Lately I've run into several emotional students, most of it centered around our response to the Covid virus. We mandate that anyone in our training center must wear a face mask. Regardless of the face mask efficacy or the arguments about them, having over one hundred people crammed together in a training space with nothing but Plexiglas dividers around them, we figure that if someone does have the virus, the training area would be a good place to potentially pass it around.
We do our best to disinfect, but why not mandate masks as well as a further safety net. Several of our trainees have decided to see how far they can push us on this mandate. For the first time in ten years, we had to call the police to escort a trainee out of the building and had a second incident that almost went that far today.
Many of them, when confronted, don't realize that we are a business that can set policies, and not a public space that's paid for by their tax dollars. Once I tell them that it's their choice not as to whether or not they wear the mask, but rather their choice as to whether or not they want to train with us, generally, they clam up and throw on a face mask awful quick. "You're perfectly free to go take this training at the Baytown Safety Training Facility or the Texas City one, if you don't like our policy on masks." I find that giving a choice allows the trainee to still feel as though they have some control and an option that is there's to make.
What's the best way to handle this? I have yet to find someone who picks going somewhere else. We have by far the easiest policies of the bunch, the best staff, and the nicest environment for learning. So, I guess that would be my answer, giving the learner a choice and letting them take the one that's best for them.
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