Transfer of Training Strategies

Many trainers are faced with the challenge of motivating their training program participants to use the new
skills they learned during the program back in their workplace. Whether it is using the new software system
to enter customer interactions, acting in a more collaborative manner with other team members or delegating
more often to direct reports, this is what the training program is meant to be all about. If the training
program does not in the end change workplace behaviors, the money and time spent on training is simply
wasted.

All trainers have experienced at one time or another training program participants that are neither interested
in the program nor motivated to apply the skills and knowledge in their jobs. Here are some tips that you as
a trainer can use to help participants want to learn and to transfer that learning to their jobs. Working
towards training transfer starts before the training course begins and continues on after the training
completes. So, training transfer tasks have been separated into things you can do before, during and after the
training is completed.

Before Training
Get the participants’ managers to conduct a pre-course briefing with each participant. If they do not know
how, show them. This briefing is the place for each manager to introduce discussion about how the
principles, techniques and skills learned will be applied practically once the participant returns from the
training event. Their manager is also in the best position to ensure that participants have completed any pre-
requisite reading or exercises. Most important of all, the pre-course briefing sends a powerful message that
the organization cares about the employee’s development and is serious about seeing the benefits of training.

During Training
For training to be effective, the fundamentals of training design will need to have been followed. These
basics include selecting the right trainees, matching performance objectives to organizational outcomes,
delivering at the right time and choosing the appropriate methods and delivery modes. In addition, the
following four points need to be kept in mind during the conduct of the training sessions.

Goal Orientation

Participants actively engage the subject matter when they see a purpose in the learning. This could be
reducing time to market for new products or minimizing the company’s environmental impact. If there is a
sense that the program is “going somewhere”, that there is a significant point to the training beyond the
training room, many trainees will latch onto that purpose – so long as there is a “hook” to make that
connection. That “hook” may be personal. It may be the social acceptance that will come from passing the
course, or it may be earning the eligibility to join a respected professional association, for example. So,
ensure that the organizational objectives of the program are clearly described to trainees at the start of the
program and state the WIIFM (“What’s In It For Me”).

Real Work Relevance

Showing how the program relates directly to people’s day-to-day work significantly lifts the level of
participant interest in the program. Firstly, demonstrate your expertise in the knowledge and skills being
taught, or at least rely on subject matter experts at the appropriate times. Next, use a host of real-life
examples and scenarios from the participants’ own workplaces. Make role-plays, simulations and examples
as true to life as you can.

In addition, demonstrate how models, theories and principles need to be contextualized for each workplace
situation. Involve participants in making those connections by generating free and frank discussion about
how the learning can be applied back on the job. Another fruitful strategy is getting the participants’
supervisors and managers to introduce the program or each session. Doing this sends a strong message that
the person to whom they report considers the program to be practical and relevant to their work. Even better,
where possible, get the participants’ supervisor or manager to deliver one or more components of the
program.

Practice

Building in opportunities for practice during the training helps to spark participants’ interest as they
experience new aspects of the skill and builds their self-confidence as they gain success. Factoring in
opportunities for practice also increases motivation to use the skills on the job by revealing to participants
first hand how the new skills can improve their work on the job. Be sure to intersperse theory with practice
sessions. The variety of physical movement and mental activity also helps to maintain participant interest.

Interpersonal Interaction

Learning in the workplace is largely a social activity, in which goals and aspirations are shared, experiences
are discussed, different approaches are debated and ways of doing things are demonstrated. In some
programs, participants will learn more from each other than from the trainer. And when the participants
return to their workplaces, shared learning between participants will be paramount. Interactions that
encourage participation and collaboration will foster motivation and transfer.

Things you can do here include asking plenty of questions that gain attention and generate discussion. Ask
some questions of the whole group so that they can get to know something about their peers. Whole group
questions start to dissolve the initial apprehension that people feel when faced with new people and
surroundings. Next, plan for group work in your program design. Use groups consisting of two to six
trainees to construct lists, discuss a scenario, role-play and solve problems.

Relationships can quickly become fractured and learning blocked through the actions of one or more
attention-seeking, disruptive or abusive participants. So, be sure to establish ground rules at the start of the
program. Lastly, give trainees rewards to mark their achievements. Success that is recognized helps to
develop team spirit, especially if all of the participants are striving toward a common goal.

After Training
Transferring skills to the workplace at the conclusion of the training program begins with a post-course
debriefing. Continuing on from the pre-course briefing, get participants’ managers to review with the
participants the content of the training and the participants’ experiences. The post-course debriefing is an
ideal juncture at which to identify, plan and agree with the employee where the skills will be applied and to
set specific goals for their application.

Employee Training in Today’s Workplace

Is your organization grappling with a constantly changing marketplace and internal reorganizations? As a
training and development professional, are you increasingly expected to deliver real organizational benefits
from your employee training programs within shorter time frames and often with smaller training budgets?
How are you meeting this challenge?

Larger organizations are continuing to adopt ever more comprehensive enterprise-wide Learning
Management Systems (LMS) to deliver, track and report training programs and expenditure. Small to
medium-sized organizations on smaller budgets are also finding ways to identify, track and report employee
skills. Our inexpensive employee training tracking software can help you meet your tight training budget
whilst delivering up to the minute automated reports on all aspects of your workplace training.
Training Programs and Project Management
Also having an impact on the training industry is the increased attention being paid to the discipline of
project management. “Projects” with unlimited budgets and never-ending timelines trying to satisfy fuzzy
organizational objectives are becoming tolerated less and less in today’s business world. Hence, the demand
for project management training has seen a dramatic rise in the last ten years. With this we have also seen an
increased interest in project management tools and methodologies. Check out our project management
software section for tools, templates and guides that can help your organization manage and deliver projects
better.

How we manage training projects has also matured. As discretionary budgets have continued to shrink,
rolling out expensive employee training programs to satisfy ad hoc requests from department managers with
no clear organizational rationale is no longer a viable option. More training projects are now being run using
an Instructional Systems Design (ISD) model.

Using such a model guarantees that the learning objectives of the training program tie in with a real
organizational need. It also raises an organization’s confidence that the training program will be of high
quality and satisfy the needs of all major stakeholders. Check out our guide on writing learning outcomes
and our training projects template pack to help you deliver training projects more effectively.

Training Tools and Resources for Effective

Training
Budget constraints and increased business competition have also led to a recent emphasis on the payback on
training expenditure. Poor training needs analysis (TNA) and change management practices in the past have
led to an extravagant wastage of training budgets, with experts estimating that only some 10 to 20 percent of
training dollars spent leads to some organizational benefit.

Donald Kirkpatrick’s traditional four-level model remains as the most used model for evaluating the
effectiveness of training. This, however, has been supplemented by Jack Phillips with a new fifth level,
Return on Investment (ROI). Investigate our Training Evaluation Toolkit for a comprehensive guide and
tools designed to help you evaluate the effectiveness of your training programs.

How much are you using the new performance consulting approach in improving the effectiveness of your
training programs? With this approach, poor employee performance is diagnosed with an accurate and
effective employee performance diagnostic tool before any action is taken.

Using a systems view, all workplace factors influencing employee performance are considered. The upshot
is that training may not be the appropriate solution to a performance shortfall in every case. The eventual
solution may be multifaceted, highlighting process deficiencies, irrelevant or inadequate rewards and
recognition, ineffective goal setting, and so on.

Using this approach, training is no longer a naï ve single-point solution, but is perhaps just one component
of the final package. Check out our eBook, From Training to Enhanced Workplace Performance, for a
practical guide and many customizable templates that you can use to improve the effectiveness of your
training programs.

Training Systems Best Practice

Is your training management system becoming more effective and efficient in delivering organizational
capability? Many training professionals have continued to move their organizations towards training best
practice. Some do not know where to start.

Excellent human resource best practice models have been available for some time. Two prominent examples
are the U.S. People Capability Maturity Model and the British Investors in People. As excellent as these
models are, they are not specific to training systems. Our training best practice model, however, is
specifically designed for training and development practitioners. Our Training Management Maturity Model
features an evolutionary approach to achieving best practice. Coupled with an assessment, analysis and
reporting tool, training managers are now able to take measured steps in improving the effectiveness of their
training system.

The training management software tools and templates in this section will help you manage your training
function and training programs. We invite you to investigate.

Training Needs Analysis Purpose

A Training Needs Analysis (TNA) is used to assess an organization’s training needs. The root of the TNA is
the gap analysis. This is an assessment of the gap between the knowledge, skills and attitudes that the people
in the organization currently possess and the knowledge, skills and attitudes that they require to meet the
organization’s objectives.

The training needs assessment is best conducted up front, before training solutions are budgeted, designed
and delivered. The output of the needs analysis will be a document that specifies why, what, who, when,
where and how. More specifically, the document will need to answer these questions:

• why do people need the training?

• what skills need imparting?
• who needs the training?
• when will they need the new skills?
• where may the training be conducted? and
• how may the new skills be imparted?

There are so many ways for conducting a Training Needs Analysis, depending on your situation. One size
does not fit all. Is the purpose of the needs assessment to:

• lead in to a design of a specific purpose improvement initiative (e.g., customer complaint reduction)
• enable the design of the organization’s training calendar
• identify training and development needs of individual staff during the performance appraisal cycle

… and so on and so on.

In clarifying the purpose of the TNA, consider the scope of the TNA. Is it to determine training needs:

• at the organization level?

• at the project level for a specific project? or
• at the department level for specific employees?

Your answer to these questions will dictate:

• who will conduct the TNA

• how the TNA will be conducted, and
• what data sources will be used
Training Needs Analysis Method
Below are three scenarios in which you may find yourself wanting to conduct a Training Needs Analysis.
This is not an exhaustive treatment, however, it will give you some tips on what to do.

Employee Performance Appraisal

In many organizations, each employee’s manager discusses training and development needs during the final
part of the performance appraisal discussion. This method suits where training needs are highly varied
amongst individual employees. Typically, the manager constructs an employee Performance Development
Plan in collaboration with the employee being appraised. The Plan takes into consideration:

• the organization's strategies and plans

• agreed employee goals and targets
• the employee’s performance results
• the employee’s role description
• feedback from internal/external customers and stakeholders, and
• the employee’s stated career aspirations

The employee’s completed Performance Development Plan should document the area that requires
improvement, the actual development activity, resource requirements, expected outcomes and an agreed
time frame in which the development outcome will be achieved.

Check out our Training Management Template Pack for a customizable Performance Development Plan and
instructions for use.

You may find some commonality amongst individual training and development needs identified in the
various performance appraisals. In this case, it may pay the organization to review and classify each of the
needs and convert them into appropriate training courses (or other interventions). The next step is to
prioritize their importance and aggregate the results so that you end up with a list of courses and participant
numbers against each. Then negotiate a delivery schedule that fits in with managers/supervisors and
employees whilst keeping an eye on your budget.

Improvement Project

Most, if not all, improvement projects have some employee training associated with them. Examples of
improvement projects include planned and structured attempts to reduce the incidence of product defects,
increase sales volume and decrease the number of customer complaints. Here, the Training Needs Analysis
begins by clarifying the measurable organizational improvement targets and the employee behaviors
required to meet these targets. For example, the organization might set a target of a 50 percent reduction in
customer complaints by the end of the year. Employee behaviors required to achieve this target might be:

• empathetic listening to customer complaints

• regular follow up of complaint resolution

... and so on.

To get to this point, though, the cause of the underperformance needs to be determined through a series of
structured questions. If there is no one else to perform this initial diagnosis, you as the training professional
may be called upon to do this job. A performance consulting approach can help you here. With this
approach, the person doing the diagnosis first asks managers to identify their problems in concrete terms.
Next, possible causes and solutions are discussed and training solutions identified, where appropriate.
To do this successfully, the performance consultant needs to be well-versed in process improvement
methods and employee motivation theory and practice. For small projects, you can use a simple employee
performance flow chart in working with managers to help identify the cause of performance deficiencies.

Where training is identified as an appropriate solution or as part of the solution, we then recommend that
you work through a training needs analysis questionnaire with the appropriate stakeholders. This will give
you the information you need to move to the training program design phase.

An effective training needs analysis questionnaire worksheet will cover at least the following areas:

1. TRAINING NEEDS ANALYSIS CONTEXT

• Project Sponsor
• Reason for Request
• Participant Roles
• Organizational Objectives
• Training Program Objectives

2. TARGET POPULATION

• No. of Participants
• Location
• Department
• Education/Experience
• Background
• Current Job Experience
• Current Performance vs Expected Performance
• Language/Cultural Differences
• Anticipated Attitudes

3. TASK DESCRIPTION

• Task Description
• Frequency
• Proficiency
• Performance Criteria
• Conditions
• Underpinning Knowledge

The results from these structured interviews are then written up in a formal document, along with the
answers to the other questions raised above. Check out our Training Projects Template Pack for an example
of a customizable training needs analysis template that you can download today. The results of the TNA are
then fed into the next phase of the instructional systems design life cycle; the high-level design of the
training program.

Following all of the above is of course more time consuming than getting a simple wish-list from managers
and delivering a smorgasbord of training courses. However, by using a structured approach, you will avoid
the 80 percent wastage of resources that many companies experience in delivering programs that don’t truly
fit their needs.
Constructing a Training Calendar

When constructing an annual training calendar, be wary of simply asking managers what training they want
delivered. Assessing training needs this way, you will most probably get a wish list with little connection to
the real needs of the organization. When the time comes and they and their workers are pressed for time, you
may find it difficult to fill seats. Training is expensive, and there is no better method for wasting your scare
training dollars.

Why is this so? We find that many managers are not skilled in identifying which of their problems can be
solved by training and which cannot. For a training calendar to be effective, it needs to be tailored for your
specific organization’s real needs. Ask your managers what training they need. However, make sure you
engage them in constructive dialog about what their real problems are and which of them can realistically be
addressed through training. If the performance shortfall is a one-off problem, such as an increasing number
of customer complaints, it may be more effective and cost efficient to address the issue on an improvement
project basis.

Training calendars are best suited to repeatable and regular demand, such as refresher skills training for
infrequently performed technical tasks and for new recruits joining the organization. In these cases, review
what training is required on a regular basis and look at what new recruits need to be proficient at soon after
they join your organization. Generally speaking, consult with your management team by checking off which
of the following areas require inclusion in your training calendar:

• management, leadership and supervision skills

• soft skills, such as communication and conflict resolution
• environment, health and safety
• human resource processes, such as performance management
• business skills, such as strategy, planning and process improvement
• technical line and staff skills such as telephone etiquette and inventory management

In constructing your training calendar, we suggest you also consider looking at one or more of the data
sources listed in the next section. Once you have composed your list of courses, assess demand for each
course and the required frequency, all the while, keeping an eye on your budget. With a limited budget, we
suggest you get your management team to help you assess priorities.

Data Sources

In conducting your training needs analysis, you may have a variety of data sources available to you. Which
data sources you use will depend on a number of factors. These factors include:

• the amount of time you have available

• the human resources you have available
• the level of accuracy you require
• the reliability of each data source
• the accessibility of each data source

The data sources that you have available may include:

• interviews/surveys with supervisors/managers

• interviews/surveys with employees
• employee performance appraisal documents
• organization’s strategic planning documents
• organization/department operational plans
• organization/department key performance indicators
• customer complaints
• critical incidents
 • product/service quality data

For example, if you are considering providing training in project management to project managers, you may
want to interview the prospective participants, the project managers, and their managers on what problems
they are facing. It may also pay to review planning and procedural documents to ascertain what project
management methodology and tools your organization is using, or is planning on using.

Data sources that may show light on where the training needs to focus the most are project performance data
and post-implementation reviews. Which sources you will actually use and how much time and effort you
expend on each will depend on your particular circumstances. Needless to say, there is no magic formula
and you will need to exercise a fair amount of judgment in most cases.

Although there are no hard and fast rules in conducting a Training Needs Analysis, we have outlined above
some general guidelines and helpful hints. We can also help you with some practical TNA tools, such as a
training needs analysis questionnaire and training needs analysis spreadsheet, in our customizable
template packs.

Training Best Practice — A Systems Approach

In today’s business environment where change is constant, technology is cheap and skill shortages are
commonplace, people are the key differentiator between those businesses that succeed and those that don’t.
It is little wonder then that the training and development function in an organization plays a pivotal role in
moving an organization forward. But how should the training department go about its business of providing
the best service possible to the rest of the organization?

The Business Performance Pty Ltd model for best practice training management recognizes the systems
nature of organizations and takes an evolutionary approach to achieving best practice. What this means is
that the training and development function is co-dependent on the other functions within an organization for
its effectiveness and, because of this co-dependence, it cannot achieve world-class performance all at once.

Some of the internal systems on which the

training and development function co-
depend are:

• workforce planning
• performance management
• rewards and recognition
• strategic planning

So, for example, if the strategic planning

system in an organization is weak, the
training function will find it difficult to
identify and deliver training programs of
high strategic significance. The co-
dependence is illustrated by the fact that
the organization’s ability to plan
strategically can be improved through
delivering training in strategic planning to
senior managers.

Core Mission and Processes

In working with and reflecting on training best practice, we have identified four core processes within an
effective training function. These four processes each serve to contribute to the achievement of the training
function’s core mission. We summarize this mission as:

Deliver people capability required to achieve organizational objectives.

The four core processes that serve to achieve this mission are:

1. Training Administration
2. Program Development and Delivery
3. Training Strategy and Planning
4. Performance Consulting

An Evolutionary Approach to Best Practice

Our evolutionary approach then describes how an organization may progressively develop these four core
processes in a structured and planned way that:

• makes best use of an organization’s resources, and

• takes account of the maturity level of other internal systems.

This phased maturity model approach links the four levels in the model with each of the four core processes
mentioned earlier.

Level 1 – Visibility focuses on training administration

Level 2 – Standards focuses on program development and delivery

Level 3 – Planning focuses on training strategy and planning

Level 4 – Performance focuses on performance consulting

From Theory to Best Practice

The link to actual organizational practice is then achieved through describing for each of the four levels a
Focus, a corresponding Primary Objective, Key Practices and suggested Key Performance Indicators. The
Primary Objective of each phase specifies the intended organizational outcome of efforts at that level. Each
objective says what it is the organization will get by achieving the given level of maturity.

The Key Practices section then goes on to list what it is the organization needs to put in place to achieve that
level of maturity. The intention here is to provide guidance on what processes and capabilities are required
for operating at that level without being too prescriptive. The range of Key Performance Indicators can be
used to either gauge the impact of project efforts to achieve a certain maturity level or to monitor the
ongoing effectiveness of the training system.

This phased approach helps to make sense of the core processes and provides guidance on which activities
to concentrate for maximum impact on the road to training best practice. The idea here is that improvement
efforts at each level lay the infrastructure and embed the organizational practices necessary for achievement
of the next maturity level.
How will an organization look as it progressively implements efforts to improve the value of training and
development activities? Organizations at the primary level, Level 1 – Visibility, concentrate on getting the
basic administrative processes defined and practiced rigorously.

At Level 2 - Standards, there is a focus on improving the quality of the training product developed and
finally delivered. Skill gaps are identified before training begins and designers and trainers are
professionally equipped to ensure that participants have learned the desired skills following the training.

At Level 3 – Planning, more emphasis is placed on mobilizing training to hit areas of greatest organizational
need. Training is used more effectively as an organizational tool for achieving strategic objectives and less
as discretionary expenditure in response to ad hoc requests.

Operating at Level 4 – Performance leverages off the disciplines, systems and practices put in place during
the previous three stages to achieve real organizational benefits from training. The focus is unswervingly on
measurable performance improvement at the level of the organization, teams and individuals. At this level,
attention to training activities and inputs is only maintained in so far as they serve the achievement of
organizational outcomes.