Focused, applied and embedded. Three Musketeers when comes to optimising performance through skill development.

Let’s be honest, we’ve all done it. We’ve rocked up to a training course. In a lovely venue, perhaps an old country house. By mid-morning we are buzzing, this is great. You rave about it over a delicious lunch with your colleagues and are bursting at the seems when the course ends.

Then something peculiar happens. On the way back to the car park, there is a leak. The value starts to be lost. The drive and enthusiasm starts to slip. No matter, you’ll get back in the office tomorrow and use your new skills for definite. Alas…tomorrow is busy, Carol needs you on a project. Then the day after an irate customer saps all your time. By the end of the week, you are starting to forget what the training course was all about.

You are not alone. According to the former BBC HR Director Lucy Adams up to 80% of training is forgotten in just 30 days. (1) That is a little eye watering. What a colossal waste of money and effort. Training budgets are already tight, to see this sort of loss is like watching a leaking tap.

Fortunately, there are 3 ways this problem can be tackled.

Focused

The effectiveness of training begins with what is it being focused on. Too often it can turn into a nice to have or a vague understanding of outcomes. This is partly resolved by using a thorough training needs analysis (TNA) to assess gaps and requirements. But this does not necessarily ensure that the investment in the training will be targeted for what it is to be focused on. In-fact according to a report by Shift learning 90% of training is designed without a well-defined strategy that facilitates it. (2)

Applied

The training needs to be applied at job role level. How is it to be used, and on what tasks? This allows a true measure of effectiveness. But a word of caution, this should start small or it becomes too complicated. Employees need the time to ensure they are going to be able to apply and as with a culture of continuous improvement introduce the skills gradually.

Once the skills are in the employees job role, the focus moves to the business objective. Where does the business want to improve performance? How can the enhanced skill be allocated to achieving an objective. All businesses consist of multiple objectives. Training which does not help achieve a business achieve an objective is missing substantial value.

The application of skills to solve a business objective makes it far easier to justify the investment in improving performance and as the objective makes the business more effective any savings can be used to pay for it.

Embedded

Ensuring that there is a legacy from a concerted effort to improve performance through skill development is a forgotten backwater. Too often it is assumed that employees have the training, so why do we need to embed it? Put simply humans are creatures of habit, it takes a little effort to ensure that the new skills are actually being used in the business. This underlines an approach which really challenges and justifies an investment in improving performance through skill development, removing the ‘walk in the car park’ problem and ensuring that the intervention is sustainable.

Now, we have to be careful as businesses do not have endless time to do this. But short and regular sessions can assess performance rather than an assumption that no news is good news and the training has been effective. The acid test will be, has the business objective for which the investment in improving performance through skill development was introduced been achieved? It is much easier if the skills that are being used can be qualified through embedding. And there is much room for improvement. The Institute for Transfer Effectiveness reports that only 20% of what is learned in training?programs will be applied in practice. (3)

At Sara Penrose Ltd we work closely with our clients to identify what their business objectives are around quality, efficiency and growth. This is part of our consultancy process to discover how our clients wish to improve performance. This is very much a two-way process to tease out the exact area of focus. ?

A key step in our optimisation training programme is to apply the skills once they have been developed. We work with delegates to create a skills application plan, identifying their job role and where they can use the skills. Finally, when it comes to embedding we hold prompt 1 to 1 online sessions with the delegates, reviewing their skill application plans to ensure the skills are in the business and being used to solve the business objectives.

So, don’t tolerate waste. Don’t have all the excitement and proactiveness of a training programme, only for much of the value to be lost. Protect your investment, achieve your business objective and have more engaged and committed employees in the meantime.

1.?????BBC

2.?????Shift Learning

3.?????Institute for Transfer Effectiveness

John Henderson – Co-founder and Director

Sara Penrose Ltd

Optimising performance through skill development

www.sarapenrose.co.uk

? Sara Penrose Ltd 2023