Riddle me this: How do you create a training session so popular that it attracts nearly every segment of the newsroom and majority of staff (including those who have never voluntarily signed up for sessions)? And, the only cost is staff time?
Answer: Get one of the most respected newsroom staff to run a hands-on session that applies directly to the daily work of the newsroom, namely, producing news.
Obvious? Yes. But not necessarily a rule used for training.
More than a year and half of training committee work has yielded numerous "revelations" for us at The Hamilton Spectator.
* Use the expertise within the newsroom. Peer-to-peer training has yielded sessions in: newswire techniques, grammar and spelling, photo technology, web video training, investigative web tools (we couldn't carry enough sessions on this one) and web search engines.
* Monthly training calendar tracked work and ensured we had at least one training program per month. Sometimes there were three. The calendar was sent out via email to the entire newsroom once a month to keep everyone posted.
* Keep it short. Time is everything. Anything more than one hour drew complaints. We limited most to 60 to 90 minutes.
* Schedule sessions to suit staff working schedules. Longer, two-hour sessions were held close to lunch with food provided.
* Time is everything. (Reprise.) Even short sessions lost people. It tagged extra time onto their day or loaded more work onto colleagues.
* Management has to clearly stress the importance of training and its commitment to giving staff time. For example, managers from every section sent their staff emails about the media law session. It was extremely well attended. When management didn't do this, several staff expressed concern about signing up.
* Think lifestyle sessions. Conflict resolution and time management sessions drew strong support.
* Poll, question, survey the newsroom. Then do it again. And again. We returned to the newsroom numerous times to ask what they wanted. We did it face-to-face, with survey and pen in hand. Have participants complete training evaluations on the spot.
* Committees don't require large numbers or exorbitant time. They do require commitment. Our committee started with seven newsroom members plus one management. Two of the original newsroom team remain, one more joined on. Many of the original group who left performed solid foundational work to get this group going, work that endures today, such as setting up questionnaires and tracking evaluations of sessions. Another is still developing a newsroom internet source site. The three remaining all work part-time. Meetings are non-traditional, informal, mostly quick and often called and held on the fly. We meet to get work done.
* Deal with criticism. Use it wisely. Let it go. Keep in mind, you can't please everyone.
We've delivered more than 550 person-hours of training, three times the amount delivered on average over the previous several years. Management provided us with about one-third of its training budget, about $10,000. We used that money for paid speakers, with the biggest chunk of our budget going to a U.S. writing coach who focussed on writing short (No. 1 choice in newsroom surveys), and ran small-group sessions over four days. We spent about $8,000 on this alone. Was it worth it? We would argue that if that money could have been spent instead on hiring on-call staff to regularly backfill positions during our monthly training sessions, we'd have even more participation. Staff, especially copy editors, repeatedly told us they declined attending training sessions, even though they were interested, because doing so would force their already overworked co-workers to carry the extra weight.
Our next step is even more exciting. We are looking into providing training and professional development outside of the traditional "speaker in the newsroom" approach. We want people to develop, to some degree, their own training sessions, within a template that the committee will develop, again based on newsroom surveys. We are talking about each newsroom member getting one day to develop professionally by, for instance, taking that day to develop sources, investigate story possibilities, job shadow, internet search, or tour specific locations in the city.
It’s been a taxing, but rewarding journey.
Agnes Bongers, Carmelina Prete, Denise Davey
Recent Comments