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Employee training is important. I’d like to believe that we agree on this. But one component of training that doesn’t get nearly enough attention is what to do after the training program is over.
Yes, part of designing employee training should be to offer suggestions for activities that managers and employees can do to reinforce the training they just received. The principles of adult learning say that if we can immediately apply what we learned during a training session that retention increases. This is why organizations shouldn’t train new hires on something they won’t have exposure to for six months. The training should happen right before someone starts to use it.
Here are a few things to consider when you’re designing and implementing training to ensure that all the organization’s efforts are reinforced after the training program is over.
Offer a training overview or summary for leadership. One of the reasons that leaders often don’t know how to support employee training is because they don’t know what happens during the training session. Provide the leadership team with a summary or overview of the session so they know. Maybe conduct a mini session so leaders can see it. Encourage leaders to stop by when training is happening to show their support for the program, and they can also hear the discussion.
Build activities into the training program for employees to do on the job. For example, in a supervisory skills training program on delivering feedback, ask participants to think of a person who has done something wonderful for them lately. Have them write the person’s name down and a couple of sentences about what they did. Then tell them that their post-training homework is to tell that person how much they appreciated it. Now they have an activity to do when the program wraps up.
Consider adding a follow-up coaching session to employee training programs. Depending on the type of training, it could make sense to conduct a follow-up coaching session with participants to debrief an activity. Using the example above, supervisors could talk with the session trainer about how their feedback conversation went. Not only does this hold participants accountable for doing the task, but they can ask questions in a safe environment.
Provide leaders with the tools to support the training content. We often talk with managers about how they need to support sending employees to training. We need to also ask them to support the training after the employee attends the session. There’s nothing worse than an employee returning from a training session only to hear that they don’t need to do anything they just learned. (And yes, this does happen.) Give managers some talking points that they can discuss during one-on-one meetings to keep the conversation going.
The whole purpose of an employee training program is to convey knowledge and change behavior. The change part doesn’t happen immediately. Think of Lewin’s Change Model. We go to a training session (unfreeze), practice what we learned in training (change), and then retain what we’ve learned (refreeze). In order to create retention, we have to practice. The practice process happens on-the-job with the support of the organization.
Organizations spend a lot of resources on training – designing the program and giving employees time off to participate. Which is great! We need to continue to conduct training. But I hate to see employee training not have its intended results simply because there wasn’t a post-training activity plan in place.
Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby while exploring the streets of Atlanta, GA
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