Build a Better Training Program: Why Programs Fail
This post is Part 2 in the three-part series Building a Better Training Program. Go back to Part 1 or read Part 3.
Image courtesy of Lumaxart
Last week, I discussed how to measure the effectiveness of training programs. Today, I’ll talk about why programs fail and what you can do about it.
Defining Failure
How do you define failure for a training program? Ask ten trainers and you may get ten different answers. My definition: Any training that doesn’t influence participant behavior or enhance performance.
The only reason an organization conducts a training program should be to influence behavior - use a new system, provide better customer service, more effectively manage employees, and so on. It’s not enough for participants to simply know something new. If they’re not doing anything with that knowledge, your training isn’t working.
If you want to go even further, you can ask if the behaviors your training influences actually improve performance for the individual, team or organization? If not, your training may not even be necessary. Remember, HR exists to motivate employees to behave in ways that drive organizational results.
Why Your Training Program Isn’t Working
If, by my definition, your training program is failing, there are two possible causes:
- Your training program itself needs to be modified.
- You’ve incorrectly diagnosed what’s causing the performance gap.
Conducting a Needs Assessment
Before conducting a training, you should have identified a performance gap or need that led you to create or bring in the training program. If your training isn’t improving individual, team or organizational results, you may have incorrectly identified a need.
The most obvious possibility is that the people aren’t actually lacking the knowledge or skills at all, but rather don’t have the right resources, don’t fully understand their role expectations, or lack the motivation. Or, maybe they actually do need to learn a new skill, but not the one you’ve identified.
At any rate, your first step when dealing with a training that’s not working is to determine whether or not you’ve identified the correct cause of performance gap. If you think you have, then it’s time to reevaluate the training program itself.
Your Training Program Needs Tweaking
Most people are resistant to change, particularly at work. There are a handful of reasons why:
- They don’t see a problem with the current way of doing things.
- They disagree with what you’ve identified as a problem.
- They’re afraid they won’t be able to meet their new performance expectations.
- They don’t identify with the new team/organizational goals or outcomes.
- They feel invalidated. This is particularly true if a skill that they used to hold a quasi-monopoly on is now common place, and their talents are no longer unique or are less valuable.
The reasons are varied, but they do share one thing in common: They’re all rooted in the Five Sources of Motivation.
Where to Start?
Image courtesy of Lumaxart
Evaluate Your Program
If you haven’t done so yet, conduct a training program evaluation to determine where on the scale of criteria your program falls short. Are employees enjoying it? If so, are they learning anything? Are they putting that learning to use? And if so, is it impacting results?
This knowledge will save you a lot of time when you go to redesign your program.
Making Changes
Eventually, you’re going to have to make some changes. If employees aren’t enjoying the program, they won’t be engaged and probably won’t learn much. Make sure your training is fun and interactive. For more tips on how to do this, check out my article on giving better presentations.
If they enjoy it but aren’t learning anything, there may be a few different issues going on. You may be teaching them something they already know, in which case you should revisit your gap analysis. Or maybe you’re teaching them something too complex and you need to simplify the concepts to make them easier to digest.
Where most trainings get stuck, though, is transferring knowledge into behavior. I mentioned that the biggest reasons why employees don’t adopt new behaviors are often all rooted in the Five Sources of Motivation. The easiest way to correct this problem is to make sure you’re motivating people to change their behaviors with as many sources as possible.
It may help to have some instrumental motivation in the form of spot awards or bonuses tied to exhibiting the new behaviors. You should be mindful that whatever changes you’re looking for don’t invalidate your employees - this may require coaching employees on how to adopt the new behaviors so that you set them up for success. If the change is drastic, it may actually benefit both you and the employee if you modified certain individuals’ roles or moved them into new job functions.
Through open communication (not just giving employees information, but engaging them in conversation), you can gain substantial buy-in on the new direction you’re heading in or goal you’re trying to meet. And as much as is reasonably possible, making the new behavior somewhat enjoyable helps, too.
One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is understanding where in the change process your employees are. It’s crucial that you target your training to your audience, and I’ll be discussing that in much more detail in Part 3.
Have you ever had to make changes to a training program that wasn’t working? Share what you’ve learned with other readers in the comments section below!
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