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Keeping the standard...
You will probably be required to train people in your station - but have you ever thought about how you do it successfully?
Coming from a background that is more Youth-work focused than media one of the things that has been blatantly obvious within the media sector is the distinctive lack of training for trainers.
Training volunteers and "junior staff" is great, but a lot of the training which is given is substandard because those people who are giving the training are NOT trainers. Training is a skill in the same way that operating a desk or creating adverts is; and you can't pick it up simply by guesswork.
However, like driving a desk, training is not a particularly difficult skill to obtain and you don't need to worry about spending thousands of pounds on consultants. Instead, an awful lot of it is taking a step back and arranging the training needed into clear, consise and relevant modules.
This doesn't just include formal training sessions, but informal induction sessions with work experience or volunteer placements. Are you info-overloading them, are you telling them irrelevant information, are you aiming at the wrong level? Moreoever, have you told them why you do what you do?
We're very good at running sessions on how to be a good DJ, how to write news stories, how to music-programme and how to market ourselves; we're not so hot on obtaining skills such as how to motivate people, how to train and how to work as a team.
Look around your station (be it student, hospital, community or commercial) and ask yourself how many people who have people-management positions (of any sort) have any form of training to do that? Look at other industries and you'll find themselves falling over each other to provide that kind of training.
Training is certainly not the be-all and end-all solution but it's a very valid and important aspect. Too often people assume that the best DJ or the best reporter will be capable of providing the best training. Maybe it's time we admitted this isn't always the case.
Volunteers often can gve the organisation as much as they gain; it's just that stations are generally far too set in their ways to take time out to listen. One of the best policies I've seen (it was actually in a brick company) was a news-sheet devoted entirely to ideas to make the place run better. Everything was suggested, in confidence, by the workers and it often the case that the newest people to join are the one's who can normally spot the problems.