Promoting Training Transfer

Copyright © 2014 by Sharon G. Fisher

Promoting Training Transfer

In a learning-organization environment, training by itself will not make a difference. You, as a manager, have more influence than the trainers do on the trainees’ application of learning on the job.

The primary barrier for transfer of training to occur is the absence of reinforcement on the job. The real work begins after the training ends. You will need to coach and motivate trainees after a training event by reminding them of goals and benefits and by recognizing and rewarding their efforts to apply new skills. You will also need to commit the time to make whatever changes are needed to support newly learned skills and behaviors.

You must give consideration to things that happen before, during, and after a training event that contribute to the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and attitudes and to their application in your unit.

The following pages describe what managers should do to help ensure training transfer.

Before Training

Managers need to provide and demonstrate their full support of training. You can involve employees in setting goals for themselves following training, make explicit promises of rewards that can be received if training is successfully transferred, and encourage employees to view training as potentially helpful in their jobs and careers. Managerial support greatly strengthens the likelihood that employees will apply their new learning on the job.

To provide this support before training begins, you should:

• Make sure that selected training programs will meet identified needs. Examine the training design in detail to confirm and validate that content is based on the training needs.
• Schedule training just before the new skills/knowledge will be used on the job. Employees should be selected for training when a change in technology occurs, requiring new skills; new job responsibilities are to be assumed because of transfer, promotion, or merger; or the employee’s performance has been appraised as requiring substantial and sustained improvements in the near future.
• Discuss the expected performance levels following training. Openly talk about the potential problems and how they can be prevented, minimized, or overcome.
• Collect baseline performance data and involve trainees in needs assessment procedures. Training should be designed to solve a present or future problem, overcome a gap or deficiency, or prepare employees for job responsibilities. Managers, trainers, and trainees should participate in identifying training needs. Trainers might become aware of the need for training when a technological conversion is scheduled to take place. Trainees should be involved to help ensure their “buy-in” to the training. Participation by all parties involved in the training will help ensure that important inputs are not overlooked.
• Provide a positive training environment. In some cases, on-the-job training is appropriate; in other cases, off-site locations are beneficial, particularly when it is important to protect employees from work-related interruptions and distractions. A disruptive or inadequate training environment not only distracts trainees, but can also affect their attitudes toward the value of the training itself.
• Provide the individual work time to complete precourse assignments. Trainers often develop materials that involve employee participation in advance of training. Monitor the distribution of any precourse materials, have employees complete them by a certain (pretraining) date, provide job release time for their completion, and then discuss them with the employees prior to training. This will help guarantee that all employees have done the advance work required of them, and ensure that all employees are starting at the same place when the training begins.
• Develop a supervisor/trainee contract on how employees will transfer new skills to the job, and the support you will provide. The contract should specify each party’s commitment to maximizing the results of training. The example on the following page shows what type of information this contract may contain.
• Develop assignments so that the individual can apply new skills immediately following the training. You may want to review background information on each individual to help you make better decisions about impending job assignments and hence strengthen the link between what is to be learned and the opportunity to apply that learning. You will need to assign employees to the kinds of jobs, tasks, or special projects that will not only give them the chance to use what they learned, but actually require them to apply it.

EXAMPLE

During Training

• Protect the individual from being interrupted during training. Work-related interruptions can cause the trainer to become frustrated and even lose the sense of continuity in the training. Employees being trained can become distracted from the learning experience and even question how important their own continuous attendance is. Individuals can miss key facts and principles, group activities, useful illustrations, and relevant materials. Not only will the content not be learned by the individuals as well as it should be, but allowing interruptions can send the message that the training is not really important. Consequently, employees may be less motivated to apply what they have learned back on the job.
• Participate in the training, if required. Participation will communicate managerial support for the training program, and help convince trainees that what they are learning is important and is endorsed by the organization. Employees observe, listen, and sense what is important when those in positions above them speak and act.

It is important that you model what you want your employees to accept, doing so through direct verbal and behavioral endorsement of the new learning. Some of the ways you can convey the message that learning the new skills and behaviors is important are by:

• Attending training sessions
• Actively participating in open discussions
• Accepting training roles; presenting some of the material
• Declaring and showing support for the use of new knowledge and skills
• Visibly and consistently demonstrating the desired new behaviors

• Monitor attendance and attention to training. For various reasons, trainees may exhibit inattentiveness, conversational disruptions, napping, or session-skipping. If you participate in all sessions of the training, you can help to forestall or handle dysfunctional behaviors by taking disruptive individuals aside to explore their problems. However, it may not be possible for you to participate fully; therefore, you may just want to systematically drop in for brief periods. This will help alert employees to the fact that you support the training and value the potential learning.
• Plan your assessment of transfer of new skills to the job. The evaluation process should be designed to provide objective feedback about the use of training-related knowledge and skills. Regular evaluation and feedback will encourage employees to continue working on transfer of new skills.

After Training

• Meet with the individual to discuss the newly acquired skills and knowledge and to identify barriers to using these new skills and knowledge on the job. Negotiate a “contract” specifying what you will do to remove barriers and to support the use of new skills and knowledge, and what the individual will do to meet new performance expectations (see the contract on pages 5 and 6 in the Before Training section).

• Extend the assignment of the substitute who has been handling the trainee’s workload for a brief period of additional time after the trainee returns to work. The extra support will allow time for the employee to get up to speed and solidify new behavior patterns, and will maximize the opportunity for effective training transfer.
• Conduct practice sessions to help sustain skills used frequently. “Once trained, always capable” is not generally true. Practice sessions should be carefully designed, complete with performance objectives and tailored methods and materials. They should be briefer than the original training, the primary focus being to provide employees with the opportunity to refresh their memories about the key points, proper procedures, and sequence of steps learned in the initial training program.
• Provide job aids, quick reference guides, and other tools to promote transfer. However, job aids and other such guides must be used in order to be helpful. Make sure employees are using their job aids: ask probing questions that require the employee to use the job aid, model the behavior by using your own job aid, and/or request the behavior (“Please post the list of steps to take so you won’t forget to include them”).
• Review performance levels and provide feedback. Effective reinforcement requires that you administer the reinforcement systematically. Positive reinforcement can be highly effective for cementing a pattern of desirable work behaviors and stimulating their repetition.
• Recognize successful use of new skills. Determine the preferred forms of recognition and help publicize the successful transfer of skills by commending worthy employees during meetings, by providing individual praise in front of employees’ peers, by inviting the communications staff to write feature articles for the newsletter on selected employees, or by nominating successful individuals for “Employee of the Month” (and preferably doing all these things).

Summary

You have now learned a number of strategies to help promote the transfer of skills acquired during training to the job setting. The booklet, Evaluating Training Outcomes, provides methods for evaluating the effectiveness of the training.