Learning at Work Is Pretty Lame, and You Can Thank Sexual Harassment For It
Even in the year 2020, we all seem to share a collective memory of workplace training, specifically sexual harassment videos. The term “VHS” comes up, along with bad lighting, fashion-backward blouses, and silver-haired hosts who look they they day-gig a true crime show on CBS. Even when young people are asked about sexual harassment training, eyes roll and knowing smirks emerge. It’s Sex Ed class for adults.
Beyond the cheesiness, however, sexual harassment training is unmistakably, notoriously ineffective, to the point that it may make some workplaces more prone to bad behavior. The training as we know it emerged in the 1980s due to new federal laws, and it has done next to nothing to reduce workplace incidents. On the other hand, it is compulsory in many states. When I talk to people about harassment training, as I have to do quite a bit, the phrase “sat through” comes up an awful lot. So here’s the question: why is an area of working life, that can result in disastrous consequences for both workers and the company, met with a solution that has been so lackluster for almost 40 years?
Moreover, if you scope out from sexual harassment training, you will see the same methods over and over that make learning at work a drag for most people.
The failure of sexual harassment training lies in its incentives. Discussing harassment at work is like a layered tiramisu of disincentives for everyone involved. First off, virtually no one sees themselves as an offender, and if they are labeled as such, it’s likely because of “hypocrisy” or “grey areas” or “radical lesbian feminists” or some other external factor (i.e. not their fault, really). So why would someone want to seriously engage in learning which trains them to stop doing something they’re already not doing? From a potential victim’s perspective, it’s not any better, because not only has the training shown to be ineffective in preventing incidents, it feels as if the onus is now on her¹ to be part of the solution. Rape whistles and self-defense training actually have decent results; reporting an unwanted back rub to HR does not. So why take it seriously?
Then, there’s the company. Most companies look at sexual harassment training as a compliance and legal issue, as opposed to a learning issue. The overriding question is: can you tick the box that says you provided this training? It’s from this mindset that most of its deficiencies arise. Most learning in the workplace — not just sexual harassment training — is built to sit through. HR needs to show proof that you’ve done it, and you need to show proof to HR. This is the core issue with the future of learning at work. Last month, we spent a lot of time talking about Higher Education’s shortcomings in the face of radical shifts around lifelong learning, while celebrating some innovative responses that have come from employers. And all that’s true. But in order to make workplace learning a reliable engine to change behavior and foster healthy organizational cultures, there’s still a lot of work to do.
Learning at Work: A Guide for the Future
Our argument is that sexual harassment training is a type of “high-order” learning — where the learner is acquiring complex skills — but the information is often deployed as if to teach a “low order” task, like how to upload a file to the company’s intranet. But this and other high-order learning is pretty critical for companies: the risks can be huge if an employee “fails” at the Sexual Harassment 101, for example. We can’t just scrap it, or hope that universities fill the gap. So here’s a few tips that dramatically improve the efficacy of important learning that happens at work. These are not easy tips, but they are simple.
Step 1: Realize that people only learn what they feel they need to, not when they’re told they need to.
Our brains are actually quite resistant to retaining information that doesn’t have obvious relevance (it’s an evolutionary trait that can be best isolated through the phenomenon of forgetting). So if someone doesn’t feel an intuitive need for new information, it’s quickly flushed. What does this mean for workplace training? Well again, most people don’t feel they are sexual predators, just like they don’t feel they are racist or that a fire is going to envelop the sixth floor anytime soon. And when people receive training on subjects like these— and results are poor — it’s likely because an employee’s brain didn’t consider the information to be that applicable to present conditions.
Educators have to start with the realization that administering a training regimen that isn’t clearly relevant, or makes people assume roles they don’t want to take on, is bound to have bad results.
Step 2: People need help to seriously consider perspectives outside of their own, and it’s the educator’s job to do that.
People are also pretty bad at honestly assessing the viewpoints of others, especially if those viewpoints are in contrast to their own. Consider the often hilarious assumptions that liberals and conservatives have of each other. It’s very difficult to override the mountain of stimuli, values, and network reinforcement that every person carries into work, or even momentarily place that mountain aside to take on someone else’s POV.
When ham-handed attempts are made to do just that with, say, a bad video that the interns made on the weekend, people can mock the stupid dialogue, they can think about lunch, they can do all manner of things to tell themselves, “This isn’t for me, or about me….so what is the easiest way to get through this?” There are many ways to overcome this defense mechanism: better storytelling and production, increased diversity in group learning, even the dreaded “safe space” has shown good results. But it does need to be overcome. Most people who aren’t empaths require a facilitated boost to live in someone else’s shoes. Watching a video at lunch won’t do it.
Step 3: High-order learning is NOT about about access to information, nor is it about compliance. It is about challenge and psychological safety.
Once someone learns to “run the machines” at work, learning takes on a different connotation. It’s usually about interacting with other people at that point: leadership, communication, motivation, innovation, etc. This stuff is harder to learn and harder to transfer because its mastery usually requires some level of behavior change. Here’s the rub: people don’t like to change their behavior. Even if someone’s life is completely chaotic and toxic, their behaviors have evolved to get the most out of their day-to-day activities (watch any episode of Intervention if you doubt this).
What we do know is that brains are most optimized to learn hard stuff when there is a challenge, but not a threat. In other words, when people are placed in environments with problems they feel equipped to solve — but don’t expose them to feelings of, say, persecution or judgment — they have the best opportunity to do deep learning.
Step 4: Differentiate between “development” and “training,” and don’t do one when the other is required.
We can have our fun mocking bad training videos and lifeless compliance modules, but there are many examples of incredibly effective learning in the workplace. Many people have had life-changing experiences out in the woods at some executive retreat, while others can credit a coach or mentor with altering the course of their career. This is usually “development,” often reserved for executives or other high-value employees. The qualitative drop-off, though, can often be seen when education moves away from development and toward “training.” They are not the same thing. But when educators have to teach hard stuff across the entire organization, they will often try to impart complex learning through channels and modalities that are designed to teach discrete tasks and actions. That’s when things fall apart.
It’s happening because educators are trying to scale complex learning. A 10-person intensive workshop on workplace diversity carries a higher chance of true behavior change than a series of in-house videos on the company’s YouTube channel. But we have to scale this learning…that’s the whole point! Effective sexual harassment training can’t just be the province of VPs during their leadership intensive at Duke. So it’s on workplace educators to build better materials that can scale more effectively, and the feedback loops that accompany them. The phrase, “It’s boring, but we have to do it,” should immediately send a curriculum to the trash can. Training should evoke emotional responses, and efficacy should be pegged to performance (instead of, say, a quiz grade). Again, this is not easy to do, but it does have to be done.
Step 5: Organizational learning is usually an afterthought inside companies. Fight to change that.
This final step is more political, but has an impact on all the preceding steps. The learning experience inside a company is a clear indication of how valued it is. And the answer is often “not very.” L&D departments are famously understaffed, underfunded, and disrespected. Powerful departments, like Sales, will often make their learning functions separate from the rest of the organization, further weakening the department. The first step toward change is to have leadership who will fight ferociously for a seat at the table. The second less obvious answer is to change how L&D teams communicate their value.
Again, workplace learning should not be a function of compliance, or even the acquisition of knowledge. If these are the only justifications for a curriculum in question, it should go. The learning should be ruthlessly pegged to performance metrics that indicate changes in behavior. Are they selling more? Do their colleagues think they are being less aggressive (if so, how)? How is this performance change linked back to the training? L&D often describes their value proposition to the larger organization in murky, obtuse ways. If they’re going to change any of the above conditions, that will likely have to change as well.
We’ve seen enough of Dave’s creepy hugs. His turtleneck sucks, and he’s not actually helping others from being creepy. Let’s have Dave work from home going forward, and workplace educators can focus on better solutions for their organizations.
¹Yes, I used a “her” pronoun here. Women experience sexual harassment at work at a much greater frequency, from 2:1 to 3:1, depending on the type.
Justin Wolske runs CASEWORX, co-founded GRID110, and teaches at Cal State LA. CASEWORX just released Saturn C.U.B.E. for Conflict™ with renowned coach Jason Gore to better address difficult conversations in the workplace. His wife says he is only creepy on Halloween, promise.
