One Size Rarely Fits All: How Personalized, Live Harassment Training Can Make a Difference for Your Ministry
If you’ve ever been required to complete pre-packaged online harassment or other workplace training, you know the limitations. Sitting alone, clicking through a dry explanation of workplace laws and taking quizzes about improbable break-room interactions, while checking email, helping the kids with homework and drafting a grocery list … need I go on? While sometimes informative in a general way, and adequate to meet state workplace training requirements, “one size fits all” training rarely fits your church or ministry organization, and only marginally engages your people.
For the following reasons, personalized, live harassment or other workplace training (onsite or online) is designed to serve you better:
Your organization’s values and mission are unique.
The values and mission that drive your organization generally are not what is portrayed in a standard harassment training program, even a program designed for faith organizations. Every ministry context is unique, and the people who work and volunteer there are, too. Moreover, because of your values, you likely expect more from your ministry colleagues than mere compliance with universal workplace laws. The most effective training will convey those laws, but do so in the context of your organization’s specific values and understanding of how people should treat each other and how an organization should respond when behavior goes off track.
It’s complicated.
Church and ministry relationships can be a complicated web of connections and roles. Only on a ministry staff can someone be your pastor, your prayer partner, your boss and your wife’s cousin! Your staff and volunteers may worship together, care for each other’s children, and, not infrequently, date or marry one another. Adding to that complexity, these staff and volunteers regularly interact with an array of individuals in your congregation or ministry community. A generic training program cannot effectively address this very interconnected and nuanced environment, whereas live training can be designed to consider everything that makes your organization what it is, and more closely address the challenges faced by your people.
Engagement matters.
When it comes to understanding and taking ownership of expectations, engagement matters. Live, personalized training increases engagement significantly. Participants can ask and answer questions, respond to each other, and, because the training is oriented to the specific ministry environment, be less inclined to “tune out” or handle work or personal matters while ostensibly attending training. People learn in different ways, and live training can address multiple learning styles.
Your people will learn best if they also learn from each other.
An effective live trainer will facilitate small group discussion, closely tailored to your ministry context, giving your people the opportunity to hear and learn from each other, and to build empathy and trust within the team. Allowing your people to explore training topics together helps them see each other as part of the solution (rather than the problem), to apply the training concepts to the specific situations they encounter, and to build accountability for following policies and caring for each other.
A commitment to engaging training is an investment in a healthy ministry environment.
When an organization’s leaders commit to a thorough and engaging training program, and are observed fully participating themselves, staff and volunteers understand that the expectations conveyed are organizational priorities, and worth following. People who have experienced, or fear, harassment or other hurtful behavior, feel cared for by leadership’s commitment to a healthier ministry environment. Engaging training opens the door to ongoing discussion, and encourages reporting of inappropriate conduct, far more the completion of a generic program.
Bad behavior happens.
While even superior training cannot guarantee good behavior by all people in all circumstances, it sets clear expectations and enables an organization to more easily take action when standards are violated. Moreover, if a complaint is brought against an organization, the past implementation of a robust training program is a key element of an effective defense.