When training goals are linked to employee performance, the leap to business-performance improvement seems clear. Yet, too often, progress stalls and new skills are underused or ignored when employees get back to work.

Based on more than four decades of helping organizations improve performance through training, Kepner-Tregoe, a management consulting firm, has identified six key actions that will encourage employees to change and really utilize new skills. Taking these actions can help ensure the success of any good training program by clearing the path from training to improved business performance.

The actions can be summarized as “creating an effective performance system” – in this case, making sure everything in an organizational context is contributing to a person or group of persons (performer) using the skills they’ve been trained in (response). See Figure 1, right, for Kepner-Tregoe’s performance framework.

 

1. Set expectations before training begins
People are enrolled in a workshop and know the date and time it begins. But do they know what to expect, how to prepare, or how the learning is relevant to their work?

One pharmaceutical company we worked with, which has operations in more than 60 countries, tracked a direct relationship between setting training expectations and achieving results in several North American facilities. The company had received a Food and Drug Administration warning letter citing its backlog of open investigations and the company’s failure to consistently get to root cause. A select group of employees went through Kepner-Tregoe’s “Train-the-Trainer” program to become Program Leaders. In this program, employees were trained to conduct Problem- Solving and Decision-Making workshops as a licensed trainer for colleagues themselves, coach them in application on a daily basis and facilitate tough corrective and preventive-action programs.

 

Putting new knowledge to the test
Initially, the Program Leaders conducted workshops for all employees involved in the writing of investigations. This was followed by facilitated corrective and preventive action programs using troubleshooting skills learned in the workshops.

In one facility, the Program Leaders also conducted hour-long, pre-workshop meetings that set expectations for the workshop participants. This facility outperformed all others in reducing backlog and finding root cause of product quality problems and equipment failures. In addition, the departments in this high-performing facility that had managerial participation in the pre-workshop meetings outperformed the departments that didn’t have managers attending the pre-workshop meetings.

Taking the time to set expectations and provide management support before training begins, helps learners to understand what will be expected of them and how the training relates to their work. Management involvement demonstrates that the organization is committed to the training and considers it a high priority.

 

2. Provide coaching to support success
Many organizations recognize that applying new skills in a rapid-paced, day-to-day work environment can be daunting. A good coach or facilitator can make this transition easier. Coaches can guide employees as they apply their skills on the job and ensure that skills are used properly. For issue resolution, facilitators should structure a facilitation before it begins, manage the participants as they struggle with important issues and then follow up until the issue is resolved.

A major health insurance company enhanced training with coaching to support performance goals within its IT function. After expanding its IT infrastructure, the company began soliciting data-management contracts to leverage this new capacity. As the business grew, there was a need for improved skills in problem solving, decision making and project management. Employees were trained as Program Leaders, and then taught skill-development workshops. During training, Program Leaders helped workshop participants apply new skills to IT-related issues and projects, and then followed up with them after class.

Within the IT group, the Program Leaders developed a reputation for helping to resolve issues and plan projects effectively – this reputation spread throughout the organization. As other groups began requesting their coaching help, many of the Program Leaders were redeployed to spend over 50 percent of their time coaching and facilitating others to perform better. Other employees have since been trained to replace coaches who are promoted to other jobs or leave the company.

 

Ensure adequate feedback is provided
One critical factor for performance success that coaches can provide is feedback. People need feedback if they are to improve. Practice makes permanent; feedback makes perfect. Coaches can use feedback to address application errors in real time when leading individuals or a group. Or they can provide short-interval monitoring if they’re reviewing material prepared independently. Coaches give learners an opportunity to correct their work and learn from their efforts. Positive feedback of work well done encourages others to take the extra effort and risk of using a new skill.

3. Require evidence of application of new skills
Once people have received training, they’re ready to apply the ideas. But they may not know that they have the opportunity to do things differently, especially when surrounded by others who don’t share their new skills.

Engineers at an oil refinery we worked with were hesitant to apply our troubleshooting process after completing our workshop because the process required them to go out and ask questions of the operators. The problem was that they weren’t accustomed to asking the operators questions because they were “supposed to know what was going on.” They thought the operators would think less of them.

Managers overcame this by setting the expectation that participants would be required to begin specific troubleshooting applications during class and then complete them back on the job. Managers asked for status reports, gave participants enough time to complete their applications, and had them present the results of their work.

 

Analyze existing processes
The training produced immediate benefits. One participant had chosen to work on solving the problem of an increase in gasket wear – gaskets had been wearing out faster than in the past. Some colleagues thought this might not be very important; replacing gaskets is an inconvenience, but it’s a cost of doing business. However, the analysis uncovered that an explosion that had occurred in the recent past had loosened gritty material that was working its way through the system. The next question asked was, where else could this material be? The answer turned out to be in an important but rarely used part of the plant that was due to be started up shortly. If they hadn’t applied new skills, asked questions and found the true cause of the gasket wear, this line would have shut down at the moment it was most needed.

Requiring learners to overcome on-the-job barriers and demonstrate their use of new skills quickly transitions training to application, integrates skills into the workflow and accelerates the return on training investment.

 

4. Create an environment that supports new skills
If the work environment makes it difficult to use new skills, training dollars are wasted. Program Leaders at one of the world’s largest paper manufacturers had trained many employees at one of the company’s paper mills, but no-one was consistently using the troubleshooting process learned in training.

This became apparent to the plant manager when he observed a group of operators standing at a malfunctioning machine discussing possible causes. He called them into a conference room and asked a Program Leader to guide them through the process to address the issue. Within 30 minutes, the problem was solved.

A week later, he observed the same group of operators standing at another malfunctioning machine, jumping to possible causes and making no progress on resolving this next problem that had developed. His initial reaction was to provide a refresher course, because he knew the process worked if people used it. On reflection, he realized that this wasn’t the appropriate response – the crew had successfully used their training a week earlier. The difference was that the week before, the manager clearly communicated that he wanted them to use the new troubleshooting process, provided a facilitator and gave them a suitable work environment.

The manager then took action. He provided the Program Leaders with facilitation training so that one would always be available for each area of operation. He set expectations that the process should be used after no more than 20 minutes of downtime. Finally, he provided a dedicated workspace with log books, easels, white boards and coffee. Within two months, facilitators were trained, the new skills were used and downtime was significantly reduced.

 

Provide extra tools and support
An appropriate work environment can be virtual. In addition to providing project governance for the organization, a virtual office can offer project support with intranet-based project tools, a centralized repository for sharing project documentation and access to coaching/facilitation support via e-mail and telephone.

 

5. Integrate new skills into routine activities
Training is a key resource – when the opportunity is in place – for people to excel. This is achieved by setting clear priorities for how and when the training should be applied. Using the skills learned in training needs to become the rule rather than the exception. One way to accomplish this is to incorporate the intent of the training into daily operations and forms.

Facing a rapidly changing industry, a leading steel manufacturer was able to successfully transform a mill that was a potential candidate for closure, by providing the training and opportunities needed to improve performance. After providing training in problem solving, decision making, situation appraisal and risk/opportunity management to all employees at the mill, management used shift change-over meetings to set expectations about what employees needed to address over the course of the next shift.

In the past, this had been done with the outgoing chief hastily scribbling notes for his in-coming counterpart to decipher. Now, the outgoing chiefs, who understood the existing situation they were leaving behind, ran shift-change meetings that were attended by the outgoing and incoming key shift operators and key support staff. Meetings were held in a workroom where defective products could be brought in and shown.

 

Ensure management support
Over the course of 18 months, the mill improved against all metrics by 30 percent and moved from worst to best. The division head arranged for other plant managers to visit and observe. During one of these visits, a skeptical plant manager asked one of the mill’s shift coordinators what he thought about the shift-change meetings.

He said, “I hate them, but I would never go back to the other way.” The new skills had been integrated into the way work was done, which was sometimes painful, but the results were dramatic.

Given the resources and opportunity, people will excel. A good training program needs to be supported by appropriate opportunities to use the skills learned in training. Experience demonstrates that management involvement, clear expectations, a supportive setting and a well-integrated program can strengthen the link from good training to real business performance improvement.

 

6. Monitor ongoing application of new skills
Your people have received training and have begun to apply the ideas. But how do you encourage them to continue to use what they have learned in the future?

A global food products company with over US$15 billion in sales initiated a program at a key facility that added the application of newly acquired skills to their associates’ scorecards. Managers required documented use of the new skills each quarter. In this way, managers set expectations for participants and provided them with self-regulating feedback. Trained facilitators were provided to help employees apply their training and meet scorecard requirements. As people started using their training, they achieved better and quicker resolutions. Within a year, the application of these skills was simply the way work was done.

Under stress, people revert to their comfort zone, the way things have “always” been done. Managers need to provide encouraging incentives to people for changing the way they work. If managers maintain an interest in the use of the new skills, so will the people they manage.
Training is often a necessary component of a change initiative. But training alone is not sufficient. Organizations can improve their success at achieving training and organizational goals by setting expectations before training, providing motivation and support, integrating new skills into the workflow and monitoring training and results over time.

 

Figure 1. Kepner-Tregoe’s performance-excellence framework

 

Managing human performance
The choices employees make, the actions they initiate and the behaviors they demonstrate all take place within an organizational context. This human performance system (as depicted in Figure 1, above) is like any other system that helps you manage valuable assets; it must be managed to achieve your organization’s objectives. The approaches outlined in this article and other actions can modify the performance system to support use of new skills acquired in training.