L EADING Y OUR T EAM TO S UCCESS : M ANUAL W RITING, T RAINING & F OLLOW -U P Rakiesha Chase Year Two AmeriCorps Project January 2010

W HY IS TRAINING IMPORTANT ? High turn-over rate at sites Low number of staff members = no official trainer Good to have documentation of your processes and procedures for archiving Good way to break the ice and open lines of communication while simultaneously integrating new team members and volunteers into your current team/organization structure Increased morale for yourself and your team

Q UOTES ABOUT TRAINING : "Train, don't strain.” -Arthur Lydiard “The biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee how to fail intelligently. We have to train him to experiment over and over and to keep on trying and failing until he learns what will work.” -Charles F. Kettering "If the coach cannot do it, he cannot 'teach' it - only talk about it.” -Percy Cerutty

W RITING A T RAINING M ANUAL

M ANUAL W RITING C HECKLIST 1. A list of things to be added to the manual 2. Copies of all templates 3. Any old training materials 4. Word processing software

W RITING A T RAINING M ANUAL Make sure you have a highly comprehensible table of contents Document everything! Nothing is “common knowledge”. Include templates for everything. Use formatting to help guide people to important text (bold, italics, headers). Include diagrams and illustrations where applicable.

W RITING A T RAINING M ANUAL Keep it simple. Ask for input from your team members/staff/volunteers to make sure that you’re not leaving anything out. Don’t be insulted when you have to make edits once your team starts using your manual. Provide physical and digital copies of your manual. Focus the manual and table of contents on tasks rather than ideas.

H OLDING A T RAINING S ESSION

T RAINING S ESSION C HECKLIST 1. A training schedule 2. A list of people who need to attend 3. A place to train 4. Handouts and other training materials 5. Agenda for session(s)

H OLDING A T RAINING S ESSION Create an atmosphere that allows energy to flow. Make sure you have hand-outs ready. Define goals at the beginning of the session. If you have several topics to cover, break it up into a series of trainings. If you are doing a series of trainings, try to schedule them on the same day each week at the same time.

H OLDING A T RAINING S ESSION Turn the training into a conversation. Reference pages and chapters in the training manual as much as possible. Allow people to ask questions. Brush up on what you’re going to be talking about before your session. Keep sessions to about 1-2 hrs. If is has to go longer than that, allow for breaks. Bring snacks!

F OLLOW -U P /P LANNING FOR THE F UTURE ( A BIT ON TEAM PROJECT MANAGEMENT )

F OLLOW -U P C HECKLIST 1. A work plan/task list for each employee 2. Communication plan for team (formal or informal)

F OLLOW -U P Make sure that your team members know how to reach you (contact info, best mode of contacting you). Check in with your team member(s) to see if they have any questions. Sometimes, people don’t know what they don’t know until you ask them if they know it. When assigning people new tasks, make sure that they are comfortable completing them. If they are not, conduct an impromptu training with them to get them up to speed. Create editing/updating protocol for the manual so that it becomes a living document. Make your team members responsible for their own learning.

P LANNING FOR THE F UTURE Train a team of knowledge seekers Document everything using non-technical language where possible Track edits and create digital copies of all documents Think outside of the box in terms of training tactics Things to ConsiderThings to Do You won’t be at your site forever Your training should accommodate for learning curves Manual and schedule are living documents Not all sites see the importance of training

S OURCES Ang, Cherie. "Important Reasons to Train your Personnel." Street Directory. Web. 28 Dec McClelland, Susan. "A Training Needs Assessment for the United Way of Dunn County Wisconsin." Web. 28 Dec