The (Not So) Sticky Issue with Training
Fall -- the unofficial end of summer and back-to-school season. Many of us are already thinking about learning, even if we don’t have school-aged children, as buses join commutes and school supplies take over stores. It’s also a good time to check in on professional learning and development. Leaders are multipliers of impact – and providing access to knowledge, skills, and tools through training is a common way leaders attempt to equip their teams to perform, grow and thrive at work.
Development as professionals and as human beings means life-long learning. When we think of learning, we often turn to traditional training to improve knowledge and job proficiency. More, and more, leaders are also deploying training to address the development power skills. This apt term, coined in Udemy’s 2022 Workplace Learning Trends Report, are the behavioral traits, formerly known as “soft skills,” that are essential for success at any level within today’s workplace. Cultivating the skills of effective leaders, empathetic teammates, and inclusive, well-rounded businesses where people actually want to work, is now seen as the way to win in the marketplace.
Logically speaking, a strong training program centered on developing power skills should increase these capabilities in your workforce. Among our clients, demands for power skills training have increased by 10-fold. But, proceed with caution.
The road to power skills is paved with good intentions. Companies spend an average of 16% of their budget on training. Great, right? Unfortunately, no. Those well-intended training sessions are often lacking in impact. Nearly half of all employees are dissatisfied with the training programs offered to them. Not only are the learners less than satisfied, leaders and managers don’t see the knowledge transfer from training to application on the job. At The Axela Group, we hear it all the time: “Training is expensive, time-consuming, and there’s no ROI!”
Training doesn’t have to be a sunk cost. Avoid these sticky issues that keep organizations from getting the most out of their training investment:
Sticky Issue #1: The Disconnect
Disconnect happens when training doesn’t clearly link to the company mission, goals or values. To tip the scales in favor or more effective and impactful training, make sure that there is a strong connection from the training objectives to organizational values, goals and, to the employee’s individual job.
To prevent disconnect, ask yourself some core questions before buying, creating, or delivering training:
Is it a training issue?
Many times, we make the assumption that training will address insufficient performance, when in reality there may be multiple root causes for poor performance. Things like a lack of process robustness, an employee’s lack of buy-in, or culture and systemic barriers to effectiveness are common reasons that results don’t meet expectations.
When results are related to these root causes, it’s not a training issue. Training is not a change strategy that will improve processes, change hearts and minds, or shift culture. A needs analysis with specific interventions is more likely to serve you over training in these cases.
What are the outcomes I want to achieve?
Having measurable, concrete goals gives direction and purpose to training. We can use distinct objectives to tie training back to our organizational results and to how each person contributes to them. Clear goals, such as those following the SMART format, also satisfy the needs of adult learners, who are more likely to engage with and implement training if they think it has an immediate application.
When training doesn’t clearly connect to the organizational goals, the issue you’re trying to address, or the outcomes you want to achieve, we create flash-in-the-pan scenarios – or one-hit-wonders. Our teams might find a training engaging or even interesting, but momentum fizzles once instruction ends.
Sticky Issue #2: The Band-Aid
Another common professional development downfall: Band-Aids. Training Band-Aids are reactionary, quick-fixes without real substance or sustainability plan. While it’s true that some situations require a rapid training response, training without a thoughtful, long-term plan is most likely a dreaded Band-Aid. These trainings tend to emerge in response to serious workplace issues like:
Communication and accountability issues.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Harassment and sexual harassment.
Band-Aid trainings merely cover up wounds. They attempt to placate employees who feel wronged and can give leadership false security.
Unlike disconnected trainings, Band-Aid trainings can be truly dangerous, regardless of their design. Serious, workplace issues often require policy and structural changes to address the root cause. For example, training on harassment will not produce change if the problem stems from toxic company culture. In addition, avoiding training Band-aids means focusing on quality, not quantity. Frequent, but shallow and poorly executed band-aid trainings can lead to information overload and dilute important topics.
Sticky Issue #3: Poor Follow Through
Finally, training must include a plan for sustainability. Sustainability ensures you get the best returns on your investment by tracking retention a week, a month, and a year after instruction ends.
Follow-through is closely related to the first two sticky issues: Disconnects and Band-Aids. Without giving employees a way to operationalize new knowledge, even training that is designed and delivered well can fall flat.
Any number of measures can help track training effectiveness and implementation, including:
Clear action plans for application of new skills with accountability checks.
Inclusion of application of new skills in development plans and performance reviews.
Sharing new learning with team members in “teach-back” or “lunch and learn” sessions
Sales data or customer satisfaction.
Organizational effectiveness and culture surveys
Quiz or exam scores.
Experiment documentation and peer coaching circles.
These are just a few ideas – the key message is building a sustainability plan into training creates a pathway for participants to enact what they learn, link it to their job and the organizational mission, and create new habits.
Use SCAN™ to Assess Needs and Identify an Approach that Fits
Our SCAN™ framework is one way we assess our clients’ unique needs, and we’ve made it available to help you think through the best way to look a little deeper when your first inclination is to turn to training. The first two steps, See and Consider, can help you see the current state, envision what you want the future to look like and consider different alternatives, so your intervention prevents training Band-Aids and disconnects. Then, the second half of the process, Adapt and Next Level, is designed to empower you and your teams your employees to iterate, reflect, and look forward within and beyond the training. This approach ensures that we’re providing solutions that meet your employees where they are, provides a clear framework for growth, and creates adaptable, long-term solutions.
Training will always require investments of time and money. When you choose to invest in training make sure it:
Connects to your mission, your values and your employee
Truly addresses the root of the issue (don't just cover it up with a Band Aid).
Leads to impact and results by implementing sustaining measures.
Taking a step back to SCAN™ your situation and consider all your options can help clean up those sticky issues. and help you hold training that really does stick.
But refocusing training on mission-driven goals means the ROI will deliver value back to key stakeholders, including customers, shareholders and employees for years to come.