How well is your training transferring to the workplace?

As companies rely more and more on their team’s knowledge, skills and abilities; we have to ask: How well is your training transferring to the workplace?

Here is the scenario:  You have just spent $1200 per employee for learning and development training.  Your company spent time to develop the course, somewhere between 40-80 hours, for one hour of instructor-led training.  

Your team spent time away from their jobs to obtain the training; factoring in employee wages and productivity losses. You send them off into the workplace hoping they learned something they can use in their day to day activities as part of your team.  Was it worth it?

How do you measure the success of the training?  Your employees have a certificate proving they attended the training, a nice addition to their employee file, but did they walk away with new knowledge that they can use?  Did they retain anything that was covered in the training?

The time it takes to develop a training program is often an overlooked factor in training budgets.  However, developing a course and training structure that will enable employees to utilize what they learned in the workplace to increase their productivity, is profoundly important.

With the advent of E-Learning, Social Learning, and MOOCs, training seems to have gone mobile and organizations are using this method at an increasing rate.  According to a report by the Association for Talent Development, technology-based training methods accounted for 39 percent of the training methods employed for learning and development.

The great feature of E-Learning, and a well-developed training program, is the ability to deliver the training anywhere, anytime, and in smaller bite-sized chunks.  The key to retention is delivering engaging training, in smaller segments that can be accessed anytime allowing for repeatability and reference.

When your team is able to go back and repeat a difficult segment of the training or reference that section at a later date during the workday, the retention and utilization of the training is transferred to the workplace.

KnowledgeCity.com is an online education company that specializes in helping businesses stay ahead of the curve by offering online training courses. Our courses are designed with training retention in mind. Take a look at our Business, Computer Software, and Safety courses.  Try the first lesson in any course for free.