How Respectful Workplace Training Changes Culture

Decades of organizational research consistently show that respectful workplace cultures are associated with lower litigation risk and stronger business outcomes, including improved engagement, retention, collaboration, safety, and ultimately productivity.

Respectful workplace training teaches employees and leaders the everyday behaviors that create a healthy, productive work environment. Organizations that invest in respectful workplace training establish shared expectations for how people communicate, collaborate, handle differences, address concerns, and maintain professional relationships so that everyone can do their best work.

It is about much more than just being kind and courteous. 

Respectful workplace training is successful when the initiative:

• Creates shared expectations
• Builds practical skills
• Inspires buy-in and motivation
• Transfers practical knowledge (for application, not just academic learning)
• Measures employee readiness to apply training in their daily interactions

Unfortunately, due to the complications and costs traditionally associated with measuring respectful workplace training ROI, L&D teams are often only able to measure course completion and knowledge acquisition — whether people showed up and what they learned. These are important metrics, but they are far from the most important things organizations should measure if training is to have a real impact.

The good news is that L&D is uniquely positioned to go beyond these surface measurements to empower organizational change. Through training they have:

• An attentive audience
• Regular touchpoints
• Visibility into multiple departments
• Strategic alignment through training

Training is one of the few places where strategy, information, reflection, and behavior intersect.

From this vantage point, L&D can be the eyes and ears of the organization, identifying issues before they become crises. Training is one of the few places where strategy, information, reflection, and behavior intersect. That puts L&D at the heart of the organization’s culture and performance — if they can tap into it.

Measuring attendance and knowledge, simply won’t deliver on that vision. Instead, leaders should dig into what we know from decades of research on behavior change.

A behavior-based approach enhances respectful workplace training outcomes

When it comes to getting people to act differently, there is no one accepted behavior change model, but rather a few principles that should drive organizational efforts.

1. Use design thinking — start with the end in mind. Determine what people need to do differently for the organization to achieve its goals. This may seem obvious, but it is often missed. Many courses still focus primarily on knowledge, including legal definitions, concepts, and policy. A behavioral approach starts someplace entirely different. It starts with questions like:

• How do people need to behave in order for us to reach our goals?
• Which behaviors are most important to our outcomes?
• What are the moments that matter?
• What needs to be done in those moments?
• What gets in the way of the behaviors we want to see?
• What complexities make this behavior change hard?

Many courses still focus primarily on knowledge, including legal definitions, concepts, and policy. A behavioral approach starts someplace entirely different.

The course is then designed around the answers and what will make the desired change possible. Yes, there needs to be knowledge gained around definitions and laws, but the more important pieces of training will encourage learners to adopt behaviors that support learning application and the desired strategic outcomes.

2. Leverage key behavioral influencers. In the case of respectful workplace training, the best courses teach positive behaviors such as overcoming bias, speaking up against harassment, and showing appreciation. While it is easy to support these behaviors in theory, if the learner doesn’t see strong personal value in them, trying to use them can quickly become inconvenient or frustrating. Putting new behaviors into action depends on learners' attitudes, social support, and confidence in their ability to complete the given tasks.

• Individual attitudes go beyond simply believing that the given behavior is a good idea. Most positive behaviors are perceived as good ideas. The question of change comes down to whether individuals feel motivated to adopt the desired behaviors. Do they fully believe that the behaviors will lead to good outcomes, and do they think the behavior(s) will be good for them personally?
• Social support is also vital for behavior change. Humans are very good at adjusting their behavior to align with those around them. In one famous group study, participants were shown two lines and asked an obvious question about which line was longer. People clearly answered correctly, until a social component was introduced. When faced with a situation where everyone else in the room (actors) confidently gave the wrong answer, many participants conformed with the group, even when it was clear that the answer was wrong (Asch, 1950). This example and dozens of other experiments teach us that humans don’t make decisions in isolation. We weigh what others are doing. Even when something seems obvious, the group's behavior can change what we say and do. This makes social support an effective lever for organizations to consider when driving change. 
• Employees must have the ability to act. Even if someone has positive attitudes toward a behavior, and believes the action would be supported, without the personal ability or resources to act, the behavior will not be adopted. So, when looking at desired workplace behaviors, the best training efforts take a systems thinking approach:
  • Will employees have the resources needed to adjust their behavior?
  • Do employees have the confidence needed to adopt this behavior?
  • Do employees see this request to adjust their current working practices or processes as a true organizational expectation, not just another "fad"?
  • Do employees feel like they have permission to do the new behavior?
  If the answer to any of these questions is no, the likelihood of seeing behavior change decreases dramatically.

Uncovering what's behind the "Knowing-Doing Gap"

Even when training succeeds in teaching new behaviors, it typically falls short at measuring whether those behaviors are actually applied — or at understanding what barriers stand in the way. L&D can be aware of a "knowing-doing gap" yet remain oblivious to what lives in that gap.

Research can reveal what's happening with learner attitudes & motivations, social support, and abilities, so why aren't those behavioral influencers measured? 

With behavior-based training solutions, they are.

Science-backed questions designed to elicit attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions — asked in the context of training — yield learner responses that become behavioral intelligence for the organization. Leaders get a more accurate and authentic read on how employees perceive the culture and the behaviors they’re being asked to adopt. Blind spots lurking inside the "knowing-doing gap" (often missed by traditional methods like engagement surveys), are uncovered.

Once organizations gain an understanding of where various teams sit in the areas of attitude, social support and ability, leaders can take quick, strategic action to address gaps. 

Connecting training insights to business performance and KPIs

Increasingly, L&D professionals are being pushed to connect training to KPIs. That can present a challenge because it often takes a long time to determine training's impact on things like engagement, retention, risk mitigation, and safety. Solutions that provide behavioral intelligence as an offshoot of training address this challenge head on. By measuring what is in the knowing-doing gap, they allow L&D professionals, team managers, and organizational leaders to act quickly, strategically, and with confidence to ensure that nothing stands in the way of the behavior change needed to positively impact critical KPIs.