Ensuring learning is applied
Regular readers will know that 3C focuses heavily on measuring the Return on Investment in Training. A current client project is looking at how the learning from a basic finance for business course is applied in practice. The client wants to understand…
How Learning is Applied in Practice
Reviewing the course material with the people who developed and deliver it we learnt…
- The programme was developed by two members of the client's finance team
- The programme includes understanding how to read the company's own accounts
- How the company's management accounts are put together
- How the different areas of the business impact the figures in the management accounts
- The programme is full of real examples from the business, and includes practical exercises
- Feedback from the day is tremendously positive, comments included ‘I expected to be bored, but really enjoyed it!'
- The programme is mandatory for all staff – ideally in the first year of their employment
Overall a great programme.
We interviewed some delegates in the weeks after they had completed the course. What we discovered here was that many had not made the final connection between what they learned, and their daily role.
Making The Connection..........
This is a frequent challenge for those designing and delivering training – how do you ensure participants make the connection between what they learn and what they do? On the surface it seems obvious, yet in practice it can be very difficult. For example, if I work in HR, how does what I do affect the bottom line of the business? What is it that I learn on a Finance programme that will help me add to the bottom line in some way?
Many programmes use the Action Plan at the end of the day to encourage people to apply learning in practice, however, this can often be too late. Throughout a training programme – whether classroom training, phone training or self directed training – it is critical to design in the connections .
Be Specific
Since the connections may be different for each participant, this can be demanding on the trainer. Questions such as,
- How does this knowledge change your approach?
- Where can this skill make a difference?
- In which part of your role will a different attitude have the most impact?
- What specifically can you do to use what you have learnt to help the organisation meet its goals?
If answers are woolly or very generalised – ‘I'll try to be more efficient' - then the learning is not truly absorbed, and the impact on the business is likely to be low.
In the case of the finance programme, we discussed some very simple additions to the programme which included
- Ensuring each delegate could identify where their personal costs and impact to the business showed in the accounts
- What actions each delegate could take to improve their overall contribution to the business bottom line no matter how small.
The client could see that these and other small additions would enable participants to really make the connection between themselves, the learning and the business.
Future feedback and monitoring of the programme will include specific elements to measure how much connection delegates have made.
