How to make training stick
A lot of senior leaders look at training as a big hole that you pour money down, which is why in times of tight finances they tend to cancel it all. It doesn't have to be that way, you can train people and trace the benefit directly, and behavioural science can help you do that.
A brand-new study led by Durham University1 and based on 91 peer reviewed articles has simplified and codified what makes training stick. Matt Furness has done a brilliant job of summarising it, hit him up for the document and say hi while you’re at it. Here’s our version.
3 key areas:
1.??????? The audience
2.??????? Design and delivery method
3.??????? Wider environment ?
Within these simple areas are many factors, (they’re expanded on below), none of them will be surprising, it’s all common sense. The reason it’s difficult to create the best conditions for L&D to stick are mostly external drivers from the wider business - get a good deal within budget, we need to show progress within this quarter, don’t take too much time out of operational productivity etc.
All these factors are real and sometimes immovable, however there are small tweaks you can do to increase the chances of results, as follows:
Area 1- Audience
It will be of no surprise that a major factor in how well the training will stick is the people attending the training. Are they motivated to learn, are they present and have time to give to this new learning? Often a programme will put people through on a sheep-dip basis, everyone gets dunked regardless of personal choice and we move on to the next batch. However, even the most basic of selection filter will increase your yield per $ spend, and the timewasters who were never going to do anything but sit on their phone the whole time are better off doing their day job. ?
Another strong factor here is to consider piloting training then growing from there, patience does increase the success of programmes overall. What happens here is innovators and early adopters have a chance to get in and do a good job of making the best of training, potentially adding iteration to area 2 formats along the way. Then once the early and late majority are heading towards training there is evidence in their workplace already. We can just forget about the laggards; it’s probably going to be impossible to get them to turn up anyway!
Area 2 - Design and delivery method
Here are a few key things to design with in mind:
-??????????? A full-time working person can only accept a certain amount of new information at a time, training of any volume should be spaced out to give the learning a chance to embed.
-??????????? There are intentional pre-training activities, homework, recaps, surveys.
-??????????? There needs to be assessment, spray and pray does not work.
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-??????????? A blend of individual and group work increases efficacy.
-??????????? Training deliberately links to the attendee’s day job, preferably in the form of a case study or project.
-??????????? Trainers are on hand for coaching between training sessions.
-??????????? Technology is used to enhance/support.
Area 3 - Wider environment
This is the simplest, and the most vital. From our experience it’s a binary situation here. Either you have this and training sticks well, or you don’t, and success is low. It’s very simple and often out of the control of whomever is organising the training, the People and Culture dept for example. It is however worth strategizing how to influence the environment here, learning is more likely to stick:
1.??????? If people feel their manager and organisation supports their learning.
Our experience here is that if a person’s boss, manager, or even co-workers show a passing interest in what they are doing on a course, it increases the scores in their assessment at the end, and the work-based project success afterwards. If you’re in People and Culture and you have externals running training, it’s powerful for you to talk to the leaders of people on the course and ask if they’ve checking in on how people are finding it.
So what?
What this all tells us is that any L&D project is best designed in collaboration.
1.??????? Get buyers to consider area 1 and 3 factors
2.??????? Work with suppliers to mould towards ideal area 2 factors
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1?Hamzah, H. A., Marcinko, A. J., Stephens, B., & Weick, M. (2024). Making soft skills ‘stick’: a systematic scoping review and integrated training transfer framework grounded in behavioural science. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 1-14.
Managing Director & Entrepreneur
2 个月David I agree with your sheep dip comments wholeheartedly and there are few things worse than attending training where other delegates have been mandated to attend but have no interest and don’t really participate. They attend but don’t participate and this just sucks the energy and enthusiasm out of the training room. The thing is often leaders know who these people are because that’s how they participate/ don’t participate in day to day business. Their behaviours don’t face any consequences in some organisations which perpetuates their behaviour.