Geschreven door Francine Smink | January 22, 2016
Detergent manufacturers tell you that your clothes will ‘remain white even longer’, trainers promise trainings with a ‘lasting effect’. However, did you know that you, as manager or as training official, can add to this sustained effect significantly? A blog on meaningful instruction and the securing of trainings.
Why do we have to learn this?
It occurs frequently in organisations that entire departments have to undergo a training because it has been decided on a higher level that this is important for something. Surely, sometimes such a training is important, but remember high school. How often do students ask why they need to learn something? And how unsatisfactory is the answer of a teacher: “because it will be in the exam”? If you have to learn something for an external reason, motivation will often be lacking. Most employees will comply to the expectations and will obediently do ‘their thing’ – maybe they will even go an extra mile – but intrinsic motivation is crucial for a lasting effect.
Those who realise that a training is meaningful for their performance, will see what it adds to daily practice, or in the nearby future, and they will want to learn. Then the training does not become a goal in itself, but a way to obtain something else. There is an important task for managers and training officials in this part of the training trajectory, before the training starts. Insight into motivation is of the utmost importance.
Securing = preventing it bogs down
Employees do a sales training, obtain new skills, return enthusiastically and bring it into practice. You as manager and your colleagues from HR track the new behaviour with interest and you ask for it actively. However, often we see that one after the other starts to revert to familiar patterns after a while. At a certain moment, it seems like there has never been a training at all. Participants say: “No one ever asks about it anymore.” Meaning: if ‘the boss’ doesn’t think it’s important, why should we?
So, keep the goal of the training and the new expertise from bogging down. The training had been so important! Refer to the importance periodically, talk about the revenue or about what doesn’t work in daily practice. At TrainTool, we like to help our participants by regular recurring exercises after they have finished the training. Keep it alive, prevent a non-committal dimension. So, secure it! Also – especially! - in the rush of everyday life.
If you want to find out more about sustaining the effect of training, why not talk to one of our experts?