As a line manager with 25 years of experience leading sales teams, I’ve attended my fair share of training programs – I’ve done a quick calculation and I must have attended more than one hundred of them! From my experience, I can say not that all training programs work well enough. The purpose of training programs is to help participants change their behavior, so the measure of a great training program is how much of the learning is applied in the workplace. I now have extensive experience in hosting training programs with engage, and I believe there are a number of key elements that make up the foundations of a great training program.
What does training program success look like?
We recently completed a training program designed to help participants improve trading terms with key customers. Although I was delighted that the post-program review was complimentary, the most important measurement came six weeks later when the line manager reported to us what impact the training had on the financial terms. This will be reviewed again shortly but already it is clear that the program has paid back many times over.
I believe that we must find a measurement for every training activity and measure the impacts of the program against this. If I were to define a set of criteria to use to measure the success of a training program, at the top of that list would be how much and what participants actually apply. The measure of a great training program is not how great the materials are, nor how impactful the speaker is, but whether or not the program had an impact in the real world.
Training programs should be reviewed after their completion to establish:
- What were the key takeaways?
- How are these being applied in the workplace?
- What has been the resulting financial impact?
Improving the impact of your training programs
If you want to get the participants to absorb information and then apply this learning, here are five steps you can take to make this happen:
- Ensure that the right participants attend the program – Training should be configured to build the competencies that teams need to be more successful. So training programs should be focused on individuals who have specific competency gaps.
- Set-up for success – Confirm that the trainer has the right experience and work with the trainer to develop an interactive and varied program. Find ways to combine lectures with exercises and activities that engage all the participants in the learning process.
- Make the program practical – Use real-life examples whereever possible. Even if examples are not from your own business, demonstrating how a concept has been successful in a similar environment helps participants to see they too could benefit from it. Be realistic in sharing examples and help the audience understand what could go wrong as well as what can go right. Help participants to apply what they’ve learnt in the training environment by using role plays to reinforce the learning.
- Define and measure the desired outcome – Define the change in competence that is needed and link this to measurable changes in business performance. In this way the program’s outcome can assess not only whether it was efficient in changing behavior but also whether it was an effective investment in time and money. Measure the impact of the program periodically after its implementation – say after six weeks and again after 12 weeks to see if the impact has been sustained.
- Follow-up and coach – Effective training programs must have some form of follow-up. We actively encourage all our programs to be supported by coaching to ensure that the individual is supported through the implementation of the program. Coaching helps participants overcome the hurdles in real life that although they may have seen on the program, they may not have personally experienced. A coach can help them through this. Follow up also means we chase hard on what results we agreed to deliver.
All of our training programs at engage are designed to address specific competency gaps across the marketing, trade marketing and sales teams and are designed to support participants in implementing them in the real world. If you’re interested to learn more about the training programs offered at engage, click here!