Every year organizations waste time, money and resources
on employee development. Why
Tim Connor
Most employee training & development that
doesn’t last more than a few days or weeks. Here is a process, strategy and
approach that will guarantee a huge return on your employee development
investment. Guaranteed.
Keep in mind that the overall program is over
25 pages – what I have given you here is a brief overview and summary of this
process. Please keep in mind that this
is copyrighted material. If you would
like the complete process – it’s free – shoot me an email.
What follows may appear to be a lengthy process, but if your organization
invests over $100,000 a year in employee training OR none – I guarantee it will
be well worth your while and will change your perception of this vital topic in
a positive way.
I have been in the training business for over
35 years. During that time, I have had
tens of thousands of people in my audiences and training programs and I can
tell you that one of my biggest frustrations during my career is knowing that a
very small percentage of people (less than 5%) who are exposed to employee
development programs apply and integrate what they learn over the long
term. Companies invest millions of
dollars a year in employee development and what do they have to show for
it? Yes, many organizations have very
sophisticated measurement devices, follow-up programs and accountability
systems, but I believe these are in the minority.
There are many factors that determine whether
an employee will learn, understand, embrace and apply new knowledge and
skills. Some of these can be controlled
by the organization, but many are the results of an employee’s beliefs,
expectations, mindsets, attitudes and agendas which can’t be controlled by the
training entity whether an outside outsourced firm or an in-house training
department.
Effective employee development programs must be
more than just putting 100 people in a room for a day and expecting them to
change approaches or modify behaviors after just a few hours of exposure to new
information.
Over the years, as a result of extensive study
and research, I have developed a unique training process and approach that can
be described as “curriculum based training” rather than short term or
transaction focused development. Essentially
it involves four stages or levels of development and each of these will be
described later in this document in further detail. They are:
-The awareness level.
-The understanding level
-The integration level
-The mastery level
If you want your employee investment to return itself
several times over, the only guaranteed way to accomplish this is by ensuring
that any training initiative takes the participants completely through a minimum
of the first three stages.
Let me repeat - If you want a positive return
on your training investment it is vital that you have a programmed learning
strategy and approach and not a quick fix philosophy.
But first, here’s the problem. Due to any number of restraints organizations
find it challenging to provide the right environment, material and approach to
learning. There are logistical issues
where employees are spread across the country, even around the world. There are financial constraints where there
are many other areas of the business where money spent elsewhere would yield
far better return on investment. And,
there are management mindsets that restrict learning due to their shallow
beliefs about its value or benefits versus the investment.
During every economic decline in the past 100
years the most successful companies that sustained even grew successfully had
policies and approaches to maintain even increase their employee development
budget. As a result, they survived and
even prospered during these challenging times and beyond.
Your employees are your most important asset
and resource. What good does it do to
have the latest technology, tools, products or services if your employees are
under a great deal of stress or are de-motivated due to management approaches
or policies, corporate culture, constant and increasing change or uncertain
future economic factors? Believe me, you
can have the latest and greatest toys, software, products and services, but if
your employees lack the creativity, initiative, motivation, skills, attitudes
and empowerment necessary for effective performance - I’ll guarantee that these
resources will be underutilized.
There are two ways to educate, train or develop
employees.
-The transactional approach
-The curriculum approach
Let’s take a brief look at both.
The transactional approach -
A transaction is a single event, a onetime
interaction or a short-term approach.
Let me give you an example. Let’s
say you send your customer service representatives to a half day seminar on how
to improve customer relations and increase repeat business. These people are exposed to appropriate and
valuable material for a few hours with little interaction or participation. They sit there all morning – and learn. After lunch, they head back to work dealing
with many of the routine customer issues that the training was designed to help
them with.
Now I ask you, if a person has spent ten,
twenty or even only five years developing mindsets, attitudes, habits,
routines, approaches do you think they are going to permanently change these
because of a four-hour seminar? Not
going to happen.
The curriculum approach –
A curriculum philosophy is a longer-term
process where there are ongoing gradual incremental increases of information
that is covered as well as some form reinforcement, coaching, inspection and/or
accountability.
Let me give you an example. If you took algebra when you were in high
school, how did you learn it? Let’s say
after your first 45-minute class on the topic of algebra the teacher gave you
your final exam. Would you pass? Of course not. How do you learn algebra so that after three
months of classes, three times a week you could pass the final exam?
Goes like this: Class,
homework, next class two days later you discuss the homework, then new material
followed by homework on the new material. Two days later the process
continues. Three months later, you pass
the exam. Now, let’s apply this to a
corporate learning situation.
Put your salespeople through a one-day training
seminar on how to close more sales (the transaction approach) and then send
them on their way. They might improve
their ability to close for a few days or weeks, but I’ll guarantee that two
months later if you gave them the final exam on closing more sales most of them
would fail it.
See the difference?
As I said earlier, most organizations are
unwilling or believe they are unable to take the curriculum approach to
employee development, but they still expect the people to pass their exams – in
this case keep on closing more business without any reinforcement, inspection
or accountability other than end of the month sales reports and feedback on the
results only and not the material that they learned earlier. So, what’s the best answer? Understand the learning process then
implement it into your employee development strategy. For example – read the
following. A brief overview as to why people learn, change or adapt or why they
don’t.
Over the years I have struggled with why people will sit
through a learning experience, pay attention, be engaged and act as if they
accept the material being shared will help them in some way in their career or
life and then do nothing with the learning or follow-through with action.
What contributes to this lack of application? Is it intent, dysfunction or internal
resistance to change or some other factor?
People learn when they are ready, but what exactly does
this mean? I know, during my career I
have participated in many career development programs, some for up to three
days, and applied little or none of what I learned even though while I was
sitting there listening I kept saying to myself, “I can use this idea, this is
great, this is just what I need to move to the next level of effectiveness and
performance.”
Any employee development program to have long term success
must be curriculum based so in the section that follows I will cover why some
of these techniques when integrated and included in any training program still
fail to achieve the desired results.
Although the human mind is an extremely complicated device
there are certain behaviors that can be understood and predicted if you are
aware of general mindsets and pay attention to common internal, external and
conditioned beliefs as well as how experiences contribute to a person’s actions
or lack of them.
The outcome of any training should be improved
performance, effectiveness or changed behaviors or attitudes. If these are not accomplished, the training
served no purpose.
Let me summarize this section before we move
on.
-Everyone’s brain is wired to handle an
unlimited amount of information.
-Everyone is capable of learning new skills,
behaviors or attitudes.
-People tend to behave consistent with what
they believe about themselves.
-People’s mindsets more than anything else
determines what they will learn and accept.
-Everyone has a perceptual filter that is
filled with a lot of personal garbage that prevents accepting new concepts
ideas etc.
-The unconscious mind is a storage device
only. It doesn’t judge, it accepts
everything without prejudice.
-If people are not exposed to new ideas,
information or concepts they will never be able to use any of this
information.
-Most people go through life in auto-pilot and
spend very little time in the emotional present.
The four learning strategies;
-The awareness level.
At this level of learning employees have an
awareness only of techniques, tactics, skills and approaches to be more
effective in their roles. However, they
lack the clarity and understanding to embrace the learning in a way that will
allow them to put the information into practice in an effective way and for the
long term. At this level, behavior will
not change and you will have essentially wasted corporate resources and the
employee’s time. They will be alert and attentive during any training session,
but will lack the knowledge necessary to know how, where, when and why to use
this new information. The awareness
level can be described as sharing information only.
-The understanding level
At the understanding level, employees get
it. They see the relationship between
the information they have learned and its value, but they still lack the
ability to apply what they have learned to their roles and responsibilities.
-The integration level
Knowledge if it is not used applied or
integrated into current mindsets, activities, responsibilities or approaches is
essentially useless information. Without
a doubt, the biggest challenge in any training initiative is to ensure that the
new learning is used and used whenever and wherever appropriate for the long term. Applying new knowledge for the short-term
only generally occurs when the curriculum approach is used.
-The mastery level
Mastery is the highest form of knowledge
applied. This is where wisdom becomes
the standard for learning and skill and attitude development. Mastery occurs when knowledge becomes wisdom
and wisdom is utilized at every opportunity when the situation or circumstance
warrants. Very few participants in a
training session for a number of reasons that we have already discussed achieve
this level of knowledge or information application. Generally speaking people who achieve mastery
in their chosen field or endeavor have made mastery their goal and they have
followed through with discipline, persistence and planning.
Let me close with the seven laws of learning;
To achieve long term positive employee
development training results, it is vital that you follow the following laws of
learning and requirements.
1. All
discovery is self-discovery.
2. People all learn at different rates.
3. People all have unique learning styles.
4. People learn when they are ready to learn
not when you need them to learn.
5. People who are experiencing a great deal of
stress or tension will fail to learn what you want them to and when you want
them to.
6. If material is not presented in a way that
is comfortable for the person’s personality style they will fail to integrate
the skills, techniques or attitudes into their roles and responsibilities.
7. Everyone’s personal perceptions either
contributes to or sabotages their ability to learn, grasp and apply new
concepts, ideas and information.
The ten training requirements.
Here are the ten requirements to ensure that
any employee development program is effective for the long term.
- The program must engage the participants and can't be a one-way dialog
or approach.
- The program must permit the employees to practice while they are
learning.
- The program must allow time for group interaction in small discussion
groups to talk about specific applications to their roles and
responsibilities and their challenges and opportunities.
- The program must allow adequate time for questions and practical
discussions.
- The program must take into consideration that everyone learns in
different ways. Some people need to
hear it while others need to speak and some need time to process the
information at a reasonable pace.
- The program must take into consideration the ‘real world’ issues that
the participants deal with on a routine daily basis.
- The material must be reinforced in a variety of ways.
- The learning must be periodically inspected to ensure that the learned
skills are being implemented and used where and when appropriate.
- Management must participate in the actual learning so they know what
their employees are learning. Without
this knowledge, it is impossible for them to coach, inspect and hold
people accountable over time.
- The program must provide opportunities for everyone to develop personal
ownership of the material.
