What happens after training?

Many readers will know my story of what brought me into coaching years ago - namely the question around boosting rates of transfer of training back to the workplace. As a manager and director who also wore a trainer's hat for my team, I consistently noticed how even with the best of intentions, the transfer of learning was never 100%. I continue to advocate for coaching, including group coaching, as a way to boost learner integration of these new skills and ideas. In fact, we've seen already this year in all of the projects I have led, how important group coaching is in what I call "keeping the learning alive" once people are back at work.

There was a great article recently published in the Guardian which focuses on the outcomes of a 3 year evaluation study by Knowledge Pool which analyzed the "transfer of learning to the workplace" and the impact on performance, of over 10,000 learners. You can read it here.

Here's what Kevin Lovell of Knowledge Pool writes,
"The results show that 69% of learners use what they learn and experience significant performance improvement from training. A further 6% don't use what they learn, yet they experience performance improvement anyway. 25% of learners doe not experience significant performance imprvement as a result of learning. Of these learners most also say that they did not use what they learn.

We can conclude, firstly, that a quarter of all training fails to deliver a significant performance improvement. Secondly, line manageer support to help learners use what they learn is a major factor in tackling the lack of performance improvement. The study found that where learners do receive line manager support, 94% go onto apply what they learn, and performance improvement invarably follows".

So, how are you engaging managers in the training and/or coaching work you are doing? What do you notice about the transfer of learning - do you see it as high within the industries, sectors and locations you work in? How are you "keeping the learning alive"?

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to post below.

Have a great week
Jenn

Jennifer Britton
Author of Effective Group Coaching
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com