Training for Life

Looking at possibilities for the final project, I have come up with a most interest scenerio; not necessarily different from my everyday duties as a career facilitator, but with a distinct twist. I am making an attempt (regardless of how fictional) to train Case Managers (Business Development Associates) who assist TANF customers with life resources, to improve their participation rates by incorporating creative communication techniques.



This will be a 3 day workshop that will incorporate case study, theoritical applications and communication assessments to help them figure out how they communicate. I will also make the attempt to assess them on communal biases (any ideologies or theories they currently are practicing with our customers. These biases may not have an concrete theoretical application, but the passing down of "survival tactics" from other colleagues may prove to be instrumental in how they approach problem solving strategies with our customer and how they may communicate with them (verbally or non verbals). The ultimate goal is to change the culture of the Department of Human Services by re-introducing the human component back into service to the community and the City's objective of getting people working in Denver County.

Scope: The subject will begin with the definition of who our TANF customers are; i.e education, goals, barriers, family structures. If we start with the current state of the population we can address what difficulties we have seen in communication styles and customer expectation as it relates to Federal and County guidelines. Building relationships and providing essential boundaries to the working relationship to get the expected result, activity participation and completion.

Depth: Because Workforce Development wants to eradicate the "social services stigma" to make this population employable, we will have to cover specific communication approaches in the allotted time to cover the essentials. We will cover individual communication styles and biases, mirroring, how to handle confrontation without being confrontational and every customer is not the same.

Centrality and Balance: Communication is a broad subject matter, so we will spend time on biases and communication styles and who is our customer. This will give us a better idea of knowing what is working and what is causing TANF customers from fully participating and completing work activities. There must still be a balance is providing quality communication/ relationship building without trying to become our customer's "buddies". The building of relationships with customers based on a "communication partner" framework.

Sequence: This is interesting. Covering the "who is our customer/ personal biases." Seems to be the most effective starting point. I am sure that as I look at this more closely, I will find something else that will take presidence over this starting point. We may need to also look at the foundation of "what is customer service and what is communication" as a foundational starting point and then branch out into styles, responsibility and the human identification component.

Gap: What is being left out? Hmmm, that is an interesting one. In order for the Case Managers to facilitate more effective communication strategies, the supervisory leadership needs to have the skills in place also so that they will be able to implement and see the effects of the change on participation rates and customer satisfaction. If the leadership is not instructed as well, we will have a repeat of trainings that have been manditory for the workers and not taken seriously or considered relevant to management. Communication styles and approaches must practiced by leadership to be followed and implemented by frontline staff. An additional training will need to be done with supervisors and an progression of implementation effects to be reviewed in 30 days from the completion of the initial training.

Intention: The intention is that the Case Managers will walk away with more effective communication tools in dealing with TANF customers with the results of higher participation rates. However, it is a good chance that it will end up that some Associates will begin to share how management doesn't make it easy to implement new ideas for participation rates and will spend the time doing damage control and justifying the necessity of the training all together. However, again, it could end up a gripe session about how all our customers are, "liars, deceitful, and people trying to abuse the system". We will have to go back to concrete definitions of what is, what isn't and what we as a group want it to look like and then formulation a plan and a strategy to make it happen.

In a perfect world this would be amazing and everyone would be self-sufficient, however the animal itself has never been tamed for quite sometime. In taking on this huge task, I hope that I am not leaving out anything concrete (that would not be good) LOL.