Mike,

Learnings can't make the trip back to the workplace without continuous support and reinforcement.

For my clients looking to monitor that process I encourage them to conduct a post training support survey with the learning event participants themselves.

Can send you a pdf file with some sample questions if interested. Let me know via PM.Do not post your email address here.

yes. I would love to see those questions and speak to you about the best possible way to facilitate it. What's PM? Not real familiar with this site yet.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike @ Spex:
I do want to disagree that managers/supervisors, etc. can not be apart of the training process. The Reason: If the managers/supervisors do not use the learning or demand the use of skills to be different than what was taught, then the learning will not take hold. The managers need to be the reinforcement for the skills learned by providing feedback, direction, and accountability to the staff to utilize the materials and skill sets taught to them from the training sessions. I can't be in 13 places at once, so therefore, I must rely on the managers to continue the learning process after our session is complete.

Have you ever done a formal analysis in order to find out exactly where the problem lies? Unless you can go to your managers and tell them with certainty, based on that analysis, that it is their fault that things don't change, then I wouldn't do it. They won't buy it anyway.

Maybe not enough trainers have themselves been managers. (And training managers don't count!) If they had, I believe they would soon stop blaming managers for poor training results.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: KaliKo,

I do not disagree with you on your last point. I am simply saying that in our companies dynamic, where our offices are spread out across a major city, and the manager is the only figure head at that location EVERY day, they need to take an active role in the learning progress of their staff. Again, I can not be in 13 places at once, so I must rely on the managers to provide support to thier staff.

I have seen this on the scale of over hundreds of branch offices in a few organizations in which I have worked. So, although it would be considered by some to be ideal to let "training folks handle the training stuff", there is a true constraint that must be worked with.

I guess the question I would pose would be: if the training is aligned to business objectives and processes, why wouldn't managers/supervisors be supportive to utilizing and reinforcing the training to improve performance?

If the training truly helps, my experience is that managers are greatful because a small up front investment in developing their team, simply improves results.

Where I have seen it not be as successful, either the training really didn't improve skills/work and was in contrast to "what really happens on the floor" or managers/supervisors were not properly supported in how to develop their folks (again, if training is really aligned with the business, and the manager knows the business, they usually do quite a bit of leading and actively contribute to the program).

I also think that if managers are being held accountable for the performance of their teams, they absolutely should have investment in the development of the teams, as well as the evaluation of the performance of the team members (but sometimes they need a little coaching on how to do this to an objective company standard).