In 2018, the owner of our Festival charged me with the task of developing a training program for our staff of employees. The workforce at our venue is unique. Not only are they seasonal, they are actually hired by the individual vendors who own shoppes and services in our faire. Many of them live and travel across the country from festival to festival, so having in-person training sessions was not feasible. My solution was to create a series of videos that could be uploaded to our YouTube channel, and the links provided by each vendor to their staffs as they were hired.
The process included working with the rest of the management team to identify the elements needing to be addressed in the training. I drew extensively from my training at The Disney Institute, applying their industry-renown best practices. Those elements were:
Once we had these points in place, I collaborated with a script writer to create scripts that were fun and in character for our particular business. I hired a camera and editing crew and secured a team of four actors. The writer and I worked together to direct the filming sessions, then the editing crew created the final product.
Reception was very positive. Vendor stakeholders were glad to have a concrete tool to use in preparing their workers, particularly those who were arriving too close to opening day to receive face-to-face training. We did not have the budget to dub in Spanish, though that was in my long term plans. But the vendors who needed Spanish developed meetings in which they had translators on hand to communicate.
Video 1: Creating a Character
Video 2: Dialect and Phrases
Video 3: Costuming
Video 4: Voice, Gesture, and hawking
Video 5: Customer Service and Safety
Kimberly Bryant, MA 