Graham Glass is the founder & CEO of CYPHER LEARNING, which specializes in providing learning platforms for organizations around the world.
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Content, consultants, technology and time are just some of the expenditures going into the more than $90 billion that U.S. companies spent on training in 2021. That staggering amount shows just how much training is needed to supply the right knowledge and skills in the face of change and uncertainty. That’s also why it’s a huge disappointment when training programs don’t succeed.
As a former trainer and an e-learning specialist, I’ve seen many companies disappointed with their previous training results—so much so that they planned to scale back their training efforts and focus resources elsewhere. My immediate question to them was: If a product launch falls short of expectations, do you quit launching anything ever again?
Of course not. So with training, too, you find ways to do it better, unless you want to miss the many benefits that training offers—increased job satisfaction and lower employee turnover being at the top of the list. When faced with a training initiative that didn’t go as planned, the best approach is to retrace your steps and answer a few questions:
• What were you trying to solve in the first place?
• How did you try to solve the problem? Which type of training did you choose?
• How did you assess training results?
I’ll let you in on a secret: The issue can usually be tied back to the first question. Everything you do in training—including the delivery method and evaluation—boils down to identifying the right skills to teach or the right behaviors to change. Pick the wrong ones, and training could fail or, more likely, not achieve its intended results.
As in many other business areas, not knowing what you don’t know has major consequences for a company’s training initiatives. So arming yourself with knowledge about what training can and can’t do can help you avoid many headaches later on. Here are four reasons why corporate training fails.
1. You expect training to fix everything.
Training is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Training, by definition, helps employees acquire new knowledge and skills and achieve behavioral changes. That’s why trying to solve misidentified or phantom problems that cannot be addressed through training means basically setting yourself up for failure.
For example, if employees are dissatisfied with their team manager’s micromanagement tendencies, no amount of skill-based training will increase their motivation. That’s because employee motivation is related to other factors such as job fit, work conditions, resource allocation, etc. And, in this case, it’s actually the manager who needs to make significant changes. This is a clear case of trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
In the same way, some problems are related to your internal organizational structure and your culture. No amount of training will solve them if you’re not ready to go to the root cause of the issue.
So the solution is to first identify the real problems. If they aren’t caused by a needed change in employee knowledge, skills and behaviors, then don’t choose training as your main strategy.
2. You put the onus on the individual.
How do you know that employees will actually implement what they’ve learned? Easy—don’t measure their intention to implement, measure how many opportunities they have to do so.
In post-training feedback surveys, I usually notice that employees are excited to make a change or improve their skills, but they can find hurdles once they’re back at the office. That is a valid problem: Their environment isn’t ready for them to implement new things. For instance, their teammates might be reluctant, and managers may not want to prioritize change. In this case, training hasn’t failed the individual; it’s just not in the individual’s power to change the entire organization.
Training can be a complementary process that supports organizational change—such as around the environment, processes, mentality and culture—but only after solving the real issues in these areas.
3. You don't give employees an opportunity to practice.
Adult learners tend to prefer less theory and a more hands-on approach, so a theory-heavy program may not be the most engaging. Now you might think, with so much emphasis on online learning, how do I add a practical element to my courses?
There are many ways to go about this. You can try leaving the necessary theoretical parts to asynchronous (on-demand) courses and host related interactive workshops in person or on Zoom.
There is also “project-based learning,” in which real work projects are connected to training courses (either live or on-demand). For example, managers who are currently working on setting goals for a new quarter can take a practical goal-setting course. In this case, the training stakes are higher, but also the results could be superior.
4. You don't have the right training technology.
Outdated or ill-suited technology can make training seem boring and lead to disappointing completion rates—even if the training content and the skills taught are relevant.
Plus, the truth is that employees don’t need or want to wait around for in-person training sessions, take notes and then implement what they’ve learned. Instead, they typically expect 24/7 access to on-the-go training. They also tend to perform better through just-in-time training, where they can look information up and learn while completing their tasks.
So, at the very least, training platforms need to support multimedia content, work on many devices and be as intuitive as possible, so there is no excuse to use technology that simply doesn’t drive engagement.
Training failure can be avoidable.
The truth is that, with planning, it’s relatively easy to set up a successful training program. The most important thing organizations can do is identify relevant problems that can be solved through skills, knowledge and behavioral change. Keeping the above tips in mind when you’re planning a new training initiative can help set up employees for success, as well as ensure that all the money, time and resources spent on training are well worth it.
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