Critical factors for effective training

Delivering the training is the easy part. The hard part is assessing if and how people are applying what they learned in the classroom back on the job.

Finding ways to increase this transfer of knowledge is a mixture of office politics and training science. Paying attention to each element of this mixture will ensure that the training is taken seriously and that it has maximum impact on the business.

Two types of needs assessment

To deal with the office politics aspect of the equation, two types of needs assessment are required: political needs assessment; and the familiar training needs analysis.

In the political needs assessment, find out who the client is and what is driving their interest in training, and identify key stakeholders. These are the people who can make or break the transfer of learning back on the job.

Take, for instance, a department that is launching a new service. The client — the VP in this case — wants to ensure that it goes smoothly with minimum down time on the business and minimum complaints from customers. He suggests all staff attend some customer service seminars.

Before agreeing with the VP, the HR professional should use his or her training science skills to do a training needs analysis to determine what are the gaps in performance (if any), and to plan how training will bridge those gaps. Assessing actual performance on the job will give a clearer idea of what the optimal performance should look like. Line managers must be involved in this process because they are key stakeholders.

The HR professional, who ultimately is responsible for the success or failure of a program, should ensure that training is the right solution to the right problem.

Ensuring training sticks

“We do a lot of technical training for our staff,” says Brenda Norman, an HR professional with Mynd, a software development company. “Even though we don’t formally track knowledge transfer on the job, it is easy to see if it has occurred. Our programmers tend to demonstrate right away whether or not they are using the new skills. They can either use it in their programming or they can’t.”

It is a bit harder to evaluate the transfer of soft-skills back on the desk. Harder but not impossible providing planning to track its use is part of the training program, and is not tacked on afterthought.

To return to the customer service example. From the needs analysis, the HR professional should be able to surmise that a full-blown customer service training program is not required. What is required, however, is a workshop on handling customer complaint calls. The workshop was delivered.

To assess if people are using the new skills, break down what they are now expected to do. For example, greet the customer by name, ask questions to identify the nature of the complaint and explain what can and cannot be done to deal with it. Each behaviour is discreet, and can be seen and heard by others. Use a pre-training survey to measure how frequently each of these behaviours occurs. Comparing the pre- and post-training surveys gives a good indication of how much of the classroom training is being applied on the job.

Critical success factors

Make training timely — Just in time training is best. There is little point in rolling out new software training if the software itself will not be available for another six months. One client, a large insurance company did just that. People forgot what they had learned when the new system finally came online. It did not help that there were major changes between the initial and final versions of the software. The result was a lot of confusion. There was minimal learning, leading to poor use of the new software.

Practice makes perfect — This old adage is still true. Not everyone can successfully make the leap from classroom theory to practical application back on the job without some practice. For example, when learning to drive a car, reading the manual can help mentally prepare the student. However, it is not a substitute for getting in, turning the key, and navigating traffic. Driving lessons allow the student to practice before the driving test. More practice increases confidence in handling the road. The same applies to workplace training. Learning is increased by including practice exercises and sessions as part of training programs.

Re-think the work environment so that it supports the transfer of learning — The managers in one call centre were supposed to spend half their time coaching. They took some seminars on how to do so effectively. A followup showed that the managers were not using the new knowledge. Initially, it was thought that the reason was poor training. Through probing, it was discovered that the managers were spending most of their time on administration and project management. When coaching was added to their list of responsibilities, it stayed there, right at the bottom. To get the mangers to use the new coaching skills, their job descriptions were rewritten to emphasize coaching. As a result, coaching became a key criterion on their performance appraisal.

“One of the best ways to increase knowledge transfer is to make it part of the job,” says Lorri Battle, senior consultant with Enbridge Commercial Services. “Knowing that you are going to be evaluated on how you use the new skills at the end of the year is a major motivator. Your performance bonus or salary increase may depend on it. And so too may your promotion possibilities. Impacting a career or money can often be the best guarantee for repeated use of new skills on the job.”

Focus on the bigger picture — Typically, only the trainees are asked about what they’ve learned. This provides a good snap shot. To get a bigger picture, include the learner’s co-workers. Ask if they see any changes in the learner’s behaviour or any use of the new skills. Pull the big picture into sharper focus by involving the learner’s managers. Let these key stakeholders know what to expect during and after the training program. Suggest that they praise and reward the learners who are actively using the new skills or knowledge. The other trainees will soon get the message that the training was important and that they are expected to apply it.

Caveats

As per the adage, “you can take the horse to the water, but you can’t make it drink,” the same applies for training. A spectacular training program does not in itself imply that the learners will apply the knowledge back in their cubicles. It is important to ensure training does not occur in a vacuum. If people can see that it is clearly married to the business strategy they are more likely to transfer the classroom theory into daily practice. Emphasize this link between the initial needs assessment and the evaluation of the impact of the training on the business. It’s a kind of insurance.

Jacqueline Scott is a organizational learning consultant with Praxis Research & Training. She can be reached at (416) 539-8182.