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Reinforcing training: Getting Managers Involved

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Article Overview: Just because a training session was completed doesn't mean that information and skills learned will "stick" with trainees. In order for that to happen, it's imperative that managers understand how to reinforce what was learned and how to use that learning to meet the goals of the company.

Reinforcing training: Getting Managers Involved

Just because a training session was completed doesn't mean that information and skills learned will "stick" with trainees. In order for that to happen, it's imperative that managers understand how to reinforce what was learned and how to use that learning to meet the goals of the company.

Failure to do so will lead to failed results. Why? Because the lessons, ideas and skills learned in training are of little value if managers and executives fail to reinforce the training on an ongoing basis. When this happens, most trainees either forget or ignore what they learned within a few hours or days, and the potential for meaningful results is lost.

Help others help themselves
Whose job is it to ensure that reinforcement takes place? This responsibility should not fall entirely on the management team. Rather, management should be able to look to the training department (or trainer) for guidance and support regarding how to establish learning objectives that will tie in with business goals during the training sessions themselves and, equally important, receive guidance from training professionals on how to continue to help those who report to them succeed after the training is complete.

To ensure that this happens, trainers should be sure to provide managers with several reinforcement tools for use after the training has ended, including (but certainly not limited to!), the following:

Meeting guides
Managers should plan to incorporate concepts and techniques from training into conversations as they meet with their reports on a regular basis. A guide created by the trainer or training department should provide mangers with an outline of the concepts and tips to be reinforced from the training, as well as potential activities they might use. A meeting guide also should suggest different formats for the meeting and meeting lengths and coaching objectives. The content should be based on elements such as the learning objectives from the training, business priorities, and areas where trainees still struggle.

Effective coaching techniques
While training professionals are practiced at effective coaching techniques, they should also be willing and able to share some of their secrets and knowledge with managers so that trainees can continue to thrive and develop post-training. This might include identifying challenges for a specific trainee so that a manager knows what to coach toward and training managers on how to "coach" rather than "tell."

Best Practices
Trainers should provide managers with advice on which best practices to reinforce from the training and how to identify which best practices to reinforce based on individual challenges. For example, if prospecting is an issue for a particular sales rep, the trainer should leave behind the exact tools that the manager can use to help that sales rep succeed in prospecting.

Executive involvement
Information and ideas regarding how executives can become involved in the reinforcement process also is an important key to successful post-training reinforcement. For example, a trainer might suggest that executives send out a monthly e-mail detailing a success story and attach the new techniques that were implemented. This shows the team how important the business objectives are to the company while reminding trainees that their work and results they have achieved have not been forgotten.

Homework
Managers should plan to meet with individual trainees and then assign follow-up work or assignments based on what trainees learned in training and the areas on which they now need to focus. Trainers can provide managers with ideas for assignments, such as (in the case of sales training, for example) asking the trainees to write their prospecting value proposition, creating a lead-generation campaign, or tracking their sales performance results. Managers must then follow-up on these assigned tasks. Otherwise, they will be neglected and forgotten.

Measurements
By working with a trainer on reinforcement techniques, managers can establish time lines to measure how much their reports have advanced over the course of a few weeks or a few months. Measurements help managers to see progress and determine new areas to develop. Documented measurement time lines, meanwhile, help managers to more easily execute reinforcement practices and improve business results.

Follow-up training
Managers can take some of the more important things that were taught during training and do additional "reminder" sessions on their own, or invite trainers back in to provide hour-long follow-up sessions. Doing so will help trainees to remember some of the key points and keep them on top of their game.

Related Articles
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  Leadership Assessment #16 – Build a Reinforcing Culture
  Train the Trainer
  Train Your Workers, Develop Your Leaders

Article Tags: business goals, business priorities, conversations, elements, failure, guidance, imperative, job, learning objectives, management team, meaningful results, meeting guide, meeting guides, reinforcement, sessions, trainees, training session



Related Forum Posts
Training - Louis: Some regulated industries mandate that you attend training. However, even then, finding time to meet those requirements becomes an issue. This may explain the growth of tele-seminars. To answer your questions though, ROI is very important and everyone needs to sell or market no matter what they do. The best tip I ever got on training is not to pitch training as training b/c even big companies have limited budgets for training but training rebranded as "sales support." It makes the ROI argument that much more appealing. Hope that helps. Good luck.
One Thing To Note - As a trainer myself, I'm always amazed at the lengths organizations go to to pay for training and then not follow through. Any training I design myself has to have at least an offer built in for future support as well, for the benefit of those receiving the training, the organizer and the people the trainee works with. Corporates don't seem to like this too much - they often seem to want to budget, sign it off, run it and close it off. I'd always ensure that there is the offer of ongoing support/challenge/development in some shape of form. Not sure what Louis or any other training providers find...
Training and Self Development - It's interesting to me that the latest StatsCan study shows that the majority of ongoing professional development training is paid for by large corporations. Yet, at the same time it is small business and entrepreneurs who need to invest in this exact training in order to remain competitive. So why is it that we are not taking ongoing professional development training? Is it time? Money? No perceived need? I'd appreciate it if you could take a second to answer the attached poll.
Re: Drop out Billionaire - As I remember, he also has special advanced training program where you pay 20000 - 100000 for some sessions only to get phone and other trainings from Bill Bartmann. It seems there must be a big quality difference between that training and this one.
Re: Top 50 MLM blogs for 2010 - Hi GT. That very subject came up in my Facebook group last week. MLM has taken it's lumps in decades past, but the trend seems to be moving the other way now. When you think about it, most of the affiliate programs out there are borrowing on the concept of MLM. MLM is still the best way for someone to generate a substantial residual income from home. The investment is low and it can easily be started in your spare time. The trick is to have the right training and the right company. And no, the training does not have to be the one provided by the company. The training I use is completely generic. They have up to 10 live training calls a week and there is never any product or company mentioned nor is there any affiliate program attached to it. It's a completely free mentoring and coaching system. The fact that it is not an affiliate program meant a lot to me. I am skeptical of any "recommendation" where the person is making money from it. It makes people question the motives involved.


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