Are You Cheating Yourself Out of a Fair Housing Education? - The Fair Housing Institute, Inc.

Are You Cheating Yourself Out of a Fair Housing Education?

We may not think that cheating is a “thing” when it comes to fair housing education. But it does exist both in obvious and ambiguous ways. Either way, people looking for the easy way out are not doing themselves any favors and are cheating themselves out of a proper fair housing education which can only lead to problems.

In this article, we will discuss the different ways and methods that we have seen that both individuals and even entire companies have used to try and game the system. By highlighting these dangerous practices, we hope to raise awareness to encourage everyone to truly invest in their education and careers.

Students cheating on a test

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

What kind of cheating are we referring to?

There are two basic ways of cheating: the most obvious is sharing test answers. The other is a bit more insidious. We understand that training is not always welcome but looking for the quickest or easiest way to get it done is definitely not a best practice. You are, in fact, cheating yourself out of quality education. Watching a quick video or taking a short 15-minute course with no follow-up test may check a box, but are you actually gaining a thorough understanding?

What methods have some trainees used to cheat?

One common method trainees use to cheat we already discussed is sharing test answers. Clearly, this is not helpful to anyone. In addition, we also see trainees have someone else take the course for them. It can be very tempting to believe that you just don’t have time with all your other responsibilities, but you are leaving yourself in a highly vulnerable position. Not having a thorough working knowledge of fair housing laws and their implications can expose you and your company to potential violations and costly fines.

What methods have some property management company employees in charge of providing training used to game the system?

Again, here we see a trend of managers trying to get by with the absolute minimum. They may feel that their staff doesn’t have the time or perhaps that initial training is all that is needed. Some have even resorted to creating fake certificates. Once an investigation is launched—and it will be— your training practices will be put under a microscope. You are only hurting yourself and your company. It is so much easier to just do your training the right way from the get-go.

Signs that it’s time to evaluate your training program

You just heard your employee confirm a prospect’s question if there were many from their religion living on the property. You look into their file and find that they just completed fair housing training. How could they make such a basic mistake so soon after training? When you chat with them, you quickly realize that they barely remember anything from their training.

This situation happens quite often. It may be the training materials were not thorough or robust enough, or perhaps the method of training did not connect with the employee. Another area of concern would be that the training provided didn’t give you any feedback as to how the employee did, for example, a test score. All of these are indicating factors that you may need to reevaluate your fair housing training.

Overall most companies are invested in providing properly-curated content that is up-to-date to ensure that their employees have the knowledge and skills they need. However, if you find that there are gaps in your training process, we encourage you to tackle them quickly.

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