What do you think is the biggest problem in corporate training?
Of course, there’s no one answer and the biggest problem in one organization might not be a problem in another.
Here’s my answer
But overall, I think that given a commitment to training and competent people in the Training Department, the biggest problem is implementation. In other words, trainees don’t implement the training they’ve received.
What do I mean by that?
“The American Society for Training and Development says that by the time you go back to your job, you’ve lost 90% of what you’ve learned in training.” I found this in a Wall Street Journal article, “So Much Training, So Little to Show for It.”
But it’s more than just forgetting. People have trouble changing old habits so it’s hard for them to implement the new training, even if they do remember the points.
The job of the Training Department is to effect change in the trainees and this doesn’t happen nearly often enough. When trainees don’t implement the training the desired ROI isn’t achieved.
Do you agree?
What if the course never ended?
Suppose a training course had a life after the course? Suppose aspects of it continued — forever?
Here are some possibilities for a never-ending course flow.
- It starts with a live training course.
- When it ends, the content is put in the Learning Management System (LMS) or somewhere on the company’s Intranet. This could include a video recording (webcam and/or slides) as well as a PDF version for quick scanning through the text.
- The LMS includes an online discussion group where attendees can ask — and answer — questions and discuss the content and how they are implementing it, after the live class is over.
- The trainer, the Subject Matter Expert (SME), continues to participate by answering questions and providing helpful suggestions.
- If the course is a one-time event, after questions peter out, everything can be put in a permanent Knowledge Base. Otherwise, it can just stay forever in the LMS.
- The trainer gives the trainees’ managers access to this online version of the course so managers can point their attendees to the content, and so managers know what was taught and can support it.
- The SME incorporates the trainees’ comments & questions the next time he or she teaches the course.
I know that some pieces of this concept happen, but I think that it is rarely fully implemented. What do you think of the idea? Would it help improve implementation and therefore training ROI in your organization? Leave a comment!
And please share with your colleagues using the Share buttons below. Let’s start a discussion about how training can fulfill its purpose!
These are exactly the steps we follow after all of our trainings so that our audience can review the material covered and recall what they learned in the trainings. They must remember in order to carry out their tasks, so we do everything we can to help them by giving them access to the training content, FAQ and support any time they call. I am glad to know that,according to you, we are doing this right!
Betty, I’m SO glad to hear that you are doing this. Do you have any feedback either from the trainees or managers about this being helpful and leading to better implementation?
I think the steps of learning you wrote about should be a common practice. It’s highly beneficial when the process is diversified and divided into several parts that have slightly different characters. Really good when it comes to memorizing knowledge.
It is important to motivate/inspire employees from time to time.There are many e-learning tools and software to help employers in training their employees.