One of the many facets of our work in Residence Life is incident and crisis response. And unless you’re at a school where most, if not all, of this work is dedicated to a specialized incident response team, you may struggle to find an effective approach to training the on-call staff on this part of their jobs. Sometimes the struggle is time – there are so many topics in a still generalist position, so how can we possibly devote enough time to this? Sometimes it’s scaffolding – when you need to understand report writing, technological systems for that writing, supervision, confrontation, belonging, and more before duty/on-call work, how can you fit it in before staff need to start answering a phone?
This post will focus more on a third duty training challenge, and one I’d argue may help with the first two: content. Due to the history and nature of our work in Residence Life, we tend to fall into the trap of “training can’t prepare you” for on-call work, a quote from a participant in my past research on this topic and a theme from that research overall. It can be such a unique job structure in our field (most other on-call professionals don’t live where they work and/or are better able to flex that time) and unique duty to our field (again, most other on-call professionals are called in to do what they do full-time, while Residence Life professionals may have spent a day planning a large-scale educational event before that call to respond to a flood at 2:00am). And because of that uniqueness, we think that we can only “learn it by doing it” or worse (in my opinion) treat on-call work or the ever-debated “behind closed doors” training as a rite of passage.
But I’m not here to point fingers or shame anyone who has had these thoughts or was just thinking this yesterday – the culture of any profession can be impossible to avoid at times. Instead, if you’re finding your duty/on-call training content either light or focused solely on protocols, I’d like to modestly propose five areas to add to or enhance within your training.
Disclaimer 1: None of the topics below are related to specific protocols – if your legal team has stated you must be able to show training on specific protocols, they are the ones who will defend you in legal proceedings so please heed their advice.
Disclaimer 2: I use “duty” in the title given that it’s the more common term in our field, but I use “on-call” throughout most of this post given that I tend to think of this responsibility as a work structure more than anything. Either way, I am summarizing and arguably oversimplifying what we can think of as “the responsibility of implementing incident and crisis response” through a single word.
On-Call Training Topic #1: Critical Thinking & Decision Making
Incidents and crises rarely, if ever, are “textbook.” Regardless of the number of scenarios or protocols reviewed in a training or covered in a manual, the first call that staff receive is likely to look or feel a little different, or even be something that is new to everyone in the department. Given that, I’d recommend shifting training toward helping staff think through and respond to the information they receive when responding to incidents. Consider what your outcomes and expectations are for how staff make decisions when on-call, categorize or prioritize situations depending on the information they receive, and cover all expected bases before wrapping up their response. Consider what questions you expect to be on their mind and asked if not answered upfront. And for the staff receiving calls from other staff, consider what supervision expectations they have within their on-call work and what support looks like. Then train for that.
On-Call Training Topic #2: How to Use & Access Resources
This will vary incredibly by institution, but because we want to cover all possible bases at 2:00am, we tend to provide on-call staff with a lot of “stuff” for their shifts. The stuff may include:
- Phones (& hopefully chargers if they aren’t lost)
- Manuals
- Keys & access cards
- Vehicles/golf carts
- Pocket manuals/quick guides
- Scripts for specific situations
- Emergency vests
- Tissues, sanitizer, masks, other personal protective equipment (PPE)
This may seem incredibly basic, but I recommend not just giving staff (access to) a list of these items that should be in a bag they hand-off to the next person on shift. Instead, in your training, show them a bag, take them through the items in it, and review their purpose. And, especially for manuals, phones, and keys, explain how to use them. This will reduce a little bit of that fear of the unknown – and while hearing that phone ring will trigger returning staff in the room, some of the new staff may be thankful that training is the first time they heard it ring.
On-Call Training Topic #3: The People You Will Meet & Work With
On-call work does not occur in a vacuum, and given the intensity of the work, it is essential that staff understand the variety of people and positions with whom they will be working and how. Research shows that the campus security and/or police officers are likely going to be staff members’ most frequent on-call connection outside of your department, so consider how you are setting those teams up for an effective working relationship. If staff members are supervising different individuals or working with different peers in their on-call work compared to their regular day-to-day, consider how you are giving them opportunities to connect or get to experience each other before those higher intensity situations arise. And of course, there are facilities colleagues, counselors on call, and folx working in case management to consider as well depending on your campus context. Overall, when preparing for training, I’d encourage pondering the question, “When they are making that call to consult or refer, do they know enough about the person and position on the other end of the line to have an effective and collegial interaction?”
On-Call Training Topic #4: Work Structure Realities (Effort & Recovery)
This is where I will get a little more theoretical. When researching on-call work, I came across the Effort Recovery Model, which posits that completing work tasks uses our internal resources and energies, requiring us to spend time “recovering” or restoring those internal resources. Another construct I have latched onto is the concept of Recovery Profiles, or our preferred ways to restore those resources. Some folx emphasize detaching from work, others relaxation, while others pursue hobbies, and more or multiple. This may seem simple or obvious, but I do find it helpful to keep in mind in general, especially as a supervisor of folx who use and restore their internal resources every day.
And beyond the day-to-day, I find these concepts doubly important when considering on-call work due to the structural reality: The time when you usually (I hope) would be restoring your internal resources will be interrupted. Now what? How do you still recover from the regular work day, assuming your on-call structure is one where you work and then are (still) on-call? Can you shift your usual recovery profiles in a way that still allows you to hold a phone or stay within a required radius of response? For staff working towards a degree, are you shifting your homework and papers into your usual recovery time for work and school, and thus not resting at all when you are on-call? I strongly believe calling this out and asking staff to at least reflect, if not discuss, this reality is important to setting them up for success in their on-call work, and training is a great opportunity to at least start that conversation.
On-Call Training Topic #5: Bring in the Mid-Level Too!
If you are at an institution where there is a level of on-call structure between the entry-level, full-time staff and senior leadership, don’t forget that they should have at least some regular training and/or skill development too. If we sometimes believe we can only learn crisis response by doing it, we sometimes treat our mid-level professionals as though they have “done it all.” So, I’d suggest bringing them into the tabletops and case studies to practice their roles, have regular check-ins with that rotation to review their resources, and on-board them into on-call work at your institution the same way you do other positions. I believe your entire on-call system will be stronger for it.
There are of course many other topics that could be essential to your campus’s on-call work and realities, and again, there are going to be specific protocols that you or your general counsel will want to spend an entire hour on. But I do believe that adding even just one of these to your regular training practice at a time will lead to better outcomes for your incident and crisis response and hopefully your staff members’ experiences too. Sure, training may not prepare you for [insert your most random incident so far this year here], but it can prepare you for how you will approach and engage in the work in general.
