Facilitate learning transfer and application

Citation

Terry, R. (2009), "Facilitate learning transfer and application", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 8 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/shr.2009.37208fab.003

Facilitate learning transfer and application

Article Type: How to … From: Strategic HR Review, Volume 8, Issue 6

Practical advice for HR professionals

Robert TerryManaging Director of ASK Europe.

In the modern age, competitive advantage derives mainly from human capital – the skills, know-how, creativity and performance of an organization’s employees. However, research indicates that return on investment in training and development is notoriously poor – as low as 4 percent. In attempting to address this issue, most organizations look first to re-visit course design or delivery. But the inability of most training to create significant measurable improvement in workplace performance is more likely to be caused by a failure to transfer and apply new learning in the workplace – learning transfer – rather than by the shortcomings of the learning experience itself.

For almost six years, research has been undertaken in the US by learning technologists, The Fort Hill Company, and in the UK by behavioral change specialists, ASK, to find a solution to the problem of poor learning transfer. This research has identified several key reasons for failure, as well as the following steps for tackling them.

Step 1. Training intervention design should focus on business, not learning, outcomes

The purpose of learning is not just to help trainees know or understand more than before; unless the training helps them to understand what their new knowledge, skills and behaviors should achieve, it serves them – and their organization – poorly. Learning outcomes should be defined in terms of the business, as well as the trainee. This has the added benefit that training evaluation then measures the actual business benefits of the training, allowing training providers to be rewarded for outcomes rather than just their inputs.

Step 2. There must be appropriate investment in activities outside the classroom

An equal amount should be spent on transfer and application as on classroom activities. This is not, on the face of it, a typical revolutionary call to arms, but one with seismic consequences for an industry that is structured, equipped and practiced in the delivery of learning objectives rather than business outcomes. Learning can be achieved in a few hours in a classroom, but changing behavior can take months and occurs mainly in the workplace.

Step 3. Ensure the learning process doesn’t end when the course or workshop is over

The real “finishing line” comes many months later when the business outcomes have been achieved. Maintaining telephone or online contact with the learner throughout the transfer and application period – lasting a minimum of 13 weeks, but potentially as long as a year – and using coaching techniques to support them helps the learner (and their organization) to get most benefit from the training.

Step 4. Put a post-training support infrastructure in place

Ensure that, on return to the workplace, there is a support infrastructure that keeps objectives from the training front of mind, provides additional learning opportunities and monitors progress. New tools and techniques have been developed that support learners during this critical transfer and application phase. Combining telephone-based learner support with follow-through technology provides a service that extends and complements the learning experience, tracks the rate of application of new learning, invigorates line manager involvement and measures the effectiveness of training – and does so at a fraction of the cost of one additional day’s training.

Step 5. Involve line managers in supporting learners

Line managers are potentially the most influential players in the transfer and application activity. It is vital, despite competing priorities, that they support their colleagues post training. Line managers have a role to play, not only in encouraging, mentoring or coaching learners, but in ensuring that barriers to change in the workplace don’t encourage the learner to backslide into old habits. By providing space and time for support activities, they can also actively help new behaviors to be embedded rather than abandoned. Rewarding and recognizing improvements is also important, and easily overlooked.

The challenge is to transform an industry built around an educational “sprint” into one that can support the behavioral change “marathon.” All parties are equally complicit – trainers, buyers, line managers and even senior executives each play their part in providing excellent learning opportunities, and should all place sufficient emphasis on transfer and application to ensure maximum benefit is gained. In this way, businesses will continue to profit and gain, even in the most challenging times. A new approach that enhances established classroom skills by combining the best of new technology with the traditional strengths of coaching can’t make good training out of bad, but it can turn good training into great workplace performance.

About the author

Robert Terry, is Managing Director and founder of behavioral consultancy, ASK Europe. Following a degree in Economics and a scholarship in the Royal Air Force where he trained as a pilot, he obtained a Masters in Business Administration at Cranfield Business School and has since gained over 20 years’ experience in research and consultancy. He is the former Chief Executive of the Adam Smith Institute, the liberal market policy think tank. Robert Terry can be contacted at: robert.terry@askeurope.com