Reinventing Training for ‘The New Normal’
As the government’s new ‘Rule of 6’ comes into force, it’s fair to say that for training organisations such as ours, the past 6 months has been both challenging and interesting, and will continue to be so for some time yet.
Providing safety training during a pandemic presents some significant challenges, especially for an organisation that has built a reputation for delivering the “magic-moments” that only happen in a live session. Add to that our trademark drama-based engagement techniques… well, we’ve all heard about the difficulties facing live theatrical performances too.
There are two issues that we are facing: a decrease in demand and concerns regarding delivery logistics, particularly the gathering of numbers of people in a training space.
Demand for our safety culture change programmes has waned recently, and that’s understandable because the Safety Community is having to quickly adapt to the new risks posed by Covid-19… but, whilst your team are focused upon adjusting to “The New Normal”, the old risks haven’t disappeared. Our workplaces are full of hazards that need managing and dangers that everyone needs to be aware of. One undisputable fact remains: the best way to stay safe is to address the attitudes, behaviours and workplace culture within your organisation.
The simple truth is that the most resilient organisations will stand a better chance of survival and those with a positive organisational culture will prosper during challenging times. A workforce who are effectively led are a safer workforce, a positive culture drives effort, it promotes excellence and creates buy-in from your most valuable resource: your people. So now, more than ever, consider that improving your culture is an investment, not a cost.
Over the past decade of designing and delivering high-impact culture change programmes for a wide variety of clients and industries, we have refined our approach down into a straightforward 7-Step process:
Ultimately, the culmination of this process comes when we engage teams and their leaders in high-impact, interactive theatre-based sessions. Thousands of our delegates will attest that there is a special moment where members of the audience unfold their arms, lean forward, and join in. Not because they are told to, but because they are so engaged that they want to. That becomes the shared moment that drives the realisation that we should all care about safety and we can all make a difference when we take personal responsibility.
For 11 years we have been making a positive difference and we are not prepared to compromise our approach. There is no e-Learning version of what we do! It is going to be hard delivering live events to rooms full of delegates in a Covid-safe way, but we practise what we preach by “Thinking Differently”; focussing on what we can do, not what we can’t.
Put simply, we love the work that we do and want to continue to do it.
To this end, we’ve had our own “Eureka Moment”. We can still emotionally engage with audiences without being in the same room, and we can combine distance learning with drama, using powerfully realised stories to create the shared experiences that drive change. We currently have a number of these projects in development, here’s a flavour of how we’re using applications like Zoom and MS Teams to facilitate high-impact and effective culture change programmes:
- Pre-delivery, we facilitate focus groups via Zoom or Teams to better understand the attitudes and preconceptions of our delegates. This informs the bespoke design of the programme.
- Our facilitators deliver shorter, high-impact video conference calls to groups of up to 20 delegates. There is no need to book an expensive training venue or pay for delegate travel and accommodation, all they need is a quiet space, their device and broadband.
- During the sessions we present short bespoke films made at our customer’s locations or on-site at our facility. These provide the “talking points” to get participants to interact with each other and emotionally engage with the content.
- Actors, in character join the conference and interact directly with the participants.
- Post-delivery. We facilitate remote coaching groups which sustain the change and create a training legacy.
Having carefully considered how to adapt our content and approach to this online delivery format, we can safely say that this isn’t a “second-best” option, we can still capture the magic that drama delivers and create that all-important emotional engagement with the content, leaving our delegates with a new perspective and the determination to make a positive change.
2020 has forced Juice Learning and many other organisations to adapt, innovate, diversify and ‘Think Differently’, and while of course we wish the circumstances were different, these activities in themselves have been a positive thing.
We would of course love to hear from you if any of our services may be of interest.
01484 504330
Stay Safe