Blog Post: For Training's Sake

Two dozen rookie police officers, fresh out of the police academy, blundered so badly when the police chief visited their various station houses that they were ordered back to the academy for an additional week of training.

What caused the police chief to react so strongly?

The rookies didn't follow departmental procedure -- and salute the police chief.

The little blurb ended there -- I didn't find this in a training guidebook or other professional reference.  Still, it brings up questions for those of us in the training industry.

Why didn't the rookies salute? 

Did they not know to salute a superior officer?  Was that not covered on the first day of training?

Were the rookies unable to recognize rank?  Perhaps the rookies recognized their academy superiors simply because they were there all the time.  But once in the real world -- this was the first time they'd met the chief -- they couldn't translate officer insignias properly.

I know, it's times like these that we analytical people tend to ruin a funny story.  But what I'm doing here is challenging training for training's sake.  The story also doesn't tell us what sort of additional training the rookies received.  It lasted a week, so we can guess that it's more than a job aid with stars and bars on it. 

A friend of mine told me that he was instructed to facilitate some management classes for a unit that had high turnover.  This informed the powers-that-be that the unit's managers were deficient in their interviewing skills. My peer started asking some different questions, not about the managers, but about the environment.  This unit was off-site, and not necessarily in the most desirable of locations.  My friend wondered if the employees were simply afraid to park at the work site.

I applauded my friend when he asked that question.  We all need to ask questions about training requests.  The questions we ask should determine that:

a) the right training is being delivered

b) the training requested is appropriate for the intervention scope

c) training is needed at all

He didn't get an answer to his question, save for the instruction that he facilitate the interviewing class.  Two people attended.  I guess the other managers didn't have a police chief ordering them to attend, or else.