“Do I really have to go through training again?”
“Training is boring, we just sit there.”
“I’ve already done this twice! It’s the same thing every year.”
“Can I skip this session?”
If these laments sound familiar to you, you might just work with student staff in Residence Life.
While training is mandatory for a reason…that reason being that people need training to do their jobs effectively…there comes a time where some student staff have been in their roles for more than a few years. Working in Los Angeles, it’s not out of the ordinary to have Resident Advisors returning for a third+ year as a staff member, not only because they like their jobs and are good at them, but also because the cost of housing in the area is astronomical. (This is not unlike the thought process that many live-in professional staff members have when they start to consider traditional live-off roles.) With many Know-It-All (a term I use affectionately) Returning Student Staff Members coming back for the next school year, re-envisioning training for those returning staff members is needed to keep them interested, growing, and learning; Perhaps most enticing, re-envisioning training for returning staff members can be used to stop asking professional staff if they can skip a session because it’s boring and they already know-it-all.
“How do we re-envision returning student staff members training?” Below are some ideas for you to support your returning student staff members.
This blog series features different writers responding to the prompt, “How can we re-envision ResLife staff training?”
Allow returning Student Staff Members to “Test Out” of a portion of training.
More likely than not your school has access to some sort of online learning platform typically used for course-related work. A course can also be created for student staff training. This takes behind the scenes work from professional staff to set everything up, but can offer a great tool to help student staff members test their knowledge and participate in asynchronous training. A way of re-envisioning training for returning staff training could be to offer an option to returning student staff to “test out” of certain training topics. This way, the more “basic” trainings (for example, things that don’t change year to year such as how to fill out the duty log, how to deliver good customer service, etc.) could be held at the beginning of the training week, allowing the returning student staff a few extra days of “summer break” before coming back. If you don’t want to offer extra days off from training, you could also allow them to test out of topics like addressing policy violations and then have them be actors instead of participants in your Behind Closed Doors portion of training.
Offer a training course prior to arriving on campus.
A pre-training course is beneficial for a myriad of ways including assessment of knowledge prior to training, a way to offer training directly to staff so that they can do it when it’s best for their schedule, and allowing for summer conferences to continue for a week longer due to not needing that training time in house/being able to shorten training overall.
When I was an RA, I found that the ‘before you arrive on campus’ training course on how to work at the desk was helpful. As a professional staff member, I’ve only done desk training in person and that led to folks crowding around the desk computer to see how to check out items or make temporary room keys. In a post(ish) COVID world, there isn’t a need for having folks crowded around like that.
Utilizing a training course prior to their arrival could eliminate the need for some in-person training. An added bonus is that with many Residence Life Departments struggling financially due to decreased enrollment numbers, they could use the extra time without student staff moving in to host more conferences and make up for lost revenue due to low enrollment.
Create a Senior role for more experienced staff to apply to.
As student affairs professionals, we are dedicated to helping our students grow and thrive. There may come a time when a student staff member has their role down and could do it in their sleep…not literally, but probably just after being woken up from the duty phone ringing at three in the morning. The Venn Diagram of the students saying “Do I really have to go through training again?” and those who could do their job effectively in their sleep is basically just a circle.
By creating a Senior Resident Assistant role, you will be able to give more responsibility to the high performing Resident Assistants who want an opportunity to do more. They can serve as a strong mentor, assist with administrative tasks, and lead training with a peer to peer approach.
Give Training Session Opportunities to your Returning Know-It-All Student Staff Members.
While many of our returning student staff members will not end up being professional staff in Residence Life, they likely will have to give a presentation in the workplace at some point in their career. In our commitment to helping students develop, a chance to work on their public speaking skills through presenting or co-presenting can be a great development opportunity! In addition, you may have Summer student staff working with you, but with little to do when there isn’t a conference for them to assist with. If you’re in this boat, you could choose to give them the task of creating a specific presentation
A No-Brainer: Ask the Know-it-all Returner what they wish was different.
When your know-it-all returner comes to you stating “Training is so boring”, you can inquire about what they wish was different. As a solution-focused supervisor, I’m always trying to find an answer. That being said, it’s not solely on me to find a solution. It’s okay to be inquisitive and ask what they specifically find boring about it. It could be too much sitting and listening, it could be that they’ve mastered the material, or it could be that they just want to complain. We don’t know if we don’t ask! That being said, don’t ask just to ask, use their input to come to a solution. If they share their feedback midway through training, it might not be possible to pivot, but the feedback could be used for improving the next training.
Make training engaging.
This will benefit all student leaders, not just your returners. Making your student staff training more than just “sit, listen, learn” sessions will allow students to keep from dozing off. There are so many great ways to increase engagement, from utilizing technology for learning focused games to simply having activities where students move around the space rather than just sitting for the whole session. Consider hosting a scavenger hunt where they get to connect with campus partners or a game show where they get to answer questions and test their knowledge in a competitive, fun way!
While memes may be outdated and only cool to Millennials, there are plenty of ways to stay relevant in order to drive engagement. Last summer was the summer of Barbie and Taylor Swift and I saw some really fun presentations that leaned into this with a fun presentation theme. Themed presentations are one small way to make training engaging.
While this article is not all encompassing, it should be used as a jumping off point to help you re-envision your returning student staff training.
Hopefully the conversations you have with your returning student staff sounds more like:
“Do I really get to test out of this training topic?” instead of “Do I really have to go through training again?”
“Training is fun, we get to move around a lot.” instead of “Training is boring, we just sit there.”
“I’ve done this training before! It was more interesting this year.” instead of “I’ve already done this twice! It’s the same thing every year.”
“Can I lead this session?” instead of “Can I skip this session?”
