Steps Management Can Take to Ensure Training Transfer

Training is a powerful improvement technique that offers tremendous benefits when it's judiciously used. This article discusses management's role in supporting the many factors that influence how well people transfer to their jobs any training they receive. Management's support is essential to assuring the long-term return on any training investment.

First, keep in mind that training embodies the how-to information people need to effectively perform in their jobs, presuming that their natural talents are a good fit for their responsibilities. Although training is appropriate for bridging real knowledge gaps, there are many situations in which it might not be helpful. These include circumstances in which people already have sufficient job knowledge, but are being impeded by other circumstances.

Even when it's justified, training is an expensive and ephemeral way to close a performance gap. It's expensive because it takes people away from their regular work and often involves development, logistics, and support costs. It's ephemeral because of its fragile and short lifespan within people's brains. That's why learners need considerable follow-up support to make use of training.

For these reasons, here are some important tips that management can use to ensure long-lasting training success.

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Transferring Training to the Job Requires More than Luck
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The term "transfer of training" refers to the ability of learners to apply their new knowledge and skills to real-world situations, particularly in the workplace. If trainees cannot apply what they've learned to their jobs, their training time and investment will have been wasted!

Training transfer "success factors" include, but are not limited to:

-- A compelling, mission-based training purpose
-- Learners' attitudes toward the training process
-- The design and relevance of instructional materials
-- The presence or absence of obstacles to productivity
-- Working conditions that support and encourage the desired outcomes
-- Budget and schedule allocations that enable learners to practice skills
-- The availability of necessary tools, resources, equipment, and job aids
-- The level of management support for the immediate use of the training
-- The amount of post-training motivation, practice, and guidance provided

Below are two of several critical steps managers can take to ensure that training transfer occurs.

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Step 1: Determine Organizational Needs that Require Training
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Training programs are most effective when they directly address organizational problems or opportunities.

Whenever it's clear that training can support a compelling organizational need, learners will take it more seriously, and it will be far easier to justify and calculate a return on investment.

So, identify the critical business issues related to proposed training in terms of:

-- Problems: For example, a high rate of customer complaints; dwindling sales, the risk of losing certification; or poor product quality.

-- Opportunities: For example, expanding into new markets; improvements to products or processes to increase profitability; anticipated regulatory changes; or achieving industry certifications.

Next, answer the following regarding the identified problems or opportunities:

1) What outcomes should this training produce? Sample outcomes include increased product sales; decreased customer complaints; better designs of process experiments; more accurate defect analysis summaries; supervisors regularly coaching their employees.

2) To which projects, products, and processes would the training pertain? Example: The assembly process for part 456 on the satellite project.

3) What risks would be incurred if the identified outcomes were delayed? For example, would there be an imminent loss involving a safety hazard, a product failure, or customer departure; or would a product rollout be delayed, a certification requirement missed, or a planned market repositioning stalled?

4) What alternatives to the instruction exist, if any? Can you satisfy the need for improvement using other approaches, instead of, or in addition to, training? You might discover through this analysis that training is not the answer, or is only part of the answer, to desired improvement as explained in this article.

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Step 2: Carefully Plan the Instructional Experience
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Describe the characteristics of the instruction that would result in the outcomes listed above:

1) Identify a training objective for each outcome or desired achievement level. Training objectives involve three parts: a condition, an action, and a standard or criterion. 

For example, "Given a new customer telephoning with questions [a condition], be able to provide fast and accurate product information [an action] to comply with standards on the customer support checklist [a criterion]."

2) List any pre-course assignments that learners must complete. For example, list required readings, exercises, assessments, and surveys.

3) Indicate the learner's commitments before, during, and after training. Example: Activities before instruction might require 10 hours to complete; the commitment during instruction might require 30 hours; and practice, support, and evaluation sessions afterward might require up to 40 hours.

4) List reference aids and materials that learners will receive. For example, list manuals, tools, textbooks, procedures, and quick reference guides.

Next, have the employee and supervisor (or manager) complete a learning contract to spell out all of the commitments each is making to help ensure optimal learning, before, during, and after the instruction. Use a separate contract for each employee.

In conclusion, management's lead role in establishing a compelling training need and requesting a mutual commitment is essential to learner success. Making these success parameters explicit can help management support training transfer in a methodical and systematic way.