Training: A How-To, Part III Branch/Round Table (continued)

Branch meetings are notoriously repetitive and boring. Try to put a little fun into it every now and then. At our Security Workshop last May, Kevin Smith from Chevy Chase Bank in Laurel, Maryland told how he taught difficult compliance issues by creating a form of Jeopardy using banking questions, pitting one team against the other for answers. Candy bar awards. It made it fun - and trained at the same time. Stepping out of the box like that to accomplish training takes a lot of effort and time - but it pays off in the long run by having better informed, better trained employees.

Quiz
Did you hate tests when you were in school? Employees probably don't like them any better now than they did then. But having a quiz before, during or after training will tell you if you're getting the message across, and it will provide proof for your file that you covered the subject with each employee.

Some teachers find that the before, during and after works well, particularly with people who have been out of school for a long time and are not used to taking a quiz or a test any more. By starting off with the quiz, and letting everyone mark and keep their own paper, turns the page into a training tool. As you go along the subject, you'll be giving the "why" and "how" behind all the answers. Then, at the end, give the same quiz, only this time you collect them and put them in your file as proof of training. (That's for your examiner.) By covering all your key points in the quiz, the questions and answers will reinforce your training.Writing a quiz is not as easy as you might think. Don't use trick questions - they're not fair. True and false are OK, complete the sentence or fill-in-the-blank are really the most useful. The hardest to create are multiple choice. Stay away from them if you can. And be sure to change your quiz every now and then.

Outside Sources
Sometimes it's easiest just to hire someone from outside, or to invite a guest speaker who is an expert in the subject. For instance, many financial institutions will invite law enforcement in to do robbery training. Be careful when you bring in someone from outside that their advice and teaching do not contradict your policy and procedures. We've heard of police departments that will tell bank employees to "...hit the alarm as soon as you can do so unnoticed by the robber." What most of us teach is to "...hit the alarm as soon as it is perfectly safe to do so." There is a difference, particularly if the police response is very quick. We don't want "shoot-outs" in the branch office! Try to coordinate your policy and procedure as closely as possible to what your guest speaker is saying.

Role Playing
Role playing can be best described as a dramatization, a rehearsal, of the real thing. They're fun, especially if you have a couple of extraverts among your attendees. Write easy to read scripts, large print, small words, and put a few props around. If you go over every part yourself before class, you'll be able to make this go smoothly. And your 'players' will remember what they're doing even more than the rest of the group. For Robbery Response training, have one of your office people be the robber and actually walk through a response. Mock robbery is a different animal, one that most security officers do not recommend. But rehearsal for robbery is very useful. Done enough times, correctly, almost guarantees that it will be done correctly if the need arises.

Newsletters
You might not want to start a regular newsletter. Meeting that deadline every month or whatever can be wearing after awhile. And more than likely, you don't need yet another job! But a bulletin every now and again with articles about people you work with, or some incident that has happened and been handled correctly, can be interspersed with training tips. If they are short and to the point, folks will read them. Especially if they are mixed in with items of particular interest. Use articles from newsletters you receive. It saves you having to create them yourself. (Note: Be sure it is permissible to use the articles - both Bankers' Hotline and Compliance Action from the Bankers Information Network encourage you to do so. Other newsletters will usually give you permission if you ask them)

Internet/Computer
The best way to take advantage of what is available on the Internet is to go to our web page: www.BankersOnline.com . You'll find BankersOnline editor Mary Beth Guard has done a wonderful job of providing you with all kinds of training tools you can print out and use. The price is right! And it will save you countless hours of research.

Computer training is just starting to become effective, and there are several excellent companies who will now provide specialized courses. You'll find links for some of them on our web page, and you might also want to check out ABA's web site for reference - www.aba.com

OTJ (On The Job)
On the job training is where we started in the financial industry 50 years ago, and I don't think we'll ever return to this type of training exclusively. There is just too much to learn for one person to know it all. It is the least recommended of any type of training.

You Have Company
No matter what type of training you choose to use, we'd be less than honest if we tried to tell you it's easy. It's not. It's a lot of really hard work. But the more effort you put into the preparation, the better your success level will be. And, surprisingly enough, you may even find out you enjoy the final outcome.

It might help to know there are a lot of people going through the same exercise. Remember, there are over 12,000 financial institutions in the United States. That means over 12,000 people responsible for training. You have a lot of company!

Copyright © 2001 Bankers' Hotline. Originally appeared in Bankers' Hotline, Vol. 11, No. 8, 8/01