Putting Training into Practice

Above: An enthralled crowd at Spark09's Shanghai event earlier this year. This exciting event was presented by thought leaders and covered the topics: Humanity, Environment, Science, and Business. Spark09 will be in Beijing and Hong Kong soon!

Putting Training into Practice

Point number two from "Why (Most) Training Is Useless: Start Developing Skills; Stop WASTING Time" By David H. Maister is that training is a waste of time and money if what is taught is never put into practice.

Maister’s viewpoint is one which I strongly agree with and have, unfortunately, experienced many bad examples of. One experience was within an American multinational company:

The company’s training budget for the last quarter of 2008 was untouched by the economy but the Training Department was, understandably, under pressure to use the budget to full effect. The Training Manager was adamant that the staff required on going Business English in order to improve their communication skills despite the already high level of English within the organization. The problem was clearly the way in which employees communicated, not their level of English, but there was no convincing the Training Manager that a Communication Skills seminar followed by ongoing Core Communications training would be more successful. After Business English had been taken in to account; however, this left unused budget that could be used on soft skill training.

Long discussions and well-funnelled questioning made it clear that both Communication Skills and Time Management seminars would be highly advantageous to all concerned. These are extremely useable skills that can be put into practice instantaneously by trainees to immediately improve workplace efficiency. What more could a company want from their corporate training.

However, the Training Manager decided upon a Powerful Presentations seminar. A great choice of seminar that is not only highly interactive and skill oriented but also a great confidence and motivation builder for employees. It’s a topic I love to deliver and that trainees always enjoy and learn from.

However, during the routine telephone interviews used to customize the training to employees’ needs, it became apparent that not one of the trainees needed Presentation Skills training at this early stage of their career. They were all fresh graduates, very few attended meetings at all, and it was going to be at least a year or so before any of them would actually deliver a presentation to their boss, let alone a larger audience.

I discussed this with the Training Manager who fortunately saw the light when I argued that “Training is a waste of time and money if what is taught is never put into practice” and subsequently booked both of the aforementioned skills seminars instead.

Skills into Practice

Formal training MUST be reinforced through the individual’s application of new skills on-the-job. The trainee must be able to walk away from the training with a clear idea of how they are going to put their new skills into practice. Then the learning process should be enhanced by the support and coaching of performance managers and colleagues. Individuals need to seek out learning opportunities and request feedback as they perform new tasks and projects using their newly acquired skills.

Use It or Lose It

You must remember that if employees take part in a concentrated amount of training and cannot follow up with the ability to apply what they have learned, the skills will be forgotten in a matter of days or weeks. Trainees retain only what they can apply and continue to use.

I’ve often heard of companies that were originally going to spend two weeks and teach employees “everything” but found that they only retained what they put to use within the weeks after training. Instead they have decided to break the training into more manageable segments for a better retention rate and therefore greater ROI.
Companies wanting to gain the greatest ROI from their corporate training strategy need to recognize that a training program is not close-ended, it is something that should continue and be part of the culture.

In my next article I will discuss Maister’s third point: “Training should not be used as a first (or stand-alone) step to long-term change, but as part of a process toward organizational change.”

Many thanks for reading,

Emma

For more information on corporate training and seminars, or to provide feedback, please contact me on eharradine@hotmail.co.uk