benefit the employee
would have to show – to the company and the job.

We rolled out the program and held our breath, waiting to see what would happen.

Early results
One of our first successes was a customer service employee – let’s call her “Jane” – who told her boss she was interested in the quality-control end of our business, and asked for training in that area.

Jane picked out her training, got the OK, and ended up moving into quality control and being a top performer.
We used that success story as a template to show others how the program might work for them. And an interesting thing happened.

Not all employees embraced the idea – some still wanted the
supervisor to pick the training. But we found that the ones who did take control of their training often also happened to be our most motivated, top performers.

In other words, the top people used the program to get better or to help themselves advance with the company. That assured us the program was working.

(Norma Anthony, Medford, NJ)

Her story:

Squeezing in affordable management training was always a challenge for us.

Our operation runs pretty lean, so it’s hard for supervisors to head off to some remote site for several days for management training. And then, of course, there’s the cost involved.

We did try to do some onsite training, but you usually have to have a large group for that to be cost-effective — not practical in our small outfit — and you have to schedule a block of time that may not always convenient for everyone.

We had to figure out a way to address our management-education problem.

As a start toward that goal, I decided to call some education experts – the business department at our local community college.

Late-day classes
I explained our goals to the department head, and we worked out a solution. He’d send us a list of management courses that ran only from 3 to 5 p.m.

That way, our supervisors could attend at the end of the day for an hour or two without breaking up a whole day or going to some far-away site. The school even helped us work on getting a state training grant to help pay for some of the classes.

So we ended up with management training that’s effective, convenient and affordable.

(Lynette Kautz, HR director, Denison, TX)

73%: Communication skills

13%: Decision-making skills

14%: Other

Many of those who responded said that a lot of problems could be solved if their managers had better communication skills — with their employees, their bosses, other managers and HR.

A practical skill-booster: One HR manager said her firm had found a way to give managers “practice” at communicating. The company hooked up with a local vocational school that wanted to give its students experience at interviewing for their first jobs.

So the company agreed that new managers would hold simulated interviews with the students — giving students and managers the experience of interviewing without the risk of making a mistake. The HR manager observes those interviews and gives the manager feedback that can be used in actual interviews and other communication situations.

His story:

Two questions we always asked when we promoted someone to a supervisory job:

1. Can we get them to understand the big picture and how the supervisor fits into it?

2. Will they be able to relate that to the people they supervise?

Being honest with ourselves, we realized we couldn’t always answer yes to both. No matter how well we trained people in the traditional ways, some people got it, and some didn’t.

We needed to make sure everyone got it – and wanted to accomplish the task without paying big money to outside trainers.

What’s important
To solve the riddle, we asked ourselves. What do managers need to understand best to succeed in the job? The answer came when we also asked: What do we as a company need to understand best to succeed?

The answer to both was the same: customers’ thinking. If you don’t understand what customers think and want, you’re doomed.

So, with that in mind, we added a step to our new-supervisor training: customer support.

That’s right. We put new managers in the trenches, training our customers and responding to their questions and complaints.

That way, the new supervisor finds out right away what’s important to the people who are most important for our business – the consumers. The managers also get to hear face-to-face complaints and suggestions they can act on back at the job.

Providing them with that background has given them the tools they need to be effective, enthusiastic supervisors. And since we started that part of the training program, our success rates with new managers has skyrocketed.

(Spencer Kupferman, HR VP, Raleigh, NC)

Executive coach Maureen Moriarty suggests managers use a new-hire checklist to cover all the key aspects: 

• Send out an e-mail notice before the new hire’s arrival date, with some background information about the new hire so staff will be better prepared to offer a sincere, “welcome” on arrival day.
• Provide new employees with an orientation document covering your workplace policies. Better still, if available, direct them to a policies FAQ intranet intranet page as a resource. Include any details you think necessary, such as dress codes insurance options and holidays.
• Choose trainers and mentors carefully. Consider whether the person is a good match for the new hire, personally and professionally, and whether that person has an optimistic attitude about the organization.
• Hold off on the paperwork, if possible. Immediately flooding a new hire with forms and other dry stuff can be a downer the first day – when you’re trying to create an “up” experience. Let the person settle in a day or two before dropping off the required company forms.  
• Schedule a Q&A day. Tell the new hire that you’re going to visit and chat after the first several days on the job, and mention that it would be a good idea to have some questions ready for you. That lets the person know that questions are welcome – and even encouraged.
• Communicate about communication. In some companies, e-mail is the standard way to communicate with the boss and co-workers. Other companies prefer face-to-face. Let the new hire know the preferred way in your organization: e-mails, quick stand-up meetings, shouting over the cubicle wall, etc.

Health insurance
Someone who’s never been sick – or never had to pay the bills for being sick – probably has little understanding of what’s involved with health insurance, much less the definition of “deductible” or “co-pay.” 

Take a little extra time to explain your organization’s plan, if you have one, and health insurance in general. No, it’s not your responsibility to make sure they don’t make a mistake. Yes, it’ll make you a better person. 

Taxes
For most new workers, taxes represent something their parents complain about or some mysterious disappearance of part of their paycheck from last year’s summertime job. Sit with them and go over the responsibilities and realities of filling out IRS Form W-4 and deductions for Social Security, Medicare and state and local taxes. 

And if you do a good job of explaining, they’ll be complaining like their parents in no time at all. 

Retirement
If you come across a 23-year-old who’s given retirement a lot of thought, you’re dealing with either (a) the smartest person in the world or (b) the scariest. Most people who are taking on a first job need a primer on 401(k)s and other types of retirement plans – how they work, who pays for them, and the expected payoff. 

What seems to work best is the use of projections. Show newbies what can happen with a regular contribution to a retirement plan and what happens when they don’t contribute. It’s true that most of the rookies can’t imagine the day they turn 60 and their financial needs on that day. All you can do is make them aware.

When someone gets promoted into management and turns out to be a nightmare, HR often asks, “Why didn’t we see this coming?” All the signs probably were there, but maybe no one was looking for them.

People who fail as bosses – or at least make their employees miserable – tend to share 10 weaknesses. If you can spot them in managerial candidates, you might be able to save yourself and others a lot of aggravation by keeping the problem people out of management or guiding them to work on their skills. 

Here are the common weaknesses spotted by Jackie Harder, a training consultant in Florida:

1. People who’ll make bad managers tend to shun learning and training. Some will do so because they just don’t like learning new things; others think they know it all already.
2. They’re not excited about their work. Oh, they’ll do it on a competent level, but you know they’re not passionate about it.
3. They avoid unpleasant situations and people. It’s easier to go around unpleasantness, so they never learn to deal with it – and that it’s not the end of the world.
4. They avoid risk – all risk – for fear of making a mistake or being criticized. What they don’t understand is that everyone makes mistakes and everyone gets criticized.
5. Standing by your ideas is a good trait. Never changing your mind is a bad one. Does the candidate you’re talking to refuse to be swayed by even the strongest facts?
6. Similarly, they refuse to admit they’re wrong – but of course believe everyone else is.
7. When things do go wrong (often because of their own blunders), they can’t let it go and move on.
8. They don’t have a clear picture of their strengths and weaknesses.
9. They prefer to work alone, often forgetting that management, first and foremost, is about dealing with people. Managers need to be able to talk to other people, listen to their input, make them part of your organization, get their best effort and push them to succeed. And that’s just the beginning, as you know.
10. They prefer to stay in the background when working in groups or teams. Don’t expect someone like that to change his or her spots when they get a management position.

You can twist yourself in knots trying to dodge a lawsuit, but it really comes down to the avoiding the Big Six Mistakes.

Whitney Warner, an employment attorney with the firm of Moody & Warner, says these are the problems that come marching into her office most often: 

Not giving a reason for firing. You’re an at-will employer, so you can fire at will, right? Wrong. Most employees think they’re wonderful workers, and if they get fired for a mysterious reason, they’ll make up their own reason – or their lawyer will. The reason for termination needs to be clear.

Firing an employee for bad performance when the employee has good performance reviews. This is the cousin to “not giving a reason for firing.” Supervisors need to understand that they’ll need a poor-performance paper trail if they want to fire someone. Or else a judge will smell something fishy.

Poor timing. (a) An employee files an internal complaint about the employer or a supervisor, and then (b) shortly after is disciplined for a supposedly unrelated event.  It won’t be hard for a lawyer to connect the dots in court between (a) and (b). Employees who file complaints can be disciplined, but the supervisor better have the documentation in order before making the move.

Delayed internal investigations. When employees file complaints, they want them thoroughly investigated and they want it done now. If you can’t investigate immediately (because, for instance, a key player is on vacation), let the complaining employee know why and when the investigation is likely to begin.

Improper response to an EEOC charge. If you’re contacted by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regarding an employee complaint, respond promptly and courteously – and treat the complaining employee courteously, too. If you’re tardy in your response or treat the employee like a leper, expect to hear about it in court.

Failing to follow your own policies. You can have the best policies and training in the world – and indeed some companies have used that as a defense against a complaint. But you better be able to show that your supervisors followed those policies and applied the training.

Bonus: How to lose a lawsuit
Getting sued is bad enough, but after a lawsuit is filed, employers can make the situation worse: Being unprepared for depositions, an inability to locate key documents and responding “I don’t remember” to questions about key events will sink you every time. All of that makes good record-keeping even more important.