Introduction
This project will focus on a training seminar for sexual harassment for Walmart Corporation. Walmart is a large retail market and has more than 2.2 million associates across the globe (Walmart, 2021). The target audience of this training seminar will be store managers. I have selected this training and this audience because sexual harassment is a severe problem for retail workers. Studies show that more than 25% of sexual harassment charges are filed in industries with large service workers (Gold, 2020). The store managers are responsible to their staff members, both men, and women, to ensure staff members are correctly trained on sexual harassment to prevent and react quickly to any cases.
Training Review
Walmart responds to current social and environmental responsibility trends, as any large company must operate in such industries, as its reputation, public, and government approval depend on it. The company fights racism within its organization and maintains a policy of equality for its customers (Walmart, 2021). In addition, the company’s global responsibility includes the following principles: opportunity, culture, diversity, sustainability, equity, and community (Walmart, 2021). It means that the company values the individual highly enough and will not tolerate any encroachment on generally accepted human rights. Consequently, training on learning and dealing with sexual harassment is entirely in line with the company’s goals and will be highly beneficial for employees involved in company policy.
This type of harassment is also a modern problem that has been talked about relatively recently. The silence of the victims was the main reason for the impunity of perpetrators who exceeded their authority in personal space (Siuta & Bergman, 2019). Since this problem has not been raised for a long time, there is only minimal experience dealing with sexual harassment. Moreover, another advantage of perpetrators is that victims are often unaware of such an attitude towards them, and even if they feel some discomfort, they do not know how to deal with it and whom to contact in such cases. Therefore, educating about this issue aligns with Walmart’s current goals and values and can help employees avoid embarrassing situations, learn how to prevent sexual harassment, and know how to deal with it.
A hallmark of sexual harassment, especially in the workplace, is its causes. Any sexual violence, as a rule, is associated precisely with sexual desire, while sexual harassment is precisely degrading, the desire to offend the interlocutor using similar principles (Cortina & Areguin, 2020). In this regard, the threat at workplaces to employees is precisely the possibility of psychological problems, depression, and other disorders not associated with physical violence. Such moments are more challenging to track and control, so prevention of such practices is imperative in any organization. It is especially true for Walmart, where such cases have already occurred and were among the first in judicial practice (Roccanova, 2017). The training is necessary primarily for employees who are most often subjected to such attacks. However, it will also be helpful for management, who can monitor certain signs of sexual harassment in the team.
It has been proven that companies that care about social, corporate, and environmental responsibility have more power to resist various threats. First of all, this provides support from customers and authorities due to its good reputation and is also updated in modern times due to the consequences of the pandemic (Kaplan, 2020). The training will use the basics of andragogy, that is, the principles of teaching an adult. The most important thing is to be interested and find a source of motivation for the adult listener (Loeng, 2018). In this regard, the training will begin with explaining why this information will be necessary for the company’s employees. In addition, confirming the concept of andragogy, the lecturer will highlight precisely the information that may affect Walmart employees. Examples will be given from related areas of the business industry. Considering the possible consequences of the problem, the primary task of bringing the lecturer’s understanding to the audience about the need for such knowledge is the key.
Other training activities related to consolidating experience on real examples and open discussions, with a properly created trusting environment, should eradicate all doubts and questions that the participants have accumulated during the meeting. These activities illustrate the term transfer of training. Transfer of training is the direct application of the knowledge or skills gained during the practice training. The lack of knowledge before the training contributed to its bringing. Therefore, it is impossible to talk about the transfer before a direct meeting. During the lecture, the trainer will provide an opportunity to act out situations that each employee can get into and feel in both roles. Such activities will provide an understanding of what is happening on a psychological level for both the perpetrator and the victim and practical advice on how best to act (Tews & Noe, 2019). An open discussion after the completed cases will help understand how well the employees have mastered the material. Since it is impossible to scroll through and discuss all sorts of situations with sexual harassment because they all depend on the psychology of the person or the culprit, any activity to test the knowledge gained can be considered a far transfer of training. A specific classification of cases can be given by the lecturer and distinctive features of behavior or situations. However, identical conditions of the context can be disassembled only after the fact.
In addition, the key motivation for the entire training will be the promotion of corporate ethics and effective communication following all current standards of morality and respect. It is understood that effective possession of such communication skills will maintain psychological balance more often and exclude sexual harassment in the work collective in general. This goal is achieved due to the general non-recognition of such behavior, which will categorically entail disapproval of the entire team and the expulsion of the subject from the work team. Consequently, the trainer will assess how well developed respectful communication between employees in the team is and how they will try to apply it in playing cases. In addition, the understanding at a deep level of the problem, which is the main one in training, will be clarified through an open discussion, where the employees themselves will already hold the floor, and the lecturer will only push them and give ideas for conversation or analysis of the cases that have just been conducted. An open discussion will also identify problems and gaps in communication skills that the coach can explain in an impromptu manner.
Return on expectations (ROE) and Return on investment (ROI) are two methods for assessing the return on investment of business decisions. The first methodology assesses the expectations of training costs, while the second methodology looks at the return on investment. Thus, it can be said that these methods evaluate the same qualitative indicators of the success of employee training. Their difference is that the calculations are performed in different ways, so to speak, from different angles. The ROI methodology is older, classic, and usually considers the net profit, which is compared as a percentage of investment in training. At the same time, ROE digs deeper and measures employee performance, highlighting more possible factors influencing the company’s success (Dehghani, 2020). In sexual harassment training for Walmart employees, it makes sense to use ROE for several reasons. Firstly, the training concerns human psychology, so keeping track of additional data about employees is especially important over the simple accounting of an increase or decrease in company revenues. Secondly, many factors influence the company’s income, even taken from a separate region, and it will not be easy to assess the impact of the training on the work results.
Conclusion
The described training will help assess communication skills, the level of trust and respect within the Walmart team, and educate employees on the topic of sexual harassment and create an opportunity to talk about a rather important topic without embarrassment. The construction of the training allows applying the acquired skills in practice immediately and openly discussing urgent problems in the team that may arise in playing the cases. Under the supervision of an experienced coach, it is possible to improve the atmosphere in the team, more relaxed behavior, which still follows all the norms of moral and ethical communication in the company.
References
Cortina, L. M., & Areguin, M. A. (2020). Putting People Down and Pushing Them Out: Sexual Harassment in the Workplace. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 8.
Dehghani, A., Abdolahi, B., Abasian, H., & Behranghi, M. (2020). Designing the Return on Expectations Training Evaluating Model (ROE): A Qualitative Research. Educational Measurement and Evaluation Studies, 10(29), 7-34.
Gold, S.L. (2020) Why are Retail Workers Vulnerable to Sexual Harassment?. Lawyers.com. Web.
Kaplan, S. (2020). Why Social Responsibility Produces More Resilient Organizations. MIT Sloan Management Review, 62(1), 85-90.
Loeng, S. (2018). Various ways of understanding the concept of andragogy. Cogent Education, 5(1), 1496643.
Roccanova, G. (2017). Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: Today’s Headlines Create Opportunities for Change for Employers. The Recorder, 12.
Siuta, R. L., & Bergman, M. E. (2019). Sexual harassment in the workplace. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management. Web.
Tews, M. J., & Noe, R. A. (2019). Does training have to be fun? A review and conceptual model of the role of fun in workplace training. Human Resource Management Review, 29(2), 226-238.
Walmart. (2021). Web.