Marketing the Training Function

If your company already has an internal newsletter, speak with the editor about writing a regular training column. If no such newsletter already exists, you can easily begin your own e-newsletter using your internal email system.

Ensure that anything sent from the training department is engaging and helpful in performing one's job. Don't just send a calendar of events. Training tips might be about software applications, management practices, or on-the-job-skills that are unique to your organization. Keep the tips short and how-to oriented so that recipients clearly see the value of reading your e-newsletter.  You can start with a helpful tip, and then provide a calendar of upcoming events. This format helps to ensure that your messages get opened (because one never knows what this week's helpful tip will be) and once recipients begin reading, your hope is that they will read the entire message, including the calendar of events.

Here's a "tricky" tip: Consider having a "for manager's eyes only" tip - which of course everyone will read. You are subtly training future managers.

Why Utilize a Virtual Classroom?

Book Excerpt from "Tailored Learning":

The ability to interact with experts and peers in real time is a comfortable and familiar environment and eliminates the isolation that often comes with asynchronous technologies. Often a participant requires live interaction with an instructor or an expert, but that interaction does not need to be face-to-face.

For example, medical students observing surgery would, arguably, benefit from being physically in the operating room or a surgical observation area. However, those same participants do not need face-to-face interaction to ask post-operative questions of the surgeon. Questions can be asked and discussed among all of the participants via a virtual classroom. If a recording is made of the synchronous discussion, all the participants can go back and review the recording, at any time, to ensure that they understood the answers. One of the most common reasons for organizations to implement a virtual classroom is an audience that is dispersed across a large geographic area (oftentimes worldwide). Compared with traditional classroom delivery, the money saved in classroom costs, travel, and time away from work quickly becomes apparent. In addition, organizations may choose to deliver content that they never would have scheduled in a more traditional (classroom) setting. For example, an update to a computer system may only take one or two hours to teach, but an organization would rarely convene a training program for such a short period of time because it would be cost prohibitive. The virtual classroom makes this type of content easy to distribute.

As organizations become more global, and the need to collaborate across a distance is becoming more important, a virtual meeting place can help close the distance gap by providing a forum through which employees collaborate in real time.

Why Your Onboarding Training Process Matters

According to a survey of 1,000 employees by BambooHR: 1 in 6 reported they had quit a job between the first week and the third month of starting the position.

Are Participant Training Materials "Necessary?"

We recently had a lively discussion with a group of trainers regarding this statement: Participant "materials" (workbooks, job aids, infographics, etc.) are "nice to haves" but people rarely use them back on the job. The group unanimously agreed that rarely do participants use these items on the job, and, more often than not, they are left behind "in the classroom."

This lack of respect for training materials is quite detrimental to adult learning for a number of reasons:

Most people are visual learners 

80% of Americans are visual learners, which means they "understand" information better (and retain it longer) if it is presented in a visual manner. If 80% of your audience spoke "in another language" wouldn't you present in that language? And yet, we often completely ignore providing tangible, visual elements that complement our training offerings.

Seven-to-ten days after training, people remember only 10 - 20% of what was taught them in a training class. 

If your "training" consists of providing information, with no reference materials, how can anyone be expected to remember what was taught?  Back on the job, it would be helpful to have a job-aid or infographic to refer to in order to do one's job or refresh one's memory about the proper process / sequence / tasks.

Temporal contiguity

Brain research tells us that it is better to present concepts in both words and pictures than solely in text format. Typically, about three days later, text-only information is recalled at a rate of just 15%, but the same information, when presented in both text and visual (a'la an infographic) is recalled at a whopping 65%!

Muscle memory

Muscle memory is not a memory stored in your muscles, of course, but memories stored in your brain (although its origin is related to physical fitness). Providing workbooks or worksheets in which participants actually work (answer questions, complete diagrams, underline pertinent facts in a case study) aid in retention because the body is also physically involved in the learning process.

Solution?

The "problem" is not that participant's don't see the value in the learning materials you provide, but rather, the problem lies with us trainers who do not show people how to use these materials while they are in the training.  The solution is to utilize the training materials at the time of teaching.  Don't teach a process and then say "Here is a job-aid to take back to your desk," but rather teach the process as participants follow along using their job aid.

The solution to participant materials being "left behind" is to utilize them during the training process so that their usage becomes part of the learner's muscle memory.

Who is responsible for job readiness? Colleges or Businesses?

According to a research study done by the University of Phoenix and EdAssist of 501 managers and 533 workers from diverse industries:

• 93% of managers believe college should teach soft skills such as how to think, learn, and communicate - and 75% of workers agree

• 96% of managers felt that technical training and job-specific skills training was the employers responsibility

Leaders Lack Critical Coaching Skills

In a recent study, Driving Workplace Performance Through High-Quality Conversations, Develop Dimensions International's (DDI) analysis of thousands of assessments confirmed that experienced leaders lack critical coaching skills, including:

• 99% are not effective at checking their understanding of a situation before moving on to address an issue

• More than 50% are not effective at encouraging involvement from others

• 89% are not effective in demonstrating interpersonal diplomacy

• Also 89% are not effective in conveying performance expectations and facilitating clear agreement

• 95% are not effective at openly disclosing and sharing their thoughts and feelings with others

• The research also identified an increase in reactive coaching (providing advice after the fact) and a lack of proactive coaching (offering assistance before someone takes on a difficult task or assignment)

Jim Concelman, Vice President, Leadership Development, DDI

Why You Don't Want to Train Your Employees

There are plenty of surveys of late indicating that training is crucial to employee engagement and retention - but there are also plenty of reasons why you don't necessarily want to do training. Here are just a few of those reasons:

When memorization is a waste of time

Either mental or muscle memorization. For instance, if your content changes too quickly, or is used too infrequently. The Training Doctor once worked with a client for whom we were assisting in implementing a new, computer-based financial program. One of the tasks that this program would conduct was end-of-year issuance of W2's. We were implementing and training on the software in the summer months - there was no reason to teach people how to do the steps involved with processing W2's when there would not be a need to conduct that task for at least another five months. In this case a "job aid" (reference material) was much more appropriate.

When there is no immediate way to apply the new knowledge or skills on the job

Adults want their learning to be relevant to their real life and immediately applicable. This is not only an internal need but also a practical approach; if individuals don't have the ability to apply their new knowledge or skills on the job immediately, it simply fritters away.

A large, independent, broadcast organization which was switching to Microsoft Outlook for its email platform concocted the idea of conducting training before the software was ever loaded on people's computers. The IT-trainer visited one floor of the organization per-day and gathered people together in the conference room to conduct a demonstration of how Outlook would work "someday when you got it on your computer."

As the training progressed up the 11 or 12 stories of the company headquarters, attendance at the "training" dwindled, and the IT department wondered why. Answer: because nobody was able to apply that knowledge on the job in an immediate way, so why bother to attend the training?

When facts and figures won't change behavior

Very often training consists of providing information and techniques to individuals with the expectation that they will practice them on the job. Too often, however, actual implementation on the job eludes the learner.

For example, teaching customer service standards is not the same as embodying them. A standard of always answering the phone by the 3rd ring may not make much of an impression when it is delivered as a "rule" during training. However, out on the call-center floor, when a new hire sees his fellow employees always answering the phone by the third ring, or making arrangements for backup when they are overwhelmed and know that they won't be able to answer the phone by the third ring, is a much more powerful "training" than ensuring that people have memorized a rule.

While it may seem odd for an organization which is in the business of designing training to tell you that you may not want to do training, there are often valid reasons for bypassing a training option when you want your employee's behaviors or beliefs to change. 

Before designing or delivering training, think through: is this the right time? is this the right method? You might find yourself saving a lot of time and being much more effective in your role!

Why are we not training managers?

Managers are the most undertrained and under-appreciated employees in corporate  America according to a study conducted by Kelton Research and Root Inc., of 205 Training / HR executives.

Among other findings, the survey respondents report that less than  ¼ of their training budgets, if any, are currently allocated to manager training. 

You can view the full report here.

Marketing Your Training Offerings Through an Internal Conference

If your organization has a “catalog” or prescribed curriculums, a wonderful way to engage with potential attendees is to hold a yearly “internal conference.”

Schedule a day which mirrors a professional development conference and invite all employees to avail themselves of the informative, free training sessions. Establish tracks, such as technology, leadership, service, etc., and within those tracks schedule one-hour previews of the various courses to give potential students a taste of what attending the full-blown offering might be like.

In order to determine what content to highlight, think about the “ah-ha” moments in each class. Impress your internal conference attendees with things they may not know (wow, I need to take this class in order to find out…), interactive and engaging topics (this seems like it will be a fun class to attend), and previews of how their on-the-job performance will be enhanced (I really should learn more about financial reports if I want to move in to management).

As participants leave the preview, ask them to complete an evaluation form, just like you would at a professional conference. On that form ask them if they would like more information about the topic, if they would refer a colleague to take the class (and that person’s contact info), and of course ask them for their own contact information. 

Now you have accumulated a “marketing list” of interested and engaged employees for future class offerings and you’ve also determined what topics are most in-demand in your organization, for the coming year.

Colleges are not teaching what businesses need

According to a research study done by the University of Phoenix and EdAssist of 501 managers and 533 workers from diverse industries:

• 93% of managers believe college should teach soft skills such as how to think,  learn, and communicate - and 75% of workers agree

• 96% of managers felt that technical training and job-specific skills training was the employers responsibility

Train Managers? Naw, they don't need it.

Managers are the most undertrained and under-appreciated employees in corporate America according to a study conducted by Kelton Research and Root, Inc. of 205 Training / HR executives.

Some survey highlights include:

• 32% of respondents don't feel their company views managers as critical to success (who DO they think is critical, would be The Training Doctor's next question)

• Reducing overhead and making technology upgrades are prioritized over manager training investments (57%, 48% and 28% respectively)

• 69% of respondents believe their organization's senior leaders don't believe there is a strong link between effective manager training and business performance

• 83% of respondents report that less than ¼ of their training budget (if any!) is allocated to manager training

How to Improve Training Recall? S P A C E O U T Learning

Long-term recall is far better when we learn information over several sittings, and any amount of spacing appears to help a lot. The longer we need to remember information, the more the learning should be spaced out.

Source: Chief Learning Officer Magazine, May 2015, Your Brain on Learning

Successful Virtually Delivered Training Is Dependent On...

Many organizations are using virtually delivered training programs due to companies’ widespread geographic locations and the just-in-time nature of delivery that the synchronous platforms allow. Unfortunately, not many organizations are doing it well. 

At a minimum, there are three key components for successful virtually delivered training.  None is more important than another – all must be created, tested, and executed to perfection.  The good news is: all are completely within your control.

Content

Many organizations are moving what used to be delivered in a classroom to an online format.  This requires translating concepts and content into a new format.  The face-to-face class simply cannot be replicated in the online environment, so it is important to make critical decisions about what to keep, what to distribute in another way (such as reading or an e-learning module), and what to deliver in another way (such as on-the-job coaching).

Virtually delivered training, by default, is blended learning.  There is no way around it.  Not everything can be delivered successfully in a synchronous online environment, nor should it be.  For example, reading a case study might be done during 5 minutes in the face to face class, but it is not a good use of online time. Therefore the case study should be read at another time (what to distribute in another way).   Doing some work asynchronously (independently) and some work together, during the online session, is the very definition of blended learning.

Materials

Materials are critical in the online environment.  This include slides, because it is a very visually-oriented delivery medium; Participant Guides, because very often a learner will be the sole individual enrolled in a class at his/her location, and the learner needs some sort of reference material or supporting documentation in order to follow along in the class; and scripted Facilitator Guides to ensure the training achieves the intended learning outcomes while ending in the allotted time (virtual, online training is very tightly timed).

Most especially, when it comes to slides, get rid of the PPT templates, get rid of the bullets, and create visual, engaging “canvases” for creating.

Mastering Technology

Luckily, technology is rather fool-proof these days unless something is done that purposefully interferes with its operation.  Like most physical skills, using technology only gets better with practice.  A best-practice is to always rehearse the delivery one or two days in advance of the scheduled class.  No matter how many times a facilitator has delivered the same session, it’s always a good idea to practice it –in the synchronous environment – to be comfortable with the tools, their location, their execution, and their results (e.g.  does it look better to highlight a particular piece of text, or underline it?).

Creating and re-designing training to be delivered via a virtual technology can be a daunting task. 

There are many details to be aware of and manage.  If you find yourself being overwhelmed, concentrate on these three things and you will more than ensure your success.

Why We Should Ban Cell Phones During Training Classes

Gloria Mark, of the University of California, Irvine, has shown that workers typically attend to a task for about three minutes before switching to something else (usually an electronic communication) and that it takes about 20 minutes to return to the previous task.

Source: Harvard Business Review, June 2015, Conquering Digital Distraction

No, You Cannot Replicate Your F2F Class Online...

What most organizations don't appreciate is that it is impossible to take a classroom-based class and replicate it online as it currently exists. They are two different delivery mediums which require two different instructional design techniques.

Too often organizations simply strive to replicate the classroom experience; so they use the same participant guides, the same slides and the same activities, which fall flat and/or fail to support the learning experience in an online class.

The 4 Learning Outcomes all Training is Trying to Achieve

The Four Levels of Learning

While this month's topic is not directly related to adult learning theory, it is important to understand in terms of designing learning for adults.

Learning progresses "up a ladder" of difficulty from knowledge -which is the easiest way to design and transmit learning - to changed behavior on the job, which is the hardest to achieve through a learning process.

Knowledge is firmly rooted in education.  It involves reading, lectures, and rote memorization.  It is helpful for providing baseline information, such as facts and rules, and is easy to design because it is simply a collection of information. A learner often can partake of knowledge without any professional intervention.

Psychomotor skills are a bit more complex because they involve teaching someone to physically manipulate something such as a cash register or a fork lift.  This type of instruction requires hands-on practice and a skilled instructor to demonstrate or coach appropriate behavior.  This type of training takes longer to design because it includes both information and skill, and it takes longer to teach because an instructor is often required, and practice time should be included.

Proceeding up the ladder of difficulty, critical thinking skills are significantly harder to teach because they require teaching someone to think in a different way. For instance, teaching a loan officer how to determine if someone is eligible for a loan, includes both facts and rules (knowledge) - and applying those to some type of standard -in order to make a decision.  Often, when teaching critical thinking, numerous scenarios must being practiced in order to have confidence that the learner will make the right decision no matter the variable stimuli.

Teaching critical thinking - within itself, can have many degrees of difficulty; from "easy" decision making  - such as whether or not to grant a loan, to life or death decision making such as performing surgery.  This type of learning process requires multiple exposures to information and situations (in other words, it takes longer to teach thinking skills) and is difficult to design in order to ensure that the trainee changes their thinking process permanently.

Finally, ultimately, the goal of training in the workplace is to get people to change their behavior on the job.  This requires actually leaving the training and helping people to transition their new knowledge and skills to their on-the-job responsibilities. That can take a few days to a few months - especially if you're organization intends to do a level three evaluation in order to determine if changed behavior actually has occurred.

Before designing any training program, assess what your desired outcome is (from the four categories above) and invest the appropriate amount of time necessary for both the design and the successful completion of the training.

Free Podcasts Related to Workforce Development!

Looking to expand your horizons and gain some knowledge in the management arena? The AMA (American Marketing Association) is a great resource for free podcasts. You can find short audios from industry leaders such as Dan Pink, Marcus Buckingham, and Alexandra Levit on such topics as Collaborative Methods for Moving Forward, Why Technology is Doing More Harm Than Good, and Harnessing the Next Generation Workforce. 

Learn more here! 

Training Tailored to Millennials? Really?

Here is an excerpt from a recent TrainingIndustry.com blog article which suggests ways to “empower Millennials to succeed” in the workplace.

Our question: How is this specific to Millennials? This is simply a list of best-practices for quality training….The millennial generation is focused on people and professional development. They want to learn and feel empowered to lead and help others.

Kyle Borchardt of Virtuali and PJ Neal of Harvard Business Publishing offer the following suggestions on how organizations can empower millennials to succeed:

• Instill leadership capabilities and a leadership mindset in millennials early in their careers, so they are ready to transition into more senior roles sooner.

• Deliver small, continuous learning experiences over a longer timespan to ensure the learning sticks.

• Have employees practice new skills on the job in combination with formal training programs.

• Encourage employees to reflect on learning experiences to increase knowledge retention and improve behavior change.

• Provide career coaching and mentorship opportunities customized to individuals.

How Organizations Set Themselves Up for Training to Fail

In the past year (2014), companies that wanted to do business with us asked us to do the following egregious activities in order to sabotage their own training effectiveness. These are the types of situations we don't want to be a part of:

Cutting time from the delivery process in order to save time and money. 

Many organizations think that the same learning outcomes can be achieved in less time if we could just whittle this class down by 3 hours.  In their minds, saving training time equates to saving money when organization's figure they are taking people away from their "real work" in order to attend training. But by not providing adequate time for training (and practice and coaching), people will inevitably make mistakes on the job which will cost money.

Cutting practice time out of the learning process so that participants are simply subjected to new content but have no ability to work with that content. 

Most individuals do not make the 'transfer of training' on their own. And in many cases it is impossible to go from learning-to-doing without a period of practice. How did you learn to drive a car? Classroom only? Did you watch a video? I remember helping my niece learn to drive; she had a "habit" of braking right at the stop sign rather than slowing down as she approached it. When I asked her why she said, "That's how I learned - you can't crash the simulator."

No interaction or collaboration.

Companies often rely solely on the delivery of information without any activity or collaboration among the learners, even though we know that adults learn best through collaboration and application of their learning with others. Yes, it might only take 25 minutes to teach the information / skill, but it takes another 60 minutes to "get it" while working with others in order to hear their perspective, practice, get feedback, etc. Try brainstorming as many uses for a brick as you can - by yourself; now try it with 3 other people. Point made.

No time for reflection.

Organizations that want their training delivered in one shot, by default exclude time for observation and reflection which is a key adult learning principle

Adults have a lot of "rules" in their heads and a lot of learned behaviors in terms of how they conduct their job. If we ask them to change those "rules", they need time to reflect on the ramifications of those changes - what's in it for me? is this a good thing or a bad thing? Will I have a better outcome in the long-run? etc.  A one-time training session does not allow for this critical need for processing information.

Happy with mediocre designs that sort-of get at the necessary learning. 

One client asked us to create "the best design possible," and then, during the design review said "This learning process is too long and we will never get participants to do the pre-work or on-the-job assignments, so cut out the parts that aren't critical" (if this was the best design possible, exactly what parts would not be critical?).

Cut topics to save time.

When redesigning training to accommodate less training time and people's busy schedules, organizations often cut topics or content from their training programs. Our question is: at what point did that particular piece of content become unnecessary? If it was relevant in the original design, how did it become irrelevant in the redesign?

Cut feedback.

One of our clients has an independent assignment which learners have a month to complete. In its original incarnation, that assignment was then graded by an expert and feedback was provided to the participants. It was entirely possible to fail and be requested to re-work the assignment.

In an attempt to save money the grading of the assignment was eliminated, which of course, trickled down to the learners asking, "Then what is the point of doing the assignment?" or "Why do a quality job?"

Training is both an art and a science. It is much more than providing information and saying "good luck with that!"  Transmission of information is only half the battle; in fact, it may only be 1/3 of the battle (with the other two-thirds being practice/collaboration and on-the-job application/coaching)!

If you want your organizational training efforts to succeed, please, don't fall victim to the missteps just discussed!

Tell us YOUR "fail" story here !https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XXMBCZX

Training Design with Adults in Mind

There are a few techniques you can use to make learning easier on your workplace learners:

Structure - helps learners to keep track of detail; give them an agenda to follow-along

• Known to unknown - Flying a plane to flying a helicopter

• Easy to difficult - Painting with a brush to painting with a roller to painting with a power painter

• Problem to solution - Getting lost to learning to read a map or compass

• Frequent to infrequent - Running weekly payroll to running monthly invoices to running yearly W-2's*

• Overview to detail - This is how government works to this is how an election is conducted

• Theoretical to practical (big picture to doing your job) - The importance of eating right to planning menus

• Order of importance or performance - Checking safety of machinery before operating it

• Steps in a sequence (chronological) - Filling out a form; validating customer information

• How participants would most likely interact with material - Teach blackjack by sitting at a blackjack  table, not reading a manual

Exercises - are very effective, unless...

• "Unusual" or complex exercises interfere with learning - learners may miss the point

• Adults don't like far-fetched or artificial exercises - respect their maturity

• Need some challenge (but not too much) - remember to keep the environment safe

• Stories-are "sticky" - stories help learners to remember. Anytime you are about to go in to lecture mode, ask yourself, "Is there a story I could tell that would illustrate this just as well?" and then, at the end of the story, ask your learners "So what is the moral of this story?" THAT is when the true learning comes about; give the audience time to process the point of the story and draw a conclusion - otherwise it was an interesting story that happened to somebody else.

Keep 'em active! - nobody sits for hours on end at the job - don't expect it in training either.