Wall Street Journal has an excellent article that emphasizes that the key to effective training isn’t what happens in the classroom. It’s what you do afterwards. Organizations spend billions of dollars annually on staff development and some studies suggest that 10% to 40% of training is ever used on that job–shocking!
To make training and development programs yield better results, the article suggests that change management strategy needs to be employed. Change management strategies suggested include:
- Having trainees write down how they plan to use new skills or knowledge on the job. Outline what needs to be done, when, and with home reduces confusion and helps trainees visualize the outcome and provides a document against which progress can be assessed.
- Having trainees discuss their progress with supervisors and peers.
- Measuring Results by doing a post-training performance assessment. The post training assessment should measure specific behaviors targeted by training.
- Supporting superiors greatly increase the odds that employees will apply what they learned in training. By assuming the role of coach or mentor, the supervisor can communicate expectations to trainees, keep them focused, provide encouragement and help eliminate the roadblocks to success.
- Access to Experts can provide the additional information trainees need to finalize and deploy an action plan. Additional information can be provided by access to reference materials, additional data, or more training.
I agree with Dr. Martin, that organizations need to extend training out of teh classroom and make learning transfer an important part of any training effort.