Two months ago, “Acme Company” paid “T1 Training” to train its Accounting Department on time management techniques as part of an effort to improve processing speeds. Despite some initial improvements and enthusiasm, Accounting Manager Fred has now noticed that his team has slipped into old habits, and processing speeds are back to pre-training levels. He cannot understand why, after attending the training and getting copies of the slides, his team is not using what they learned.
Like so many organizations who train their staff, Fred’s department suffers from a lack of attention to the Support Transferring of Learning phase of the training lifecycle. What did T1 and Fred do wrong?
- Assumed attending training is enough: T1 and Fred assumed that the staff would listen to the information in the class, remember it, and immediately use it. Unfortunately, that is not how the human mind works. Marketers know that to get an idea to stick, consumers need to hear an idea at least seven times. That is why advertisements play repeatedly on television, the radio, and the internet. The more one hears, the more one remembers. The same applies to training. To make new skills or approaches take hold in the workplace, participants need reinforcement after the initial course. They need managerial support, reference materials, and people to whom they can turn for questions.
- Considered post-training transfer support after delivering the training: When the training ended, participants asked for the slides as reference materials. Before that, T1 had not given any thought to how to support it. A best practice is to build the support approach into the training strategy and program design. That way, the trainer can talk in class about how to use support tools or what support options are available. Everything needs to be aligned and reinforced from the start.
- Provided only self-support tools: Reference materials and job aids can help participants recall what they learned or find the answers to common questions; however, they do not create accountability. Support tools that require interaction with other people increase the likelihood that participants will do what they need to do because nobody wants to be embarrassed in front of others. Consider using coaching assignments, regular management check-ins, lunch-and-learns, or peer-based follow-up meetings as ways to get more people talking about and using the information they learned in class.
What other common mistakes do you think T1 and Fred made regarding post-training support for the transfer of learning? Add your answers in the Comments section to keep this conversation going!
Comprehensive Learning Solutions, a co-developer of and signatory to the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation (IFC)’s Principles for Learning and Guide to Training, has decades of experience strategizing and creating tools for post-training. Contact Comprehensive Learning Solutions for all your training needs.