​Are you measuring training by the pound?

I’ll never forget the time I heard Elliot Masie, the man who coined the term “eLearning," discuss how learning and development professionals measure training. He said something to the effect of, “We might as well ask participants to step on a scale before they enter the training room. Then, each quarter, we can say we trained over 40 thousand pounds of participants.”

His point was that the way we traditionally measure training is useless. It’s typically measured in terms of number of participants who attended or even better, their level of entertainment during class. What’s completely missing is how much they’re learning and if they’re able to apply their learning. Isn’t that the point?
To build successful training, we continuously discover what leads to the best outcomes and tweak our programs accordingly. Here are a few tips to apply in ANY of your training programs:

1. Support the learners BEFORE and AFTER they come to the class. We encourage attendees to talk with their managers in advance about expectations on both sides. This lends itself to “build in” accountability up front. And, as part of the bookend approach, we send an email that encourages the attendee to recap their learning and explore future actions with his/her manager.
2. Let the information “marinate.” The best ideas often bubble up after new information has had time to “marinate.” Hence, one of our best practices is to send out content before formal classroom time. The learners enter the classroom with familiarity around the content, context on why a skill is valuable and a greater readiness to engage.
3. Personalize the content. Explain the overall theory or model, yet allow the learners to consider how it applies to them personally. Help them see how this new piece of knowledge will benefit them in their work.
4. Offer support for implementation. Spend time in the classroom discussing how attendees will apply these concepts on the job, including how to communicate their plan to their direct reports while mitigating any feelings of incompetence. Then follow up with an accountability call to find out what worked and didn’t work on the job.

 
The truth is, traditional training (e.g. attend a 1-2 day course) is simple and requires a low level of effort. However, if you are really invested in sustainable learning for your employees, you’ll need to rethink the Level of Effort (LOE) required for your trainers.
 
The shift that we’re seeing in companies is they’re moving from:

• learning events to learning programs
• formal learning to informal learning
• learn it once to learn it again and again

In order for these shifts to occur, trainers, will need to become “facilitators of learning” and support the learner through the entire process.

We’re curious to know how training is shifting in your organization. Let us know what’s working and what’s not. We invite you to join us on our quest to re-invent training for organizations.  

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