Why Workplace Training Rarely Sticks.

I appreciate the title may be a little provocative especially to HR, managers and team leaders etc but its true – workplace training can have little or no effect for business. I am as guilty as charged, having been on so many staff training courses where the priority list for us was, a nice lunch, a day out, early finish & a bit of fun. Very rarely did the line manager & HR advisor tell us why we were to be “trained” (H&S training excepted), informed what was expected of us individually or as a group or how our behaviour was to change as a result. During our cosy one-to-one’s the line manager would ask me “how did the training go”? I would reply “fine thanks” and that would be it. No follow up, no measurement of behaviour change or training transfer, no return on the company investment for the employee or business. So where does it go so wrong?

Here are few starting points to consider…

1. Only a fraction of what business spends on training actually changesbehaviour
Without training outcome setting, needs analysis, measuring training transfer and weeks & months of follow up reinforcement, application, feedback, encouragement and accountability, as much as 90% of all instruction doesn’t “stick” in the workplace.

2. People won’t use a skill consistently until it becomes habit or an automatic process.
Until a new skill has been habituated, people have to concentrate hard to do things in a new way. In a busy workplace without having conscious awareness of the new skills or behaviour they quickly decay and are then unused. Until new behaviours become an automatic process, old behaviours will prevail for most of the time. Repeated failures to apply the new skill can be discouraging, with people typically go back to their old, previously behaviour patterns defeating the object of the training.

3. A new skill is unlikely to become habituated without a follow up and repetition.
To learn any new skill, routine, habit or behaviour pattern, you have to perform the action again and again to stimulate memory and automatic processes. Only after the new process is established will someone consistently perform the skill on the job. Because of the time involved, this repetition can’t happen in the classroom. It has to happen in the workplace with continual assessment and follow up.

So with this information to hand what can be done to ensure that training is identified, implemented, delivered and measured effectively for a great return on investment for the organisation & the individual. I am sure those involved in training/L&D are familiar with dear old Kirkpatrick and the four levels of training evaluation. Not without its flaws but a great place to start evaluating the training. However, having used a method developed by Kamal Birdi with The Taxonomy of Training and Development Outcomes (TOTADO) to great effect, this model helps measure the individual, team, organisational & societal levels of effectiveness of the expensive training at work.

So the models of evaluation & assessment are there so what aren’t they used by may organisations to help justify training budgets? Surely its about staff that have had skills added to positively rather than we have trained a XXXX number of people? The lack of assessment of training may be partly due to cost and extra effort or just lack of understanding of methods needed to evaluate properly? Perhaps there is a training need right there!

Measuring training, assessing trainees and evaluating training outcomes is a a very straight forward process. With a little application and understanding for what learning outcomes are needed then the line manager, leadership team and HR group can make significant improvements with workplace learning & savings with training budgets. Workplace learning can measured and will be effective with the cooperation of all parties concerned as long as objectives are agreed at the outset. Therefore changing the perception of training from a “whatever” to something of real added value. So the challenge is – can you be sure your workplace training sticks, if not take a few positive steps to change and make your training accountable, measurable and most of all enjoyable.

Bibliography

Birdi, K. (2010) The Taxonomy of Training and Development Outcomes (TOTADO): A New Model of Training Evaluation. Paper presented at the Annual BPS Division of Occupational Psychology Conference January 2010

Kirkpatrick, D.L., & Kirkpatrick, J.D. (1994). Evaluating Training Programs, Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Kirkpatrick, D.L., & Kirkpatrick, J.D. (2005). Transferring Learning to Behavior, Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

A Leadership Question – formal or informal?

I am sure you have seen LinkedIn and other social media platforms awash with articles on leadership and becoming a better leader. How many articles and promotions do we see “10 ways to become a great leader” or “Essential Leadership Training” etc, along with countless banal quotes from eminent business characters. You have all seen them I am sure. Now if I was a cynic there could good reason for this in terms of leaders & managers may well have a resources to pay for management consultants fees? As I am not a cynic I am sure that this is not the case. However, most of the leaders we hear and read about are those with formal power, influence and position. What about those who have no formal power in an organisation or a group, what is it that draws people to them? What is it that perhaps creates a more authentic sense of leadership and vision for the followers?

Needless to say, a person can influence others, and in this sense be a leader. Others look to them for ‘leads’ and follow their direction or probably more importantly their behaviours (health and safety is a good example). I am sure we have often seen someone have a negative influence on behaviour within a group/team when they flout rules or reject authority. Similarly a person can have a positive influence by being clearly supportive of an initiative and engaged in a process – particularly where their involvement is discretionary. In many cases, it is the informal leaders that will be the strongest influencers of behaviour within a group as their influence is more direct, closer to the group and constant.

Informal leaders have capabilities that more formal leaders do not, simply because they do not hold a position of designated authority. They can suggest things to other team members that could not be said by a person in an official management role. Their ability to influence is different, since informal leaders are often perceived differently than formal leaders. The informal leader who might take on this task is respected, perhaps trusted, based on his/her performance and relationships with the others within the group. While the formal leader is more likely to be in a leadership role due to his formal authority and power.

So what do we make of the informal leader? Dean Pielstick at North Arizona University published a fascinating paper a few years ago “Formal & Informal Leading: A Comparative Analysis” where his findings suggested that informal leaders are higher levels of leading than formal leaders overall but notably in vision, communicating, relationships, community, guidance and character. All of the vitalcomponents of authentic leadership. Informal leaders seem to have more fun are personable and treat co-workers with more respect. The informal leader is less likely to use coercion or have a need for power and perhaps more importantly less likely to use fear. Although this study is not without its faults the finding suggest informal leaders are more authentic that may well provide a lesson for more formal leaders.

This topic is much under researched perhaps for the cynical reason noted above. Though we may need to pay more attention to informal leaders and identify their qualities. Perhaps it is a more pure sense of authentic leadership as they have no formal power within the organisation? This may then fuel the need to strip away titles and trappings of power to provide the organisation a more transparent form of leadership that the group engage with fully. Therefore inverting the organisational pyramid with the leader & leadership team no longer sitting at the pointy end at the top but facilitating the organisation to function without barriers. Food for though at least.

Drop me a line or call today to find out more of how to nurture your informal leaders or leadership style .

 

References

CD Pielstick – Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 2000 – jlo.sagepub.com