If you have recently read the
Arkansas/ES&S report or the
Cuyahoga
County
report (
Cleveland
,
Ohio
) you have certainly noted that lack of training has been a top concern of those
reports.In some cases, training was
never tracked and neither the county nor the vendor knew if it was completed or
not.
It is a constant complaint from
elections offices that they receive poor training from vendors.I would like to discuss some of the reasons for this, and how some of
this might be avoided in the future.
VENDOR
ISSUES:
ONE:
Failure to commit to the value of training.
Training always is a low priority at
most firms.They will tell you it is
at the top, but it isn’t true.They
may pay their software programmers a ton of money, but their poor trainers get
bottom of the barrel wages, if they even HAVE a full time trainer.
Many companies, and this is certainly
true for election vendors, rely on programmers or other staff to handle their
training needs.Or they will promote
some power user in the office to the ranks of training, without regard to their
actual ability to train.
TWO:“Train the Trainer” programs are poorly run.
Virtually every election bid I have
seen, be it for tabulation or VR, has a “Train the Trainer” program.Simply put that means “One of our guys will train one your people, and
then it’s your baby.”These
programs are often a quick fix for the vendor to move responsibility for
training over to the election office.These
programs MAY work provided the person in the office that is trained is:
Capable
of learning the system.
Trained
adequately and completely by the vendor.
Able
and willing to training the remaining staff.
As you can see it will take a number of things to come to fruition for
these programs to work well.For the
most part, they don’t.
THREE:
Vendors lack adequate staff for training.
Turnover at some firms makes it very hard to have someone that really
understands all the features of a particular product.I have seen firms where virtually everyone that wrote or trained on a VR
package has left the firm, and as a result there isn’t anyone left that really
knows the system in and out.This is
dangerous position to be in, but it happens quite a bit in this industry.
COUNTY
ISSUES:
ONE: Again, failure to take training and
cross-training seriously.
You won’t have successful elections
unless you train and cross train your staff RELENTLESSLY.If you don’t train, you will fail and end up on electionline and
the local paper.This is the
reality.Your county can’t rely on
the vendor to do everything.Leadership
at an election office entails stepping up to the plate and accepting
responsibility from A to Z for everything that takes place in that office—good
or bad.If you want to be
successful, you have to commit to both training and cross training.I will have an article shortly on the value and necessity of cross
training, so I won’t delve into that now.But it is vitally important that you champion
training in your office.
TWO:Failure to bid out sufficient training and to track training plans.
I’ve seen a number of bids where the
training request is totally insufficient for the job at hand.I suspect the fear is that if they bid out a lot of training, the cost
will go up dramatically.This is
rarely the case.Your staff simply
cannot learn a new ballot and election management system in 2 days, or even a
week.You have to ask for a lot of
training, and have election cycle training.Review how you did with the most recent election, and review your
training, and schedule more if it is needed.Furthermore, if the vendor outlines a training plan, track their
compliance.If you don’t get what
you bid, call the vendor and point that out.Get your prosecutor involved if you have to.Do not let the vendor give you half a loaf if you paid for the whole
loaf.Know what is going on with
training!!!
THREE:
Failure to cross train.
This more than anything, leads to
problems in elections offices.It is
rarely done, and always needed.I
will have another article on this soon, but it certainly is a reason why
training of election offices is not up to where it should be.
SOLUTIONS:
Vendors
must RECOMMIT to the value and need of training.
Vendors
should hire and support professional trainers in their operations.
Vendors
should review their “Train the Trainer” programs and make sure they
work.
Vendor
trainers must have good training skills. Don’t just use power users or
programmers to train because they know the system.Get someone with teaching and training experience.
Vendors
need to gather feedback after training. Make management see how well the
training is perceived by county officials.Don’t just sent people out blindly to train.Know what they are doing.
Counties
must RECOMIT to the value and importance of training.
Counties
must request and be willing to pay for adequate training.Leadership must take an active role in making the case for training.Don’t just assume it is too expensive and you won’t be able to
get it.
Learn
the value and important of cross-training as well.
Exercise
caution in using a “train the trainer” program from a vendor.
Identify
staff members that have training skills.Don’t just put someone in a training role because they have more
seniority or are asking for greater responsibility.Find someone that can actually do the work.
Hire
outside expertise if necessary.
Use
advice or help from other counties SPARINGLY.
Do not burden some other office because you haven’t done your work.Remember, they have elections to prepare for as well.And don’t enable another office either.Tell them to get their own act together.It isn’t the role of your staff to bail out the problems in other
counties.Yes, we all like to
work together, but in some cases it results in LEARNED HELPLESSNESS.That
is a condition where people learn to be helpless so that others can do the
work for them.
