-- Feature Article: Tips on Making Training Stick (Part 2)

-- Note from the Author: Preserve Your Organization's Intellectual Assets

-- Special Message: How Proactive Are Your Personnel Policies?

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Preserve Your Organization's Intellectual Assets

In today's issue, we continue exploring the timing, tools, and techniques for developing the strengths and talents of your personnel. Should you train or use a different approach to close an achievement gap? And when you do train, how can you make sure that the training "sticks"?

My last newsletter introduced the topic of training transfer, which refers to the many conditions that managers must satisfy to help learners successfully apply training to their jobs. Since training produces a short-lived result unless accompanied by transfer support, it pays to plan carefully and follow through systematically.

Also consider that if significant turnover or downsizing occurs, it would mean that many of the company's intellectual assets -- people with precious, or even priceless skills and knowledge -- would simply walk out the door, perhaps not ever to return. Can you afford the time and expense of seeking replacements? Training may be one of several ways you can expand organizational expertise and improve retention.

For these reasons, please enjoy today's features, including "Tips on Making Training Stick (Part 2)." And do join the conversation by leaving your comments on my blog!

Wishing you joyous, prosperous holidays and a very Happy New Year!

Adele Sommers, author of the "Straight Talk on Boosting Business Performance" success program

P.S. If you missed any previous issue, visit the newsletter index!

How Proactive Are Your Personnel Policies?

When businesses invest in their personnel, they're taking a far-sighted view of success. Continually increasing the expertise of your staff can help your organization remain flexible, energized, and profitable. In so doing, you make "co-visionaries" of your employees by enabling them to:

• Turn their strongest aptitudes into their most valuable expertise
• Understand cause-and-effect relationships in the business, and
• Learn to use highly effective performance-building techniques

Don't Depend on Luck!

In good, plentiful times, it might seem very reasonable to "hire and forget" -- either when gaining new employees or tapping contract help. With this approach, you would hire or contract someone to fulfill a particular need, apply a dollop of orientation and maybe a dab of training, send them into action, and presto! Problem solved! Or is it?

You should recognize that the invaluable assets you have embodied in personnel can best serve the company's goals when their talents are nurtured. The key is to train those talents along each individual's greatest strengths, since those strengths will provide the ultimate benefit to the company.

According to a 2008 international study by research firm BlessingWhite Inc., "State of Employee Engagement," providing employees with more options to use their talents, career development, and training are among the factors that contribute the most to job satisfaction across all age ranges and job categories. However...

Even more crucial to the organization is the level of employee engagement, according to BlessingWhite. Truly engaged employees are not simply committed, passionate, or proud: "They have a line-of-sight on their own future and on the organization's missions and goals ... using their talents and discretionary effort to make a difference in their employer's quest for sustainable business success."

Companies sometimes fret about whether to invest in their personnel, since those people might later leave with skills, ideas, and knowledge acquired on the job.

In rebuttal, I once heard Rick Barrera, the author of "Overpromise & Overdeliver: The_Secrets_of Unshakable Customer Loyalty," say: "Some companies worry, 'What if we train people, and they leave?' The more important concern should be, 'What if we don't train people... and they stay?'" How fitting, considering the data above!

Tips on Making Training Stick (Part 2)
by Adele Sommers

When your organization decides to undertake any type of training program, how can you make certain that employees will actually be able to use what they've learned? After all, training is an expensive proposition that often produces fleeting results, so you certainly want to get the most from your investment.

In Part 1 of this series, I introduced management's role in supporting the many factors that determine how well people can transfer to their jobs any training they receive. I covered two of four essential transfer steps in Part 1:

• Step 1: Determine Organizational Needs that Require Training
• Step 2: Carefully Plan the Instructional Experience

In this article, Part 2, I discuss the remaining two steps in the process.

In review, there are many situations in which training might not be appropriate, such as when people already have the knowledge to do their jobs, but are being hampered by workplace conditions.

I reintroduce some of these same conditions below as obstacles to transferring training to the job.

Describe management support for the instructional experience that would enable employees to transfer new learning to the job. This section echoes the supervisor's commitments from the prior "learning contract" (see Part 1 of this series), explores them in more depth, and culminates with a supervisor-trainee applications contract.

• Indicate the types of support needed before, during, and after training. For example, you might want to either schedule fill-in personnel, or postpone the completion of the employee's assignments until after the training. If fill-in personnel will be used for desk coverage before, during, or after the training, you should identify, notify, and schedule them for those assignments.

• Identify situations in which follow-up practice and feedback can occur. These situations could include staff meetings, presentations, team problem solving workshops, or one-on-one sessions. The learners could demonstrate and practice their newly acquired skills to elicit feedback and suggestions.

• Provide "training relapse prevention" systems, coaching, and detection. Applying new learning is by no means foolproof, and lapses are inevitable. To keep lapses from becoming total relapses to pre-instructional skill levels, the guidelines below suggest how management can help learners prevent them:
  
  

No later than very soon after the training, have each employee and supervisor (or manager) complete a training applications contract to help the employees apply newly acquired skills to work projects. Use a separate contract for each employee.

Step 4: Identify Support Needs Related to the Work Environment

Describe the management support related to the work setting that can enhance the employee's ability to apply training to the job. By creating an action plan to address the environmental factors below, you can better assure transfer success.

• Aligned consequences: For reward and incentive systems to work well, they must align with improvement goals and give learners recognition for desirable achievement. Management also must remove any negative consequences that would inadvertently inhibit the use of new skills.

• Clear work documentation: Work policies, procedures, and processes should correlate closely with the training objectives to enable trainees to produce the required outcomes.

• Unambiguous work expectations: Beyond documented directives, management should clearly communicate job requirements to the trainees.

• Information, job aids, and resources: Effective training follow-up includes providing related information, reference aids, and resources (including staff, budget, schedule, tools, and equipment) to help produce the desired results.

• Reduced complexity: Complexity in the work environment makes every aspect more difficult -- from documenting procedures to task completion. Streamlining the work lessens cost, time, and effort, especially for trainees.

• Optimized workflows: Constraints in the workflow create bottlenecks that need careful management. When the workflow is cumbersome and constant interruptions occur due to inadequate prioritization, the ability to apply new skills suffers dramatically.

• Eliminated work obstacles: Productivity barriers can include anything from the issues listed above to confusing procedures to uncalibrated equipment to out-of-control processes that cause variability beyond the workers' control. I describe several of these in a previous article; many impede training transfer.

• Periodic progress reviews: Periodic review sessions with trainees (e.g., at three-month intervals) can monitor the extent to which people are using their new skills. These sessions could review task checklists, evaluate work results, discuss any further practice options, identify obstacles, and generate ideas for system improvements.

Some of the many instructional and environmental support possibilities appear in the summary below:

Clearer achievement expectations	Quick reference guides and job aids
Supervised practice and feedback	Clear, documented work directives
Rewards for desirable accomplishments	Elimination of negative consequences
More management encouragement	Coaching to increase confidence, value
Eliminating obstacles to productivity	Simplification of jobs, tasks, processes
Resources (e.g., time, people, tools)	Better task prioritization and scheduling
Individualized, on-the-job guidance	Up-to-date electronic support systems
Optimizing workflows and constraints	Team problem-solving workshops

In conclusion, management's diligent focus on supporting the transfer of training from a planning, instructional, and environmental perspective will help ensure that the valuable resources invested in training will produce the greatest possible benefit to the organization.

Copyright 2010 Adele Sommers

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Adele Sommers, Ph.D. is the author of "Straight Talk on Boosting Business Performance" -- an award-winning Special Report and Workbook program.

If you liked today's issue, you'll love this down-to-earth overview of how 12 potent business-boosting strategies can reenergize the morale and productivity of your enterprise, tame unruly projects, and attract loyal, satisfied customers. It's accompanied by a step-by-step workbook designed to help you easily create your own success action plan. Browse the table of contents and reader reviews on the description page.

Adele also offers no-cost articles and resources to help small businesses and large organizations accelerate productivity and increase profitability. Learn more at LearnShareProsper.com.

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