Training

Like the one time popular television comedy, “Everybody Loves Raymond,” many companies seem to love training. They proudly support in-house training departments to demonstrate their commitment to this aspect of employee improvement. True enough, many companies do provide effective training. However, far too often the real training within a company is provided “OTJ” - that is, “on the job.”

Employees learn a lot about their jobs and corporate expectations from other employees, co-workers, etc. Arguably, OTJ training is the only way to convey the experiential component of the job. Sometimes this experience is obtained from previous employment. It is often convenient to acquire an employee that “already knows the ropes,” or to use a more modern metaphor, “is plug and play.” However, some companies such as automobile dealerships actually prefer their new employees to be inexperienced in sales because it is easier to train unskilled (yet otherwise qualified) applicants rather than to “retrain” experienced employees. These companies reason that behavior change requires more effort than behavior acquisition, and in some ways this perspective is valid.

Learning is a daily objective for employees as they are subjected to a constant barrage of updates, changes, directives, goals, challenges, staff reductions, cutbacks and reorganizations, etc., all requiring significant adaptation to new working conditions. The efficiency in which managers can implement these changes directly affects corporate success. Therefore, training should be evaluated by its direct, positive financial benefit to the company.

In spite of the general attractiveness, complexity and ubiquity of (digital) slide presentations, this training modality remains largely ineffective as a training modality, as a result of confusing a “presentation” with methods and accountability of “training.” Even the most elaborately produced and entertaining digital slide presentation will constitute ineffective training unless the presenter requires participants to demonstrate their new skills. Furthermore, presentations rarely alter the conditions for employee action. Thus, employees will continue to perform as they did prior to the "training."

Commonly observed verbal repetition (and elucidation) of each bullet point in the presentation, generally given by one presenter to many “learners,” might appear satisfyingly efficient. However, for the most part, employees sit attentively during the training session, ask a few pertinent questions and return to their normal work environments only a little better than they were before the presentation. This ineffective scenario is further complicated by the requisite documentation that employees attending the “training” have been successfully “trained,” when in fact there is no evidence of such accomplishment, as there has been little or no observation or measurement of new skills.

While presentations are generally weak forms of training, significant amounts of learning and training occur as part of normal experience with a constantly changing environment, such as corporate mandates, managerial initiatives, changes in consumer preferences, competitive pressures, etc. Give your employees a fighting chance to accommodate and integrate your new performance expectations. Organize your memos detailing important procedural changes. Keep them brief and to the point. Leave out distracting graphics, cute pictures and overly ornate fonts that can be difficult to read and contribute little, if anything to message content. Tell your employees exactly what they need to know using clear, unambiguous sentences and provide them an efficient index system to find the information when they need it later to solve a problem.

Co-workers are an excellent source of information and experience and can substantially improve training program effectiveness by participating in “learning connections” between employees, allowing them to teach each other via the telephone for “audio based mentoring.” Significant amounts of training can occur through the audio channel, allowing your highly skilled employees to easily share their knowledge with other employees at distant locations. It might not seem “high-tech,” but telephone-based training is remarkably efficient and requires no capital outlay for new technology. Modern video/internet connections are a more modern form of such communication, and as it does not require significant physical movement of personnel, tele-training substantially reduces a sizable portion of common training expenses, such as airfare, hotel, car rental, meals, etc.

You may be surprised to learn that your company is already a “learning company” - even if your company does not have an official training department - given that some of your employees are likely very interested in measures of their performance compared to company standards. Are you specifically facilitating this kind of learning, or must your employees “figure out” whether they are doing well or not? If you have gone to the trouble of conducting employee training, ensure that your efforts and expenditures provide a measurable return on your investment by establishing meaningful measurement of learning, as well as measures of the impact of new employee skills on corporate profitability.