Untrained Supervisor = Legal Land Mine

Yesterday’s Advisor offered 6 common mistakes supervisors make; today, 10 tips for training supervisors, taken from BLR’s 10-Minute HR Trainer.

The untrained supervisor is a ticking time bomb because there are a lot of things that seem natural or appropriate that are going to result in expensive lawsuits. Training is the only hope. Here are some tips for making supervisor training effective:

1. Be familiar with your supervisors’ HR training needs.

Focus on areas that reflect the questions, problems, and concerns that your supervisors most commonly face. For example:

• What kinds of questions can I ask a disabled job applicant?
• What constitutes sexual harassment?
• How can I identify a potentially violent employee?
• How can I make my presentations better?
• How do I proceed if I want to discharge an employee?
• How can I get more done in a finite number of hours?

2. Link concepts, laws, and issues to your supervisors’ job reality.

Identify policies, procedures, and examples that will make your supervisors nod in recognition. If you have time, encourage supervisors to provide their own examples and even questions. (But be careful talking about specific cases or individuals.)

3. Give supervisors a chance to participate.

Allow time for questions and discussions (or at least a chance to identify topics for follow-up). Discussion helps ensure that participants understand the subject. It also makes the sessions more interesting.

4. Review the session outlines, handouts, and quizzes before the session.

Your presentation will sound livelier and focused if you’re not preparing it as you go along.

5. Copy handouts and quizzes before the training session.

You want to be able to distribute them quickly and easily without wasting session time.

Yes, you do have the budget and time to train managers and supervisors with BLR’s® 10-Minute HR Trainer. Get it Now.

6. Position quizzes as self-reviews.

Short quizzes are helpful to focus attention and to remind participants of what has been covered. Position quizzes as a useful self-review to help ensure they understand the topic.

7. Emphasize supervisors’ legal responsibilities.

Let supervisors know that they are personally responsible for complying with employment laws—and potentially liable as individuals for failure to do so.

8. Deliver training briskly, professionally, and authoritatively.

Make it clear that you believe in what you’re saying and care about getting your message across.

9. Learn from your training experience.

Evaluate each session after it’s completed, and consider what went well or what you feel could be improved. Make notes for your next session.

10. Allow the participants to critique the training session.

This input will tell you how well they felt the training was presented. The critique is an excellent method of gaining data to make the next session better. The critique should be written and anonymous, unless you want to discuss the critique later with a particular participant.

Training supervisors is critical, but who’s got time for training?

We’ve solved that with an easy-to-manage program that lets you train in discrete, 10-minute chunks. It’s a program that’s easy for you to deliver and that requires little time from busy schedules—BLR’s unique 10-Minute HR Trainer.

No budget? If you’re like most companies in these tight budget days, you will like that it is reasonable in cost.

Yes, you do have the budget and time to train managers and supervisors with BLR’s® 10-Minute HR Trainer. Get it Now.

As its name implies, this product trains managers and supervisors in critical HR skills in as little as 10 minutes for each topic. 10-Minute HR Trainer  offers these features:

• Trains in 50 key HR topics. Includes all major employment laws, including manager and supervisor responsibilities, and how to legally carry out managerial actions from hiring to termination. (See a complete list of topics below.)

• Uses the same teaching sequence master teachers use. Every training unit includes an overview, bullet points on key lessons, a quiz, and a handout to reinforce the lesson later.

• Completely prewritten and self-contained. Each unit comes as a set of reproducible documents. Just make copies and you’re done. (Take a look at a sample lesson below.)

• Updated continually. As laws change, your training needs do so as well. 10-Minute HR Trainer provides new lessons and updated information every 90 days, along with a monthly Training Forum newsletter, for as long as you are in the program.

• Works fast. Each session is so focused that there’s not a second’s waste of time. Your managers are in and out almost before they can look at the clock, yet they remember small details even months later.

Evaluate It at No Cost for 30 Days

We’ve arranged to make 10-Minute HR Trainer available to our readers for a 30-day, in-office, no-cost trial. Review it at your own pace, and try some lessons with your colleagues. If it’s not for you, return it at our expense. Click here and we’ll set you up with 10-Minute HR Trainer.