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Let's Get Honest: A Sexual Harassment Training Package
Media Partners 800-408-5657
www.media-partners.com
Review by Bill Ellet
Let's Get Honest begins with an honest assessment of the tension between society and work. Our society is sexually charged and saturated. Yet, all of us are supposed to check sexuality at the door when we go to work.
It doesn't seem quite fair or even realistic, but it is the reality of an organization and has to be. For once our litigiousness is an asset. Because of potentially heavy legal penalties, employers can't tolerate sexual harassment. More importantly, harassment, along with other forms of disrespectful behavior, erodes the ability of people to get things done together. It's also unethical because it inflicts pain on individuals.
The first of the two videos in the package, Let's Get Honest (15 minutes), provides the foundation for understanding sexual harassment. Surprisingly, it isn't ponderous and doesn't attempt to instill viewers with fear. It goes about its business, telling the audience, for example, that a "little flirting" can easily turn into something far worse. But the video isn't afraid to have a sense of humor.
I love the "grandma test" for filtering workplace comments: if you can't say something to your grandma, don't say it at work. (I suppose, though, that if your grandma is on the wild side, you could have a problem.) In the video, as a guy at work is about to say something salacious to an attractive co-worker, she morphs into his grandmother, who saves the guy by getting him to make a comment that he could say to her.
The other video, He Said, She Said (26 minutes), asks viewers to consider descriptions of a situation from participants and decide if the situation involves sexual harassment. This isn't a new approach, but the vignettes are more nuanced than I'm used to seeing and the acting is convincing. And the vignettes aren't just he said, she said. They're also he said, he said and she said, she said.
The DVD can be used with or without the expert commentary about each situation and can be paused whenever the narrator asks a question of the audience. I would definitely use the expert commentary but only after the group took some time to respond to a question. Blatant sexual harassment isn't hard to identify, but some of the borderline situations need expert explanation and further group discussion.
I've heard it said in the industry that some customers have wanted more legal information in the program. I think from the point of view of most employees, the program gives them what they need to make decisions in the workplace—as opposed to arguing a case in federal court.
Let's Get Honest has a leader’s guide for a four-hour workshop, a two-hour workshop, a one-hour annual refresher workshop, and a one-hour new hire orientation. In the workshops, the sexual harassment portion of the sponsoring organization’s employee handbook is supposed to be handed along with the official sexual harassment policy.
Other pieces of the package are A Manager’s Q&A: Practical Answers to Tough Questions, an employee handbook, pocket cards, pre- and post-tests, and reproducible handouts. The He Said, She Said vignettes are available in different versions for retail, offices, factories, and healthcare.
A Manager’s Q&A helps educate managers and supervisors to facilitate the training, a very good idea given the subject. The handbook is a long-term reference for employees.
You probably get the idea that this is a big package that allows training to be delivered in multiple ways. Along with facilitation, the core of this training is the video content. The Media Partners brand is built on stylish video training. Both of the videos are worthy of the brand.
Let's Get Honest: A Sexual Harassment Training Package, DVD and print, 2006, Media Partners $1095. Includes 2 DVDs, trainer's resource guide,10 employee handbooks, reminder cards, and sticky note pad.
Recommendation
Let’s Get Honest is fine instruction for adult learners on how to prevent sexual harassment. The package is exceptionally diverse and flexible. Because it is built first and foremost on engrossing video, you should give it a look if you're in the market for training on the topic.
Overall rating: 3.5
Note: ratings use a four-point scale, with 4.0 the highest rating and 1.0 the lowest.
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