Why Doesn't Training Stick? Share Your Thoughts on Making It More Impactful

Dear Friends,

Please find attached my new article "WHY TRAINING DOES NOT LEAVE DESIRED IMPACT?" Open for your valuable comments.

Regards,
Anil Kaushik
Chief Editor, Business Manager
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Amazing article I read recently. I would like to add:

1) Certain individuals see it as a gateway away from the office. Organizations, bosses, and mentors will try to train someone; however, the responsibility of development clearly lies with the individual.

2) It is also up to the superiors to ensure that employees share with the team what they have learned during training. This will help employees revise their learnings and also facilitate knowledge sharing.

3) Additionally, the superior must make efforts to have the individual display what they have learned at the sessions during day-to-day activities.

Training impact is certainly measurable if done the right way. The Kirkpatrick model, if understood and followed, can work wonders for individual development and organizational outcomes.

Furthermore, training sessions must be conducted by subject matter and people experts after a clear understanding of the vision, values, and culture of the organization, as well as the policies and practices followed by the organization.

Finally, the question is not only about changing the attitude of the management but also of the people attending the training. Receptivity must be reinforced first in the minds of people nominated or sent for training.

I would like to draw your attention to the following aspects also:

1. The training needs are properly identified by both the employee and his boss.

2. The employee must opt for the training out of his interest. In case a strict training evaluation process is built into the training, only employees who desire to improve their skill set in a particular aspect would opt for such training.

3. When you have the necessity for the job and the willingness of the employee, arranging the appropriate trainer is the responsibility of the HR manager.

4. These days the employee who can be spared from the job is generally sent on training. Training programs are organized by the HR manager according to his liking/availability of trainers. But it is not strictly done according to the requirement.

In most organizations, training is like abstract painting; one rarely perceives its benefits, but everyone understands that it is in vogue. For being considered a progressive or sophisticated organization, management considers it a necessary evil.

This attitude often results in most of the suggested training courses being unrelated to individuals' self-development and organizational productivity improvement needs.

Even most productivity improvement bodies also consider HR or finance for non-finance personnel as the limit of training efforts, forgetting that productivity training encompasses better efficiency, less wastage, greater safety, better product quality, the use of simple and cheaper innovation, better decision-making, better plant performance monitoring, and project control tools, among other aspects.

It is only when the trainer is perceived as a consultant and contributor to the organization's productivity, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness that top management will give training programs due respect.

I believe only experienced line managers can contribute substantially to such training through sharing their own experiences rather than a professional trainer with little on-the-job exposure to different situations and the complexity of problems.

To achieve effectiveness, training needs to be specific to the employee's job, and it needs to be training that can be implemented once he/she returns to their desk.

All too often, employees are sent to training courses and come back to the office a day or two later and promptly forget what they have learned as they are not using the new skills.

For example, an employee may ask to attend a Microsoft Excel course. The Training Manager needs to establish the level of skill the employee requires to perform the duties of his job. If he only needs to prepare a few basic spreadsheets without complex formulas, etc., then arrange for another employee who has Excel skills to train the staff member on the job. If a higher level of skill is required AND the employee will definitely use the skills taught at the course on a regular basis, then the investment may be worthwhile.

All training is good, but it is a waste of time and money to send employees to training that they will not use and more often than not, have no interest in, other than a free day out of the office at the company's expense.

As a trainer, I do not want such people on my training courses; often, they are disruptive to those who do genuinely want to learn, and they do not contribute to the class.

John in Oz

Dear Friends,

Thank you. Your views have added value to the article and the subject in specific. We will publish these views in our next issue of BUSINESS MANAGER - HR magazine.

Regards,
Anil Kaushik

Mr. Kaushik,

It's really a thought-provoking article. I believe this can be overcome by strong focus by the management. One such example is implementing and practicing tools like the Balanced Scorecard (Kaplan & Norton), wherein the clear focus is on one of the important perspectives, "Learning and Growth." Various studies show that it really helps companies to make training more effective and measurable.

Regards,
Srikanth

Hi,

The article and the replies posted really helped to understand the importance and to-be-remembered issues when contemplating training in an organization. We at our office do conduct lots of trainings, and I'll definitely put to use the discussed inputs for better outputs and outcomes from such trainings in the future.

Thanks to all for their valuable ideas.

Thank you, Anil, for sharing a wonderful article that is worth reading for every manager. In order for training to be effective within an organization, employees and trainers all have to play an equal role with interest. If all of them take the learning seriously and implement it, training becomes effective.

I find that there is little follow-up by managers after the training of employees, and that is one reason why training becomes ineffective. Thanks for sharing.

Regards,
Amar Bir Singh