The Before and After of Training

Most organizations are pretty good at conducting training. They know how to budget for, develop, and complete training courses of all types.
Then they wonder why so little of it “takes.”
There are two primary reasons that skills application is below 20% (according to surveyed Chief Learning Officers).

• We’re training people as if it was the 1980’s. Changes in the way work is being done has not yet been fully translated into ways that we train. This Blog has talked about this subject in earlier segments.
• We’re not doing the right things before and after the training event. There are ways to improve the application of skills gained through conventional training techniques (classroom and e-learning).

Before the Training – Make a Plan!
It is critical that the people who are being trained in a new skill fully understand why they’re being asked to spend the time and energy to do so. So the training planners should work with appropriate executives of the company to answer some important questions.

• What are the key 1-3 year objectives and goals of this organization?
• What competencies are needed to make those goals happen?
• Where does the organization fall short in the competencies needed for achievement of the goals? Is the shortfall systemic (i.e. everywhere in the organization) or is it localized with a few people or groups? Answers to these questions should result in a training plan that includes topics, methods, and audiences.

Openly share the planning process and the plan with the organization. When people fully understand the origin of a training plan they are much more likely to embrace it.

After the Training – Ask the Four Questions!
If the last thing said about a new skill is said in the classroom, there is very little chance that the new skill will be used on the job. The learning experience has to be sustained. Performance or training/support systems are very effective here, but there is one additional thing the organization can do. Skills gained in the classroom must be practiced to be used. Often, organizations set up elaborate processes to achieve ongoing use of the skills, but just as often these fail to achieve the desired result. That’s because the control exercised by the trainer during training can’t “follow” the trainee back to the job – there is no realistic way for a trainer to influence what’s done after the training. That’s management’s job, using four questions asked by the manager of a newly trained person:

• What did you learn or remember that you already knew?
• How do you plan to apply these new skills to your job and what benefits do you expect when you do?
• How can I help you apply these new skills to your job?
• When can we meet to follow-up on how the skills are being used?

The main focus of training departments should be to get the company’s management to ask and then follow-up on these questions. This approach works because:

• A person in a position of authority (over the trainee) is showing support for the skills and is setting an expectation of their use.
• The trainee is forced to make a connection between the skills and his or her job, and to identify a positive benefit of skills application.
• The offer of help and expectation of follow-up demonstrates that the manager is serious about skills transfer.
  

Why Train?

Why do we change the oil in our vehicles after some number of miles driven? Why do we periodically paint the exterior trim on our home or business? Why do we upgrade our computers every few years?

The answer seems obvious. Our car, property, and equipment (and dozens of other “things” in our businesses) are all tangible assets. Their worth is easily measured, and we try to maintain that worth.

Why, then, do some companies not train their employees? Among the possible reasons could be that they don’t see their employees as tangible assets that need to be maintained through training.
Few employers would openly admit that the last sentence applies to them. But I think there’s a lot of truth in it. Here’s why.

Businesses use a balance sheet accounting system that shows assets (often referred to as “property, plant and equipment”) and liabilities (the debts of the business). Each item is measurable – if it’s not, the balance sheet can’t fulfill its required job of exactly balancing assets and liabilities.

Employees are only found on the liabilities side of the balance sheet – salary and benefits. These can be measured. They’re not on the asset side of the sheet – that can’t be exactly measured. This system worked pretty well in the 19th century. Workers came off the farms for the first time, without relevant skills, performed repetitive and easily-taught tasks, and were interchangeable in a job. Those workers were cogs in the machines. Once shown their task, they were expected to repeat it over and over again. Because they could be immediately and easily replaced, their contribution wasn’t fully valued – they weren’t seen as true assets. That mind-set still prevails in places today.
Are modern employees more than "cogs in a machine?" Don’t they bring significant worth to a business? The answer, of course, is “yes.”

My short list of assets that employees bring a business is:

• Experience, knowledge and education
• Innovativeness and creativity to solve business problems
• Eagerness to grow the business and grow with it
• Loyalty to the company
  

We all want these things in our employees. But because they can’t be easily measured they’re often ignored. I think that the failure to see employees as assets is the reason so many companies resort to layoffs as soon as their financial situation worsens. They can’t measure and therefore can’t see what value is being lost.

What happens if we don’t change the oil in our cars? They fail. If we don’t paint our homes? They deteriorate. And if we don’t upgrade our computers? We fall far behind our competitors. The same is true if we don’t upgrade, through training, the most important asset of all – our employees.

Change in the Training World – Part Three

In Part One of this Blog series I talked about the need for changes in training – changes that will make it more effective in our businesses. Then in Part Two I showed that the kinds of changes we need are pretty well known, they’re just not done very often. Why is that?
The Excuses
Sometimes, we simply don’t know what to do for a specific situation. Or, we may know what we could do but there’s not an acceptable return on the required investment. Sometimes, the reason is fear, which manifests itself in three ways.

• We’ve never done that before or We don’t do it that way around here. Of course you don’t! That’s why it’s called “change.” If you think something could improve, these excuses don’t apply. Someone once said, “A measure of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.”
• How much risk is there for me if I champion this change? “I’m not paid enough to be a hero” is a fairly common thought. A quick story. I once did some organizational structure consulting for a company that knew one of two managers’ jobs was unnecessary. My unpleasant job: figure out which one and make a recommendation to senior management. I put both managers on my team and we worked on the issue together. For awhile, both fought for their respective jobs, until one day, one of them admitted that overwhelming evidence suggested that his job was the one to be eliminated. And he made the recommendation to an astonished senior management group. The risk? The affected manager was reassigned and a few years later the trust he had built with senior management resulted in a significant promotion.
• The effect of the change is unknown or People won’t adopt it. These are real concerns, but they’re not a reason to avoid change. Unlike Lewis and Clark, you can develop strategies and plans to ensure the positive effect you’re looking for.

The Solution
Today more than ever training professionals need to look for new ideas to reduce cost and improve training effectiveness (which I define as transference of the skill to the job). There’s a lot written about managing change, but I’ve found 7 simple steps work pretty well.

• Remind yourself frequently that “courage” isn’t the lack of fear. It’s the ability to do the right thing despite the fear.
• For significant change, minimize risk by doing a trial implementation in a smaller group.
• Talk about any fears people may have of the change and its impact on them.
• Get everyone involved with the change. Senior management can’t be exempt.
• Provide training and/or other support specifically related to the change.
• Accept feedback about flaws in the plan and correct them.
• Celebrate success!

Change in the Training World – Part Two

The Solutions
Last time I talked about the idea that major change generates a lot of discomfort and used a comment about the Lewis and Clark expedition to show that’s normal. I also described two reasons change is necessary in the training world. First, skills retention is thought to be pretty low. Second, the current economy requires that we get more from fewer resources. I then asked: “Why is change not happening as much as it should?” Some of you may be asking, “What could be changed? How could training be made more effective?”

• Have managers ask three key questions of any employee returning from a training experience. “What did you learn today? How could you apply that learning to your job? How can I help you do that?”
• Have the company actually monitor, encourage, and reward new behaviors.
• Give people some time to think. Arrange job responsibilities so that people are not constantly looking after immediate job crises.
• Constantly communicate the goals of the business and the ways that training will help meet them. If training doesn’t help meet them, reconsider what you’re training.
• Provide training on topics that can be used right away. Busy adult learners consider a skill relevant only if it can be applied immediately. There are logistics problems with this idea, so blended learning and training support tools (like WorkNetSkills.com) are very useful – they provide the skill when it is needed.

These things work. Yet you probably haven’t seen too many in use.
In Part Three I’ll discuss the pressures against change and what we can do about them.

Change in the Training World – Part One

The Truth About Change
I recently read an article titled “Bill Gates After Microsoft.” In it was a fascinating statement about “change” in the context of doing things that have never been done before. I must paraphrase, but essentially it was “When you decide to try the untried you must accept the fact that you’ll not always know where you’re going – that you may have no idea what the exact outcome of your efforts may be. You will often be very uncomfortable. But that’s normal. Big changes that make big advances are usually like that. After all, even Lewis and Clark were lost most of the time.”
The last sentence spoke volumes to me. My first thought was that we live in very different times. But then I realized the fundamental idea is the same: making a major change is often not easy because we can feel lost and alone. If Lewis and Clark had not accepted that premise, we’d have never heard of them. They’d have stayed home.
Change in Training
Change is the obvious remedy when something isn’t working or could work better. Change is also an obvious remedy when some external influence (our national economy, for example) makes it either more difficult to do something or makes it imperative that we do things more efficiently and effectively.
How does that relate to training?
Training retention is thought by many training professionals to be 20% at best and 2% at worst. I don’t know what the correct number is, but I know what you know – it could be a lot better than it is. So changing something is an obvious course of action.
Budgets in many companies are tightening considerably in our present economy. Cuts in training are favorites of executives. So we have to do the same (or more) with fewer resources. We have to demonstrate higher training efficiencies and effectiveness. Again, changing something is obvious.
Next time: Why is it not happening as much as it should?

Technology’s Effect on Training – Part 2

Last time I talked about the expectations that new technologies have developed in us and then posed the question, “has conventional training (instructor-led and e-learning) kept pace? Specifically, can traditional methods satisfactorily deliver immense quantities of information quickly and from anywhere at any time?”
Conventional training can deliver an almost limitless amount of information. All the trainers have to do is keep developing (or buying) new programs. Of course, that’s difficult to do within normally reasonable constraints of time and budget. Nevertheless, some companies have put together large training program libraries.
Conventional training has mixed marks with being able to access the information from any place at any time. Classroom training is scheduled well in advance, so the user cannot control when or where the training happens. There’s no way to fit every learners’ unique schedule. Things get better following the classroom experience. The learner can always go back to the Participant Guide to review the material. Unfortunately, we all know that doesn’t happen very often.
E-learning is different. Assuming that the proper course has been loaded onto the LMS, for example, it is available at any time given an Internet connection. There are, however, two ways that access is still restrained. First, it can be difficult to find the desired kernel of information that resides somewhere within the e-learning program. Second, some companies put restraints on usage, not allowing use of the training during work hours or limiting access to the company’s LMS to the worksite. For such reasons, accessibility can be diminished.
How about how fast information can be retrieved? That’s pretty important. No one has to apply for information from the Internet – we get it right away.
There are two ways to look at the speed of conventional training. The first is the time it takes to complete one course. Classroom courses are usually at least 4 hours – not very speedy. This can actually be good, providing rare time to contemplate, share experiences, ponder issues and develop new patterns of thinking about issues. But there’s no way to speed up classroom training if so desired – it is what it is. E-learning can be better. However, most e-learning courses are in fact a read-through of an instructor-led course design – objectives, agenda, method, introduction, benefits, the skills, quizzes, summary, and sometimes a post-test. They’re rarely designed for quick access to a specific piece of information. That’s because the e-learning option is usually selected not so much for speed but because it has better accessibility and once it’s developed, there are no expenses associated with classroom training.
Here’s another thought about speed. People generally need more than one skill to do their jobs effectively. So we can look at the speed of conventional training as the time it takes to deliver the complete body of skills that people need to effectively do their jobs. Here, conventional training is very slow. For example, how long would it take to train 50 different skills in the conventional way? Assuming a half-day per skill and one training session a week, it would take a year and reduce time on-the-job by 10%. Few companies would do that. So training sessions are reduced to a few courses a year. At a more reasonable 4 full days of training a year, the 50 half-day training sessions would take over 6 years!
Conventional training has a significant set of advantages, but by itself doesn’t meet the expectations that new technologies have created. Conventional training is not consistent with the ways we now prefer to work – with immediate and quick access to all information.
The answer seems to be simple. Don’t eliminate conventional training, but augment it with support tools that provide all needed information, from anywhere, and fast. These include reference materials, help desks, performance support systems, recognized mentor experts and other sources of immediate and quickly accessed information. This is the essence of “blended learning.”

Technology’s Effect on Training – Part 1

I was thinking the other day about the digital technologies that have impacted our work and personal lives – things like cell phones, personal digital assistants, e-mail, the Internet and others. These things have become indispensable. Imagine working today without a cell phone or an Internet connection. Imagine going to a bricks and sticks library every time you want some information. It’s more than being used to these advantages - in reality we’ve come to expect them. We’re not happy when they’re not available.
Then I asked, “Is it possible that these technologies have had a greater impact than just being conveniences?” Is it just that they make things “easier to do?” Or has more happened? My thoughts led me to this conclusion: Beyond creating conveniences, our technologies have instilled a strong set of expectations about how we interact with our work environment.

• Today, we expect that we can get all information we want, with almost no exception, on the Internet. Yes, it may take some patience, but we probably all agree it’s likely there somewhere.
  
• In addition, we expect to be able to access that information from anywhere, at any time. It does require an Internet connection, but today that’s possible pretty much anywhere.
  
• And finally, we expect to get the information we want really fast. No one would be happy if it took hours to download a file, or days to send an email. The faster the better – that’s why they keep making faster computer chips.
  

My thoughts then took me to corporate training methods, the area of my experience that I usually write about in this Blog. And the question arose: “Has the way we train people kept up with all of this?” Can we still meet the expectations of people whose lives include instant retrieval of almost anything from anywhere? My thoughts on that topic next time.