Following on from my article about remembering to remember learning I want to take you on a journey to ABC Company Ltd based in Couldbeanywhere, that town famous for the guy that won the Cheese Rolling in 1997 & 1998.
Let’s continue on to ABC Company. They produce widgets and provide services to business. Sounds familiar I bet. Well let’s go to the 2nd floor where all the offices are.
John, the Department Manager, is sitting at his desk working. He is normally one of the first in as he likes to lead by example and knows that this is often the only time of day when he is not interrupted. In come some of the team, some clutching & clinging onto desperately needed cups of coffee, mumbling greetings, whereas others are almost leaping into work excited by the thought of closing that deal and hitting their sales targets.
Simon comes in, he has been on a 2 day training course, with an external provider which cost the business approx. £900 (would have been cheaper if they had used Optimus Sourcing to source it) and a bit of travel cost plus loss of productivity with Simon being out.
He sits down, and his colleagues ask him how the course went. He responds with almost untypical morning enthusiasm, “it was great, I’ve learnt so much and lots of things which will help me improve. It was all about Priority Management so I’m keen to put some new ideas into practice. I’ve got to talk to John first…..oh and Sally you were thinking of going on this course, I’d recommend you do as the trainer was great. Really knew her stuff and made it fun to learn” (This training provider sounds great!).
John appears, “Ah, Simon, you are back can I have a quick word?”
John “So how was the course? ”
Simon “really good thanks John, thanks for letting me attend this. I’ve got some great ideas and things I’d like to put into practice. I’ve created an action plan so would you like to see it?”
John “That’s great Simon. Yes I’d love to see the action plan but not at the moment as something came up whilst you were off and I’d like your help. It relates to our two main clients and an issue with our supplier. Turns out something was lost in translation so to speak. It’s quite urgent so can you get started on this straight away and we’ll look at the action plan later, say at the end of the day?”
Simon “Erm, ok that’s fine. I’ll get to work straight away”
Sounds familiar to anyone yet?
So Simon puts his training action plan in his draw and gets to work on solving the issue. Which becomes more in-depth and complex than he first thought.
He gets to the end of the day and goes to see John. John is too busy to go over the action plan as he is busy preparing reports for the MD who wanted them urgently. John tells Simon they can look at the plan at the end of the week.
So Simon continues to work on the issue as well as dealing with other work coming in without looking at his plan. On Friday he looks for John but he’s got a day’s holiday so isn’t in.
Monday morning Simon asks John for some time and John agrees to put 15 minutes in between meetings on Wednesday afternoon. The meeting time comes and John’s earlier meeting has overrun and his next meeting is just about to start.
John say “Simon, sorry about this, got our overseas business partner in so can’t be late for this meeting, look we’ve got your appraisal in 3 week’s time so let’s go over it then”
Simon at this point is starting to get a bit despondent. His main task on his action plan was to talk about his ideas with his boss as they would involve some changes in Simon’s work structure. Without John’s agreement Simon cannot make the improvements he has recognised.
You know what’s coming next don’t you. Yes that’s right; the appraisal gets put back due to work commitments and the launch of big new project. All appraisals are on hold until the launch is under way, that gets delayed and so Simon doesn’t talk to his boss until 4 months after the training course.
By this time Simon’s enthusiasm for making those changes has disappeared, he stopped looking at the training hand-outs and his action plan over 3 months ago and really can’t remember much of what he learnt beyond those hastily scribbled notes and some acronyms which he can’t understand even when typing them into Google. (1 point if you tell me what UI, NUNI, INU, NIU could mean in a Time & Priority Management context).
So what’s happened is that the company has invested money and time in Simon but no real improvement in performance. The company did the right thing investing but as far as I can see it’s a 0% return which means it’s a waste of money.
It’s not Simon’s fault, he came away with good intentions and enthusiasm. Some might argue that Simon should have made some changes anyway but we all know how hard that is when systems and processes are fixed in companies and you are reporting in to someone.
Whenever employees are planning on undertaking learning both L&D and Managers should have plans and processes in place to support the employee use their new knowledge and skills in order to improve their performance.
I’ve spoken to a mixture of L&D people and Managers to get their thoughts on what should happen and I’ve listed some of these below:
Howard Rose, Director of Inspire Development suggests:
- Prior to any training taking place, the manager and employee to agree on a project/work package where new skills will be developed.
- The L&D department can provide coaching after training to help keep learning fresh
- If the training is internal, L&D with cooperation from managers can use the organisations procedures/processes within the training, improving them as they learn.
Maria Manton, Regional Delivery Officer from Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service recommends this approach for managers.
Set up a team meeting to discuss mutual expectations to gather feedback e.g. what do they expect from the manager to help with their development, and what does the manager expect from the team.
Kelly Mann, L&D Associate from Legal & General Insurance makes this great point:
Make L&D activities a rolling agenda point for team meetings. Employees can share what they have learnt and how they intend to implement changes, whilst their colleagues can offer suggestions on how to overcome potential barriers.
Vicki Lee, L&D Coordinator from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology says:
After a training course delegates often go back into the workplace and get distracted by other work commitments, forgetting any actions they had committed to at the end of the course. To prevent this I know a trainer who uses ‘Postcards’ to reinforce learning in the workplace. She has delegates write down 3 actions they want to take away after a training session on a postcard; the trainer then collects these in. 3 months after the course the trainer sends the postcards on to the individuals. This is a nice reminder of their actions (which can sometimes get lost amongst the pile of papers on their desk!) and gives learners the opportunity to follow up on any that haven’t been completed, or alternatively make them feel good if they have already followed up their actions.
She also makes this great suggestion for Post Training actions.
Run ‘follow up workshops’ or ‘drop in days’. Create a relaxed atmosphere to encourage staff to come in any time after their training, to ask questions, follow up actions or to show their work and ask for feedback since the training. This is only viable if a large number of staff had the training and often only works when there has been an organisational need for the training targeting a large number of employees.
The responsibility of embedding and reinforcing learning is split amongst the Employee, Manager and Learning & Development:
Employees / Delegates
Your company have invested in you so you have responsibility to help reinforce the learning.
Get into the habit of telling colleagues about what you’ve learnt. Formally or informally. This could be in in a Q&Q format, employee creating a knowledge sheet, spending some time with each individual.
Make sure you feedback on the sessions – be honest to things can improve.
Be proactive within the company – tell people about the training, encourage others to develop.
Managers
You have a responsibility to continually develop your staff and anytime one of your team will receive training you have actions before and after to help embed what’s learnt.
- Equipment – make sure the equipment is there to learn on or to support the skills e.g. if Word 2010 then make sure the employee has Word 2010 to work on.
- Discuss the aims and objectives of the training with the employee and agree how the new knowledge, skills or behaviours can be used in the workplace.
- Allocate time to review the training with the employee the day they return to the office. Go over what was covered, what was good, what wasn’t good, what was challenging and what action plans the employee has.
- Evaluate performance before using Formative assessments. These don’t need to be complex!
- Establish what support is needed to implement the action plan. Keep positive about ideas at this stage. The employee should be feeling very motivated and positive so manage this well.
- Look for quick wins – if an action is simple to implement then encourage this to keep employee motivated and improve performance.
- Use Summative assessments to measure performance. Has anything changed as a result of the training? Again these can be simple. You want to find out if performance has changed. If it hasn’t what else needs to happen, if it has then great work!
Learning & Development Staff
- Follow up with the employees in some way – this can be formal using assessment forms or as informal as a quick phone call to check how it went. Go one stage further and follow up in a few months to see how the employee is getting one.
- On good sessions ask employees to provide quotes to encourage others who might be considering this training. Use positive tools to promote learning and development.
- Engage with the managers, find out from them their thoughts on employees and if the training is really making a difference to performance.
- Get facts and figures as well as feedback to find out if training has improved performance. Are customer complaints down, are sales up, how quickly do orders get processed? Relate this back to the aims of the training.
I realise that for the L&D Professional it can be hard work in companies with limited budgets, time demands and potential brick walls however you owe it to yourself and your company to at least try. Remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day so look to improve things over time as little by little great things can be achieved.
Finally thanks to those who contributed some excellent ideas to this article.
Blake Henegan – Director of Optimus Learning Services
