Mike, it sounds like you have done the training design right. Can you give us a bit of insight into the problem (Prescription without diagnosis is malpractice ;-) For example, is this management training, technical skills, team work, sales, computer, ... What have you found out so far as to WHY the transfer/applicaton is not taking place? Too hard? Not learned? Don't care? ...

What is there in place that would motivate these people to use the new knowledge/skills? People like to continue where they are. I do. It is trouble to change. Wife won't let me save $ on another cell phone company because she would have to learn another phone.

What gets rewarded, gets repeated.
What gets measured, gets done.
People support what they create.

How can you apply these three key motivation principles? Say the last one, maybe as part of the training you could have THEM work as a team to figure out why / how they should best apply the training. Then they own it, not you.

quote:

Originally posted by glowman71:
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?

Mike, I can't help but think that there's no way managers/supervisors can get out of supporting your training efforts if you are one man with a scattered territory. But even despite your situation, having managers or supervisors removed from the training is setting your learners up to fail.

First, they've got to be involved in the design. Goes without saying.

Second, if you're talking about procedural training, I advocate that management should take the training before their staff. They should know what the heck you're teaching them so their on-the-job coaching does not contradict what you're saying. Accomplishing this is challenging to say the least; at the minimum you should meet with management and provide them with a summary of the key points that will be trained for any type of class.

This leads up to having management or supervisors being involved with training at a coaching level. The fact that you need to return two weeks later for a Q&A session seems a bit detrimental to the learning process, especially if the learners have questions two days after you leave. Giving managers the tools to answer these questions is key.

To that end, you could create a meeting guide for your supervisors. The guide could hold a recap of the main points of the training, give the supervisor some question prompts to ask the group about the information/skills they acquired during training, and provide an area to record questions that the supervisor is unable to answer, to be sent to you. This works really well if that second point is utilized.

This is great advice, pvenderley.

That is great advice! The managers have been taking the training courses at the same time as their staff, so they are learning the material together. I never considered having the managers take the training prior to the staff...that might allow for managers to use the training and then offer ideas, questions, comments, short comings that can be addressed prior to the staff taking the training.

Thank you so much for the insight. This will help us further our learning abilities as a company!