Training Employees: Stop Wasting Your Money
Training Employees: Stop Wasting Your Money
How training leads to good business outcomes on this view can be shown like this:
Trainee Attendance >> Business Results
The arrows indicate this idea of how an employee attending a well-designed and executed training event causes the improved business results. The intended business outcome may be reduced time to market, fewer customer complaints or more repeat business, for example.
You favor this view if you see training as mostly about “telling” employees about what to do or how to do it. Managers that act on this view are primarily concerned about the “content” of the program. When deciding on a program, they only focus on the information that will be presented to the trainees.
I liken this approach to seeing trainees as automata or as pieces of hardware. On this approach, training employees works the same way as programming a machine: the employee is led into the programming area, the new instructions are “programmed” into the employee and the employee is then returned to the job.
You may think that you do not treat employees as machines, ready to be programmed. One way to determine if you see trainees as automata is to see how you respond when employees do not act on the instructions given in the training. When training fails to work, do you send the same employees back to the same training program, hoping that the instructions will “stick” the second time around? And when the second attempt at programming fails, do you then conclude that the employees are not “trainable” and ignore them from that point on.
I now want to bring to your attention a much more powerful view of how training works. Whereas the simple view is linear and one-dimensional, this more sophisticated view of training centers around the idea that there are a number of factors that interact with the training event to either bring about or prevent the intended business benefits. In a nutshell, this more sophisticated view can be summarized like this:
Trainee Attendance >> Trainee Learning >> Workplace Behavior >> Business Results
Notice that on this view, there are more steps in the path starting from attending the training to achieving the desired business outcomes. With more steps, there is more opportunity for the training to fail over and above the trainee simply being “defective”.
Let us look at these extra steps. The first step beyond the trainee simply attending the training event is their actual learning of the new knowledge and skills. For this step to occur, the training program needs to be well designed and conducted. The business and learning objectives need to be agreed and clearly stated. The program needs to include plenty of opportunities for trainees to practice, get constructive feedback, and so on. Appreciate here that the learning is not a given. If you want results, ensure that the people designing and delivering the program are true professionals.
Most importantly, note that in this step there are other mediating factors that help determine the extent to which your employees will learn. These factors include each trainee’s innate ability and their motivation level. Your role here as the employees’ manager is critical. You will need to ensure that only those with the necessary prerequisites attend the training. Secondly, there are things that you will need to do before and during the training to ensure that your employees are primed for learning and stay primed.
Moving now to the next step, here the trainee applies what they have learned to their job. The training program will fail if the trainees do not change their behavior in some desired way back in their workplaces. Once again, there are a number of factors that can either inhibit or enhance this transfer of learning. In this, your role as manager is paramount. First and foremost, you need to ensure that your employees have ample opportunity to apply their new skills back on the job. Where you have provided these opportunities, you will need to make sure that they have access to a coach that will help them over their initial difficulties and that you provide plenty of feedback on their performance.
Other things you will need to do include setting mutually agreed objectives, clarifying job responsibilities and rewarding employees when they do the right thing and achieve results. None of these important factors are a given, so work very closely with the trainer and your employees to ensure that the right workplace environment is set for trainees to use the new skills.
The last step involves translating the new behaviors into positive business outcomes. You may think that because your employees completed the training and applied it to their jobs, that this last step is guaranteed. It isn’t. There may be other forces at play that will weaken or prevent the desired results. For example, the level of customer complaints may not reduce after training your operators in customer service because your product department recently released a new product full of defects. The wider context can also be important. The hoped for sales increase may not eventuate following the sales techniques training because the government reduced tariffs at the same time.
Worst of all is when the training program was not the right solution to begin with. You can spend a lot of money training quality inspectors on inspection techniques, but this will only increase the amount of rework if the defects introduced upstream are not prevented. So, work closely with the training program designers upfront to make sure that the training you devise will actually fix your problem.
As you can see, the more sophisticated view of training takes into account the factors that can either block or greatly diminish the positive business results you intended. This view focuses your eyes on each of the key steps in moving from mere attendance at a training program to seeing actual business results. A key learning from this view of how training works is that, as a manager, you will need to work in partnership with your employees and the people who design and roll out the training if your program is to have a chance at success.
There is a lot more to be said on how fostering this partnership can capitalize on the factors at play at each step to create more powerful training programs. I have done my job here if you go away with the realization that which high-level view of training you adopt will help determine your success as a manager.
© Leslie Allan. All rights reserved.
Training Employees Stop Wasting Your Money - To learn more about this author, visit Leslie Allan's Website.
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The communication skills course seemed like a good idea at the time. You told all your employees to attend, and now some months later your people are miscommunicating as badly as ever. What went wrong? It may be because you hold an outdated view of how training works. According to this oversimplified view, training works like a magic elixir. On this simple view, the act of attending the training course will automatically bring about the desired business benefits. If you enroll your people in an e-learning course, then sitting them in front of a computer will likewise result in automatic business improvement.
How training leads to good business outcomes on this view can be shown like this:
Trainee Attendance >> Business Results
The arrows indicate this idea of how an employee attending a well-designed and executed training event causes the improved business results. The intended business outcome may be reduced time to market, fewer customer complaints or more repeat business, for example.
You favor this view if you see training as mostly about “telling” employees about what to do or how to do it. Managers that act on this view are primarily concerned about the “content” of the program. When deciding on a program, they only focus on the information that will be presented to the trainees.
I liken this approach to seeing trainees as automata or as pieces of hardware. On this approach, training employees works the same way as programming a machine: the employee is led into the programming area, the new instructions are “programmed” into the employee and the employee is then returned to the job.
You may think that you do not treat employees as machines, ready to be programmed. One way to determine if you see trainees as automata is to see how you respond when employees do not act on the instructions given in the training. When training fails to work, do you send the same employees back to the same training program, hoping that the instructions will “stick” the second time around? And when the second attempt at programming fails, do you then conclude that the employees are not “trainable” and ignore them from that point on.
I now want to bring to your attention a much more powerful view of how training works. Whereas the simple view is linear and one-dimensional, this more sophisticated view of training centers around the idea that there are a number of factors that interact with the training event to either bring about or prevent the intended business benefits. In a nutshell, this more sophisticated view can be summarized like this:
Trainee Attendance >> Trainee Learning >> Workplace Behavior >> Business Results
Notice that on this view, there are more steps in the path starting from attending the training to achieving the desired business outcomes. With more steps, there is more opportunity for the training to fail over and above the trainee simply being “defective”.
Let us look at these extra steps. The first step beyond the trainee simply attending the training event is their actual learning of the new knowledge and skills. For this step to occur, the training program needs to be well designed and conducted. The business and learning objectives need to be agreed and clearly stated. The program needs to include plenty of opportunities for trainees to practice, get constructive feedback, and so on. Appreciate here that the learning is not a given. If you want results, ensure that the people designing and delivering the program are true professionals.
Most importantly, note that in this step there are other mediating factors that help determine the extent to which your employees will learn. These factors include each trainee’s innate ability and their motivation level. Your role here as the employees’ manager is critical. You will need to ensure that only those with the necessary prerequisites attend the training. Secondly, there are things that you will need to do before and during the training to ensure that your employees are primed for learning and stay primed.
Moving now to the next step, here the trainee applies what they have learned to their job. The training program will fail if the trainees do not change their behavior in some desired way back in their workplaces. Once again, there are a number of factors that can either inhibit or enhance this transfer of learning. In this, your role as manager is paramount. First and foremost, you need to ensure that your employees have ample opportunity to apply their new skills back on the job. Where you have provided these opportunities, you will need to make sure that they have access to a coach that will help them over their initial difficulties and that you provide plenty of feedback on their performance.
Other things you will need to do include setting mutually agreed objectives, clarifying job responsibilities and rewarding employees when they do the right thing and achieve results. None of these important factors are a given, so work very closely with the trainer and your employees to ensure that the right workplace environment is set for trainees to use the new skills.
The last step involves translating the new behaviors into positive business outcomes. You may think that because your employees completed the training and applied it to their jobs, that this last step is guaranteed. It isn’t. There may be other forces at play that will weaken or prevent the desired results. For example, the level of customer complaints may not reduce after training your operators in customer service because your product department recently released a new product full of defects. The wider context can also be important. The hoped for sales increase may not eventuate following the sales techniques training because the government reduced tariffs at the same time.
Worst of all is when the training program was not the right solution to begin with. You can spend a lot of money training quality inspectors on inspection techniques, but this will only increase the amount of rework if the defects introduced upstream are not prevented. So, work closely with the training program designers upfront to make sure that the training you devise will actually fix your problem.
As you can see, the more sophisticated view of training takes into account the factors that can either block or greatly diminish the positive business results you intended. This view focuses your eyes on each of the key steps in moving from mere attendance at a training program to seeing actual business results. A key learning from this view of how training works is that, as a manager, you will need to work in partnership with your employees and the people who design and roll out the training if your program is to have a chance at success.
There is a lot more to be said on how fostering this partnership can capitalize on the factors at play at each step to create more powerful training programs. I have done my job here if you go away with the realization that which high-level view of training you adopt will help determine your success as a manager.
© Leslie Allan. All rights reserved.
Training Employees Stop Wasting Your Money - To learn more about this author, visit Leslie Allan's Website.
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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John BrennanJohn Brennan Ed.D. Dr. Brennan is President of Interpersonal Development, LLC, a training and development firm. Interpersonal Development has provided sales training and coaching to more than 3,000 sales reps from over 100 companies. A native of Australia, Dr. Brennan received his doctorate from the University of Rochester. His dissertation researched the effectiveness of Behavioral Modeling Technology in training people in interpersonal skills. While he has spent most of his career designing or delivering training, he was also a Vice-President of Sales of a training and development franchise with operations in 25 markets. Dr. Brennan has designed and delivered sales training in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He has been a guest speaker at numerous national and regional professional conferences. When Microsoft wanted Best Practices articles on sales for their web site, they called Dr. Brennan. The results are at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX011387391033.aspx His firm’s clients have included Volvo, The Prudential, Merrill Lynch, Eastman Kodak, Gannett, Equifax Europe, the Economist Group and countless small businesses. - Visit John Brennan's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
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John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
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Staging DivaDebra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Gould has trained over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates worldwide to start staging businesses. Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since then she has staged hundreds of homes in addition to teaching home staging training. Gould is the author of several home staging resources including a series of popular ebooks made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide. For more information about Debra Gould visit stagingdiva.com. - Visit Staging Diva's Website |
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