special Ask a Manager offer: get a great harassment prevention training program for free

You reach a certain degree of success as a blogger and you start getting inundated with requests to review and promote various products. I have a form letter I use to turn these requests down because I have no interest in using this blog for that purpose. (I did once compile a list of things I like, but that was mainly stuff like iced tea and the pygmy slow loris.)

However, I'm making an exception today because I tried this product out, was impressed, and it's being offered to you for free as a special offer.

If you're an HR rep or manager who is looking for an anti-harassment training program, keep reading. If you're among the first 15 to respond, you're going to get a really good program free for a year.

You know how a lot of harassment prevention training programs are either really dry or really cheesy? I tested out a new one from Etheon this weekend, and it's none of that. In fact, it's totally different: It's an interactive and pretty damn engaging approach to helping users understand workplace harassment issues. It's a Web-based training program using streaming video, drag and drop exercises (sort of like those old "choose your own adventure" books), and particularly modern harassment scenarios. The production values are pretty high, and they even got a Hollywood movie writer to write their scripts.

What I liked most about it is that rather than just a dry delivery of the facts, they show you videos of actual scenarios (pretty realistically done ones) and ask interactive questions to help users learn to spot problems. They don't just give you the answers -- they walk you through a variety of applications of harassment law and help you learn to apply the law yourself. There's a module for employees and a module for supervisors, and they're both really well done.

Michael Hockman, Etheon's founder and CEO, gave me some background on where this all came from: "I had worked for the competition for a number of years and was very unimpressed with the learning experience and level of interactivity in their courses. Often the learning content focused on outdated scenarios, the course design looked like it was taken from a PowerPoint presentation, and the law was preached to users. Interactivity was limited to quizzes on the law and digital photos or animated cartoons. With the Etheon solution, my vision was to create a solution that taught learners how to spot issues in the workplace and respond to them professionally, while at the same time engaging learners with the material."

If you're interested, here's what to do: Email Michael Hockman at mhockman@etheon.com and let him know you read about his product at Ask a Manager. The first 15 people to respond to him will get to use the product free for one year, for employees employed at the time the agreement starts, for up to 1,000 employees. (In other words, new hires aren't covered, and companies with more than 1,000 employees would need to purchase additional licenses.) At a cost of about $50 per person, this is potentially a big savings.

Go forth and email Michael...