How to Train a Non-Receptive Audience: What I Learnt As A PoSH Practitioner  

My work as a PoSH lawyer – The PoSH Act of 2013 mandates that every organization, public or private, must conduct awareness sessions for its employees. What this entails is conducting training sessions for employees to make them aware of what sexual harassment is and how they are protected under the law. At Ungender, we go a step ahead to not just talk about the law but talk about respect and inclusion that aim to bring about a cultural change in the organization.  

Often brings me face-to-face with an audience that is engaged and responsive, and bounce off the energy of the people I am training. But quite often I get what we call in performance parlance, a tough crowd. Note that when I say a tough crowd, I define it as disengaged and indifferent spectators.  

The PoSH Act of 2013 mandates that every organization, public or private, must conduct awareness sessions for its employees. What this entails is conducting training sessions for employees to make them aware of what sexual harassment is and how they are protected under the law. At Ungender, we go a step ahead to not just talk about the law but talk about respect and inclusion that aim to bring about a cultural change in the organization.  

Here are some ways I have learned to engage with them:  

 1.Evaluate the situation  

Before you can tackle the audience, it’s important to understand the situation and the “why”. Why are they disinterested and not engaged? Have they stepped out of a two  hour-long meeting? Or is the session scheduled right after lunch? Once you have figured out the “why”, you can assess the possible solution. If your audience is sleepy, try to conduct an activity. If they are tired, rely on only conveying the most important points through lots of visual aids.  

2.Build Rapport 

Start with an icebreaker activity. Learn their names and one detail about them. Interact with your audience on a one – to- one basis. And through the presentation, keep them involved. Use them in your narratives and make the effort to involve them in your presentation.   

3.Start with a story 

A story or experience tends to draw the attention of the audience. An audience that can relate to the first-person narrative of experience will draw the audience’s attention to why the training is relevant and important to them. Always contextualize the narrative to fit within their experiences and backgrounds.  

 4.Conduct activities 

Let’s be honest, nobody wants to listen to a two– hour lecture. Make your audience participate in your presentation. Either play a game to drive home the point, or even ask them close-ended questions. By doing this, not only will you get the attention of your audience, but you’ll also be able to engage them and model the kind of behavior you want to see from them for your presentation. 

 5.Case studies 

Another great way to engage the audience and gauge their understanding is by presenting them with case studies. These case studies should summarise the content that was presented through your session and pose questions that will involve them applying all they have learned.  

People don’t want to be wrong, so assure them that there are no right or wrong answers but only different perspectives that we as a group can learn from.  

My takeaway from using these techniques has been that, it will at the very least bring about some amount of engagement and involvement in the presentation. Let us know what has worked for you!   

(Author: Vibha Vasuki is a Human Rights Lawyer and works as a consultant with Ungender Legal Advisory)