Training at Work

[Phoenix84]

I'm a federal employee, and I work for the Navy.

Every year, we have to do a lengthy laundry list of training courses not related to our job.  Seriously, there's well over a dozen.

Just off the top of my head, there's sexual assault prevention training, sexual harassment training, personally identifiable information training, government credit card training. opsec training, records management training, physical security training, computer security training, counterintelligence training, and human trafficking training.  

To be fair, for the most part they're easy, but they can get time consuming.  And really, most of it comes down to common sense.  Don't spend government money on hookers and blow, don't sexually harass or assault your co workers, don't enslave girls and women and force them into the sex trade.

I'm just curious what it's like "on the outside."  Do you guys who work for non government have to do training put on by your employer that's not related to your job?  Is it kind of silly?  Or do you find it valuable?  

The reason I bring it up is this is the third time this year I've has sexual assault training.  I joked that this time we had a breakthrough, because now I know I'm not supposed to grope and copulate with my co workers.  

[MJ2.0]

We had training on what to do if there's an active shooter event, anti-bribery stuff, conflict of interest stuff, and yeah the standard inappropriate behavior stuff. I think there must still be problems if we are continuously being trained on this stuff.

[kittensaver]

In all fairness - all of this stuff IS related to your job. That is, if you do any of it, your job is at-risk or is gone.

The other reason you attend all these trainings is for your employer to CYA. Most of these trainings are in response to regulations and/or laws which hold not only the perpetrator but also the employer liable for damages.

The way for the employer to mitigate damages (and often excuse themselves completely from liability) is to prove that they've done regular trainings on the various subjects, including warning you not to do them. Notice that you always have to sign in or otherwise acknowledge your training? (like submitting post-tests, acknowledging training online, etc). That is your employer's paper trail (many times multiple-years long) to exonerate themselves in case of a harassment or violation of policy training by you the employee.

[Happy prose]

We also get anti-harassment traing every year. I think it's so when Joe sexually harrasses Mary, the company can say they were trained; the policy was clear. They discuss major law suits that people won. I think it gives some people ideas.

[msventoux]

I work for a very small employer.  We have to have continuing ed to retain our licenses, but beyond that we don't have to do anything.  I have friends who work for multinational employers who have to do certain standardized company training that doesn't really relate to their jobs.  They seem to see it as a slight annoyance or a mini break from their regular jobs. 

[gooddecisions]

I work for a bank. It's not government, but it's highly regulated by the government. There are a minimum of 12 courses required every year by every employer and contractor, more if you are a manager or in a department with extra regulations. To name a few- workplace violence, anti-money laundering, code of ethics, privacy, service member civil relief act, risk, etc.

The grass is not greener.

[Apple]

I'm not from the outside, but we have all those, plus ladder safety, fall restraint/prevention, electrical safety, hazardous chemicals, blood borne pathogens, anti-terrorist... you get the picture.  There are at least 26 training videos on top of the ones you mentioned :/

The worst one, by far, is the training for drug testing.  Because of one part of our job, we have random drug testing none of the other crews have.  The "training" is an hour long video of a lady at the district office giving a briefing to the office people there (who aren't required to be tested), with the different locations "conferenced in".  No one has ever bothered to edit the video, and there is no time scroll to fast forward through anything, so, you get to listen to "Oh, this place is having technical difficulties so we'll wait until they can join in."  Then you just have video of this lady standing there waiting for over five minutes.  When she gets a question, you can't hear the question, so her answer doesn't make sense.  One location had emailed their questions (it was a big union issue), so she reads the question to herself (she doesn't read it aloud), and then just mumbles a little bit and says "I think the powerpoint answered that question."  In the entire video, there is about five minutes of actually telling you why you are drug tested, the rest is a convoluted mess, waiting for "technical difficulties" to be resolved, etc.  I just run the video and play on my phone through all of it.

I think the best one was when we had one of the guys who actively worked at catching spies.  He'd break it up by telling us about his torture training, different methods used to get info, etc.  He was pretty entertaining, at least to those of us who weren't squirming!  I'd take training from him any time, lol.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

 Yep, at the university we had all these - and more.

Looking at the outside, not only does TD have to undergo training at his company, but he has to go through duplicate training at any other facility he works at.  Right now, he's working at a refinery and he spent almost a full week undergoing repetitive training that he had gone through just a month earlier at his new company.

[8 Bit WWBG]

Wait...  DON'T enslave girls into the trade?

No wonder I only got "meets expectations" on my last review.

[Phoenix84]

May 2, 2016 18:40:53 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

We had training on what to do if there's an active shooter event, anti-bribery stuff, conflict of interest stuff, and yeah the standard inappropriate behavior stuff. I think there must still be problems if we are continuously being trained on this stuff.

Oh yeah, and the active shooter training.  We had an online training module on that, and then headquarters figured that wasn't good enough, so we did a in person training for that as well.

And we also have to do some ethics training too, regarding not accepting any gifts over $10 and certain restrictions we have on political activities.  We can't, for example, endorse a candidate in our position as a federal employee or partake in a voting drive that only registers voters for one party.

[Phoenix84]

May 2, 2016 19:54:51 GMT -5 Apple said:

I'm not from the outside, but we have all those, plus ladder safety, fall restraint/prevention, electrical safety, hazardous chemicals, blood borne pathogens, anti-terrorist... you get the picture.  There are at least 26 training videos on top of the ones you mentioned :/

The worst one, by far, is the training for drug testing.  Because of one part of our job, we have random drug testing none of the other crews have.  The "training" is an hour long video of a lady at the district office giving a briefing to the office people there (who aren't required to be tested), with the different locations "conferenced in".  No one has ever bothered to edit the video, and there is no time scroll to fast forward through anything, so, you get to listen to "Oh, this place is having technical difficulties so we'll wait until they can join in."  Then you just have video of this lady standing there waiting for over five minutes.  When she gets a question, you can't hear the question, so her answer doesn't make sense.  One location had emailed their questions (it was a big union issue), so she reads the question to herself (she doesn't read it aloud), and then just mumbles a little bit and says "I think the powerpoint answered that question."  In the entire video, there is about five minutes of actually telling you why you are drug tested, the rest is a convoluted mess, waiting for "technical difficulties" to be resolved, etc.  I just run the video and play on my phone through all of it.

I think the best one was when we had one of the guys who actively worked at catching spies.  He'd break it up by telling us about his torture training, different methods used to get info, etc.  He was pretty entertaining, at least to those of us who weren't squirming!  I'd take training from him any time, lol.

Yeah, our annual counterintelligence briefing is done by a NCIS agent, so it's kind of interesting because it talks about real life spies and how they did what they did so we can prevent it.

It's kind of funny though, if you watch the NCIS tv show they just say "throw it up on the screen" and have all kinds of fancy aduiovisual equipment.  In real life, they can't even get a power point to work half the time. 

[Apple]

May 2, 2016 20:50:41 GMT -5 Phoenix84 said:

It's kind of funny though, if you watch the NCIS tv show they just say "throw it up on the screen" and have all kinds of fancy aduiovisual equipment.  In real life, they can't even get a power point to work half the time. 

So true!!

[wvugurl26]

The anti sex trade must be a DoD thing. I have some of the ones mentioned but not that one. We had to do emergency preparedness recently. I don't remember it being an annual requirement previously but the slides were so out of date they mentioned the last agency secretary not the current one. I just click through and get them done.

The worst is they send an email with the link and due date. And then they send fifty reminders before that date. I'm a professional adult, I've looked at my schedule and picked a day/time that works with my schedule to do it. And it's not the due date so stop with the harassment.

I almost emailed the last lady and told her if it wasn't important enough for her to update the training material it wasn't important enough for me to take it!!!

[alabamagal]

I work in a highly regulated industry and also can be exposed to potentially hazardous material.  We do all the training most people have already listed, Safety, Hazardous materials, plus regulatory training (pharmaceutical industry).  The most boring training is that we have to review all applicable site SOPs yearly.

We actually have a training on how to wash your hands!  The pictures in that one are the best!

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

I'm not on the outside either. I play the videos while I'm making dinner. Less time consuming that way. Why did you have to do sexual harassment training three times in one year? That seems a bit much. We have to do all of our once per year. 

[Deleted]

Like kittensaver said, it is part of your job.  I'm a teacher so we do most of what you do.   

Ours have to be done on your own time for the most part.  If we do a large-group training session at school, it is generally outside of school hours (faculty meeting).  Some of ours is scheduled in the summer.  So if you get to do yours during normal working hours, be grateful.

[Anne_in_VA]

We have most of those and HIPAA and one on PHI too.  The one on ethical behavior and fraud, waste and abuse are pretty long.  Most of them are pretty easy.  We do them online and generally are assigned a two to four week period in which to complete each course.

[Miss Tequila]

As a CPA I have to receive 80 continuing education credit hours every two years. On top of that, last year I had to attend a two day Leadership Training Session, 2 hour Fire Extinguisher training (I guess we want to make sure the corporate records don't burn!lol), and a safety training (I work for a manufacturer so this was geared more towards plant issues than the ivory tower where I sit). I'm sure there are others that I'm blanking out

[happyhoix]

We're a subsidiary of a big international company. The big company and most of it's other subsidiaries all focus on one industry - say they build cars - and my company is the only one that is just tangentially involved in that business (say we make car seats).

We have to do our own training, for our facility, on hazmat, hazwoper, hazcom, emergency action plans, fire extinguishers, and our standard operating procedures (we have hundreds). Plus corporate mandates that we do their corporate training, which is the worst because most of it is not something we ever get into. Like, for example, we have to do training on how to make ethical contracts with customers buying cars, when no one at this site ever sells things directly to the public (we just make car seats). I think what's happened is the company either got sued or into regulatory hot water at some point and they did a knee jerk response to train every single employee everywhere, regardless of whether their job actually involved that kind of activity.

Plus there is the whole international thing - their safety and environmental rules don't always match up with ours, so we have to know both and do whichever one is the most conservative. Fun.

 

[midjd]

We don't have a ton of office-wide trainings -- there was an active shooter presentation a few weeks ago, but with the number of veiled death threats our poor receptionist gets on a weekly basis, it was probably overdue. 

All the attorneys have to take 36 hours of continuing legal education every 3 years, with a certain number of hours dedicated to ethics. Our office hosts enough CLE sessions or sponsors us to attend conferences that most of us can get in our hours at no cost, which is a nice advantage over private employers. If you fall short on your CLE requirements the state will yank your law license until you get them in.

We also have regular training sessions on Sharepoint and the payroll system. 

[973beachbum]

I have never been to the training people here have.  The sexual harassment type stuff is boiled down to a memo that we are told we have to sign.  It basically says don't do it and if we do we will be fired and we are acknowledging that we were told it is wrong.  No day long training sessions on anything that isn't actually job related that I have ever been to. 

The engineers, surveyors and architects all have to do 24 hrs a year of continuing ed but that is most definitely on their own time and dime.

The GC has a few food safety ones that are done during work.  It is really specific to the GC though.  When I had to work the money gram machine I also had to do a anti money laundering one.  That one was actually real and not a joke.  It had a test that I couldn't just answer because I watch a lot of Alton Brown cooking shows like the other ones there.

[Phoenix84]

May 2, 2016 23:21:24 GMT -5 Knee Deep in Water Chloe said:

I'm not on the outside either. I play the videos while I'm making dinner. Less time consuming that way. Why did you have to do sexual harassment training three times in one year? That seems a bit much. We have to do all of our once per year. 

Well, i had to do the initial training in person with someone from the eeo office. This was a new employee requirement. Even though I had been there a while, they wait until they have enough new people to bring in the eeo lady.

Plus, all our training is on the fiscal year cycle. So I took initial training at the end of fy 15, then did fy 16 refresher training in December 15 when I had nothing to do at work during the holidays. Then recently we had a special training session because I guess headquarters had some issues and rather than punish the guilty, everyone has to get special training. Complete with videos of the admiral giving a speech about it.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Title VIII training by any chance?

I have to do that and then some, every year.  I've completed the Title VIII sexual harassment training TWICE in the six months I've been here.   It's about an hour long video AND a power point AND two quizzes.

I let the video run in the background while I do other stuff and then click back when it gets to the quiz.

I also have lab safety training, bio safety level II training, bio safety level III training, IACUC training, cultural sensitivity training, HIPAA training, blood born pathogen training.   

It's every year and it's always the SAME quiz at the end.  You'd think they would throw in some new material so they know people aren't just memorizing the answers to the quiz. 

The first time I've done most of the training modules I've found them valuable because it was new material.  Nowadays if I can't get 100% on the quizzes I probably should not be allowed to do my job.

[milee]

Like the lawyers, engineers, etc, CPAs have to do all that corporate stuff plus continuing professional ed. It does add insult to injury a bit when not only do you have to do this boring stuff on your own time, but you have to pay for it as well. Blech.

[wvugurl26]

Oh yeah I forgot about all the work and CPA hours required. Work requires 80 hours every 2 years and a minimum of 20 per year. There's some sort of number of hours required in government but I don't remember the number. The great part of that is most of our required trainings are less than a hour so they never count towards the 80. We have this monthly series we are forced to attend that is hardly ever relevant to our work. We must attend though unless there is a very good excuse.

CPA license requires 80 every 2 years and 4 hours of ethics in that cycle. Some of that I usually get through work. The training I'm in yesterday and today counts.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

If we're going to add in professional development/continuing education, that's a whole different conversation to me. I thought we were talking about the "how to be a decent person" training videos. Of course, ours include mandatory reporter stuff, so that's abbot outside of that. I've never had to do fire extinguisher stuff. That does make sense to do though.

[HoneyBBQ]

I work in a hospital environment. We have about a billion with Hippa, infection control, active shooters, code blue black pink purple, etc.

On top of regular ones: harassment, internet policy, etc.

[flamingo]

I work at a university, so we have a LOT. Harassment (of all types), internet policy, mandatory reporter, minor children policy, FERPA, and a whole bunch more.

Then, because I manage staff, I have to do all the manager trainings: how to handle performance evaluations, how to give feedback, SMART goals, interviewing best practices, etc. PLUS, I manage student staff, so I have to do student employment training. Which is mostly a repeat of the other manager trainings, but put on by the student employment office.

Thank God I don't have CLEs on top of it. I'd never get any real work done!

[Tiny]

Yes, we have a variety of "training" videos - on security (the data we work with, our devices, the office building), confidentiality (the data we work with AND how our employer deals with employee info), how not to behave (the sexual harassment, etc training)  and a couple of mandatory 'meetings/classes' and then the Confidentiality Agreement to sign ever 6 months. 

There's a reason I rarely or never talk about work or coworkers with anyone outside the office.  

[Chocolate Lover]

May 3, 2016 9:47:09 GMT -5 Knee Deep in Water Chloe said:

If we're going to add in professional development/continuing education, that's a whole different conversation to me. I thought we were talking about the "how to be a decent person" training videos. Of course, ours include mandatory reporter stuff, so that's abbot outside of that. I've never had to do fire extinguisher stuff. That does make sense to do though.

I wish more not mandatory people knew what one was and to not ask them those "what should I do" questions. I got a visit from Children's Services once because some genius asked their cop buddy for an opinion. There was no problem, nothing wrong happened but I get to have a heart attack when I open my door to a case worker because someone can't think something through with non mandatory people.   


I get more training than I find necessary and much less than most everyone here.