The numbers are staggering. In the US alone:
$1.1 trillion is spent on college and job training (Inside Higher Ed, Feb. 2015)
$164.2 billion is spent in the US on Training and Development (ASTD, Dec. 2013)
$1,208 per employee is spent on training by US employers. (ATD, Nov, 2014)
And we know that the actual cost is much higher if you factor in the wages paid to attend training and lost productivity. Here’s the hard truth – your investment can be wasted if retention is low and learning transfer is even lower.
But here’s what else we know, developing yourself and others is not a luxury today, it is an imperative. A workforce that is skilled and up to date is a true competitive advantage. Falling behind may result in failing to compete and survive.
Spending your training and development money well is important. Invest it well and people grow and thrive, as does your organization.
Whether you develop your workforce from the inside or hire outside experts, here are five criteria to evaluate your training and development programs. Programs that meet this criteria will be good investments and will increase learned skills. Programs that don’t aren’t worth your valuable time and energy.
- Does the program create a social context for learning and plan for learning transfer? Is the learner’s leader actively engaged, before and after the training? Is the learning interactive rather than lecture or text based?
All learning is social – we learn best from others. Retention rates for lecture are only 5%; add group learning and it soars to 50%. Put individuals in interactive, group based learning situations and retention will be close to 75%. And, engaging the learner’s leader in setting learning goals before the session and following up afterward will increase learning transfer to 90%.
- Is the program designed to have the learner engage with the content over time?
The hard truth is that learning takes time. The more complex the skill, the longer it takes. Learning that seeps in, like a daylong gentle rain, sticks. The quick downpour runs off quickly. Look for training that is spaced over time in which the learners have frequent, even if lighter, interactions with the content.
- Is practice & feedback a part of the training?
If you want individuals to actually “DO” something different on the job, rather than just “KNOW” something different in their heads, practice and feedback MUST be a part of the program. Practice must be paired with feedback, as practicing something poorly only inculcates poor performance.
Experts disagree on the number of hours of practice (Malcom Gladwell says 10,000 to get to world class level; others say less.) None the less, we all know that to get any skill to a level of proficiency does require practice, feedback on that attempt, more practice and then additional feedback. Over and over and over again. Define the expected level of competence, allow for practice and feedback on the job – and you’ll see that skill in action.
- Is it OK to fail?
Face it, if your execution of the skill is perfect very quickly after the learning of it, you either already knew how to do it or the learning goal was not large enough. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly at first. To allow adults to take a risk to stretch themselves, it is critical to create a safe space where poor first attempts are celebrated.
- Does the approach incorporate both skill and motivation?
The fact is, learners need both skill and motivation to learn something new and then to use it in their daily work. Too often, training focuses on skill and totally ignores motivation. Celebrating progress is motivating. Support from peers is motivating. Achieving small achievable goals is motivating. Your leader noticing and caring is motivating. Ensure your programs build this in, rather than hope it occurs.
The good news: When done well, developing your staff has many benefits. It is a magnet for millennials. It improves performance and business results. It increases your organizations capacity and capability. It helps with retention. And it can have an amazingly long and rich ROI. I continue to use daily many of the great skills I learned from leadership training over 30 years ago; this is development that is a lifelong gift.
We design all of our leadership and staff development programs with these principles at their core. If you want training that works – contact us.
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