Introduction
Australian companies spend five billion dollars on employee training annually. Research indicates that less than 20 percent of formal training actually results in benefits to organisations. With shrinking training budgets and the move to greater accountability of training departments, the spotlight is being placed increasingly on the organisational benefits of training. This article is aimed at HR and training managers who want to improve the organisational impact of their activities and consultants who want to advise clients as to how best to leverage their services for maximum organisational impact. I will say something about the myths surrounding the efficacy of training and will then go on to provide a practical guide for improving the effectiveness of training. Much of I what I will say here is specific to the rollout of large training and development programmes embedded in organisational change initiatives and consuming substantial resources. However, a large measure is also relevant to individual needs training and regularly repeated training.
Current research indicates that the extent to which training is transferred back in the workplace is dependent on individual student attributes, training design and delivery and workplace climate. As trainers we cannot do much about the first and we spend a lot of time and effort on the second through applying adult learning principles to training design and delivery. In the last few years, workplace environment factors are receiving more attention from researchers and account for a greater variation in training transfer than either of the other two factors. Training design and delivery are important for organisational outcomes, however, what happens before and after training is at least as important as what happens during the training event.
Organisational improvement and change arises from training only to the extent that the training participants change their behaviour once they return to the workplace. This is where the rubber hits the road. Underpinning knowledge and attitudinal changes are highly significant in that they underlie longer-term behaviour change. However, it is the resulting change in actual work practices that in the final analysis results in improved organisational effectiveness. The direction and extent of behaviour change is not only a function of the training event. It depends at least as much on the organisational history, structure and culture in which the trainers, managers and participants find themselves. The model below illustrates some of the most important of those workplace environment factors affecting training transfer.