Employee Discipline Cartoon Pack is Here!

When discipline issues arise, the need for fair and consistent discipline is critical. No manager likes to correct employees but the reality is that even the best employee can have minor issues from time to time.

The purpose of any discipline policy should never be to punish. When used appropriately, discipline is an important tool that allows the employee the opportunity to correct behavior and to enforce the prescribed guidelines in fairness to all employees.

Progressive discipline is a series of steps that is designed to address and correct performance or behavior that falls short of standards. Let my cartoon pack help you communicate your message on this critical training topic!Take a look below at everything that's included in my Discipline Cartoon Pack and click the image for a closer view:


Here are more tips to include in your employee discipline training:
Remember, the main goal of discipline should be to help the employee improve his performance, not punish. With that said, let’s take a look at some tips for managers at any stage in the discipline process:

• Never let your emotions decide who and what will be subject to discipline.
• Hold employees accountable to standards of conduct in a consistent manner.
• Establish a clear, written, and detailed code of conduct.
• Search out underlying reasons for bad behavior.
• Never make it personal.
• Keep to the facts but let the employee know you care about helping him.
• Describe behaviors rather than judge the person.
• Understand some people might not realize there is a problem or it’s likely they would change on their own.
• Don’t use labels. Offer up measurable goals. You can’t just tell someone to clean up their bad attitude. You must instead offer up that hanging up on callers is not allowed and not to do it again.
• It’s always best to nip problems in the bud. Don’t look the other way hoping the problem resolves itself. It won’t.
• Maintain your objectivity. You shouldn’t agree that one employee is a problem when another complains about him. You still need to investigate and gather evidence before you can make a judgment
• Maintain confidentiality whenever possible. Conduct all interviews in private.
• Be mindful of the needs of all employees within the company to feel safe, valued and appreciated. When you allow one employee to run amok it brings down the morale of everyone.
• Set the standard with your own behavior. People will rise up or fall down to whatever standards you as a manager set. All of the written policies in the world won’t matter if you don’t set an example as a hard working professional!

Discipline should not be about punishment. When handled correctly, it is an effective tool to alert an employee about a problem, to contribute to understanding the problem, to correct violations and to improve performance. Consistent documentation of each step will provide the employee with several opportunities to get it right. As a manager, it’s your job to see to it they are productive, contributing well-adjusted members of the company.

The issue of discipline can be a sensitive one. If you are planning to conduct training on this topic, my employee discipline training cartoons will really help you to convey your message and make it memorable! For this pack and more, visit my website at www.WorkplaceToons.com.

Treasure Hunt Icebreaker

This is one of my favorite first-day icebreakers. I call it “Treasure Hunt”. However, it isn’t quite what you might think it is.

Ok, so every person has treasure. The purpose for this game is to find out what those treasures are and who has them.

You will need to set aside about 10 minutes for everyone to prepare. Start by instructing each person in the group that they will be preparing a list of ten items. Everyone's list should be different so they cannot work in groups at this stage.

Explain that the items to place on the list are not what you might find in a room but rather the characteristics of the people in it.

Provide examples of the type of things to place on the list: A person who has a college degree. A person who likes to write. A person who’s favorite color is blue. A person who’s favorite number is 6. A person who has their own website. Any human characteristic or quality is fair game. You should play too!

Now the real fun begins! Ideally, you should allow 15-20 minutes for this part. Instruct the group to mingle with each other and ask each other questions until they find a fit for an item on their list and get the person to sign their name by that item. The first person to complete their list gets the prize. I find chocolate or a free coffee works great!

And, of course, everyone actually wins in this game because they will have gotten to know each other better, shared a laugh or two and gotten comfortable speaking in front of and with each other!

The Analogy & Metaphor Exercise

For this exercise you need to bring in several miscellaneous items. They can be office items, household items, or anything else you want to throw into a paper bag. You also need to make a list of lead-ins like these examples; (I will use teaching Basic Internet Skills as my topic for the examples.)

A search engine is like this (item) because . . .
An ISP is like this (item) because . . .
A website is like this (item) because . . .

In the middle or at the end of your session, you will explain the game, Let a person pick an item from your bag, then give them the first/next suggestion on your list of analogies and metaphors. They need to complete the sentence. You can reuse items from the bag if you run out because the analogies and metaphors you associate with them will be different.

Get a Clue! A fun check-for-learning game for trainers

This is a great way to make your students into assistant trainers. This game should be done halfway through the class or at the end. Just be sure to leave about 15 minutes to play. Students will all need something to write on and you'll need sometime with which to keep time. You could use a stopwatch or any clock or watch that has a second hand or digital display.

Have each person in the class write down 4 things they have learned about a specific topic you have covered. Pair people up into teams of two. Each team will have a clue giver and guesser. For each item on the clue-giver's list he or she has to give clues to the answer without using the actual words in the answer. The guesser tries to give the answer written on the paper. The answer does not have to be given verbatim; close is good enough as long as the main point is covered. The team gets 15seconds to give/receive clues before you move on to the next team.

When the teams have all had a turn, the person who was doing the guessing now does the clue-giving for their list of four things. This continues until everyone has been a clue-giver and a guesser.

This game is a great way to see how much the group has learned, a great way for them to do their own review of the topic, and gets them involved in the teaching as well as the learning.

Fun 5-minute Icebreaker for the 1st Day of Class

Here is an icebreaker I like to use on the first day of class. It is super easy to do and students really enjoy it as a way to get to know fun facts about each other. I call it Fact or Fiction. Enjoy!

Fact or Fiction
This is a great icebreaker for a group that doesn’t know each other. You will need index cards and pens or pencils. Each person gets an index card and is to write four things about themselves. One item needs to be fiction while the other three are fact> Instruct the participants to write them down in no particular order. The more outrageous the better.

Everyone turns their cards in and the trainer takes each card in turn and reads the four items about the person aloud. The group can discuss each item. The group then votes on which item they believe is fiction.

This game helps everyone get to know everyone else and lets them have a chance to be creative and sneaky. You'll get some laughs and get to know who the creative people are in your group as well!


More icebreakers to come! Check my blog often for training tips, site news and upcoming cartoon packs! Thanks for visiting!

Elements of an Online Learning Program

Thanks to the low production costs of creating an online program (in comparison to what it costs to create and deliver a traditional training program) just about every organization is turning to online learning as a major part of their training plan.

Of course, just using an organization's training budget on the creation of an online learning program doesn't automatically make it successful. The trouble with online learning programs is that companies rarely invest in details that create learning environments that are conducive to learning. Companies go into the creation of an online learning program with the idea that it's going to help them keep up with the competition, satisfy state or federal compliance requirements, or make use of available technology, more thought must go into what will make the program successful.

In order to make the investment worthwhile, and ensure a successful online learning program, the design of the program must consider what will motivate the students to complete the training, what kind of interaction is possible through the system, different ways to deliver the information, and how students will be able to access the instructor or trainer of the program. Ideally, training should be available to satisfy all of these needs.

Student Motivation

In any type of learning program, the success of the student is mostly related to the amount of their personal motivation to succeed. Online environments are slightly different than traditional training programs, and for some learners it is difficult to get themselves to complete the online training as there is no instructor taking attendance, no face-to-face contact to motivate them. So what elements of an online program can encourage student motivation and increase the overall success of the program?

The online learning program should have a variety of assessment techniques. If a learner of the program realizes that they are going to be assessed on their activities, it will motivate the majority of them to learn and participate. The fear of “looking dumb” is a strong motivator to many people, and will be enough to keep them working towards the completion of the course.

Interaction

Many online programs don't make use of the ability to provide synchronous interaction, and rarely encourage interaction between the learners of the program. Real-time chat can encourage discussions on the subject matter, but many online learning programs only make use of email and message boards to communicate with one another.

Technology

If the online program used to deliver your training has every single feature possible, but the students have no idea how to access any of it- the program will fail. The user interface of an online learning program must be intuitive so that students will not have to spend large amounts of time attempting to learn where to access lessons and class notes, how to contact other students and the instructor, and how to submit his or her assignments for assessment. The program should be designed so that it will operate on the majority of computer systems, and on low-bandwidth connections. If the learners of the program aren't able to connect to the system, or fully access the features due to their computer limitations, the program may fail so use caution, cover your bases, and do your research to ensure your program’s success.