The Training Cycle

The Training Cycle

Having been in the training business for almost 10 years in both China and the US, I’ve come to know 2 types of people. The people who “get” training and the people who don’t. Training is one of those words like “love” or “personal day” that are rather vague in their meaning. Training, in most cases, means the acquisition of knowledge or skills through a structured process. I’ve known many an HR Manager and Executive who feels that the definition of training is something like “magical process used to make things better or problems go away”. If I had a kuai for every time I’ve heard someone say, “Employee X is not performing at a high enough level, let’s get them trained up in a day or two and they’ll be good as new.” Sure, we’ll just send our trainer to cast a spell over this person and they’ll be good as new. Unfortunately training isn’t that easy. Over the next few months, I’ll outline a few of the big ideas in training that will help to answer the question “What is this thing called training?”

THE TRAINING GAP

The first thing I think people need to understand about training is that it is not a “cure all” for business problems. Many times training is ill-advised for issues dealing with ineffective employees, inadequate work structure, poor matching of person to job type, or issues of unclear authority or responsibility. So what CAN training be used for? To answer that, let’s look at the training gap model.

Let me give you an example: you hire an employee to write newsletter content on a monthly basis, but now the newsletter is so popular you’ve decided to expand your website content and publish a magazine. Because this employee has been around awhile you ask them to take over an editorial position.

Now this sets up an imbalance, imagine a line that represents the employee’s specific skill set currently, now above that line imagine another line that represents the skill set of an editor. How far above the current skill set line you place the “editor skill set” line will be determined by an analysis of the employee’s editorial experience anda host of other factors. No matter where you set it, a training gap has been created and needs to be filled. This happens all the time at companies after a promotion or when new products, equipment, or policies are implemented. Next, we need to understand WHAT can be trained.

KSA

When you have identified a training gap it’s important to decide the best way to bridge that gap, that’s where KSA comes in handy. KSA or Knowledge, Skills, and Attributes (or Attitudes) is used frequently in the hiring process, but is useful in training as well. Knowledge is the collection of things the employee, yep you guessed it...knows. This could include; laws, policies, the local market, accounting principles, or how to make a cup of coffee. Skills refers to things that people can actually do.

Communicating effectively with others is a skill, as is negotiating or even presenting well. Many people get tripped up with this because if you take the presentation example, you can know that you should stand on the right of the screen, use gestures, make eye contact and don’t use those annoying animated pictures, but does that Knowledge guarantee that you’ll be a great presenter? Nope. Feedback and coaching on your “performance” as well as extensive practice will help you become a better presenter. Looking at both Knowledge and Skills you realize they are used for different reasons. They are also interconnected at times. If you’ve just rolled out a new product and you need your sales people to know more about it, do you need to provide them with knowledge or skills? It could depend on how different the product is from others and the sales people’s depth of knowledge in general sales. Some people believe that training requires face to face time in a classroom. In actuality a quick meeting with a demo and question and answer session or even a product manual that the sales person can read at home is a type of training. I will say that typically training that requires a skill will require some form of face to face classroom time and/or coaching/mentoring. Now what about the A in KSA?

Attributes or Attitudes, as it is sometimes called, is the toughest to train because it typically has to do with a person's personality or beliefs. Problems that dictate attribute training usually stem from poor hiring or job descriptions. This type of training will require a long term commitment and acceptance from the trainee that there is a problem and that they want to change it. An example would be a grouchy receptionist who seems to always have a “chip” on his/her shoulder. The last area I think people need to be aware of is the training cycle.

THE TRAINING CYCLE

As we work to fill in the training gap we might find that although the first round of training was effective, there is still a gap. This is acceptable and might not indicate a poor training course. Remember that like all learning, training is a two way street. Motivation of the employee and applicability to their job is important. I’ve been asked if I can “squeeze the receptionist into my negotiation training course”, because “they might need this in the future”. This breaks the rules of both relevance to the employee’s job and the training gap. There is no way to gauge the effectiveness of this training for the receptionist because there is no gap to be filled or the gap is too wide.

The training cycle has 5 parts; Identify the Need, Design the Training (to fit the specific needs of the employee), Deliver the Training, Assess the Training (to see what change has occurred if any), and Evaluate the results. It’s called a “cycle” because frequently the Evaluation leads us to determine there is still a need for additional training. This may be due to the trainee needing more time with the material, they might need a different type of training (e.g. a different course that compliments the first) or a different style (book, mentoring, or classroom).

WRAP UP

Many people have the idea that training is the “magic bullet” that makes everything fine after one seminar. However, skills need reinforcement from the top. They need a commitment by the line manager to coach or develop them within the employee for an extended period. Alternatively, the training course might need to be extended to incorporate more realistic practice. I worked in a call center for a while and we had a “nesting” program. After the 4-week classroom training with some basic call simulations, we had trainees move to the “nest” where they spent 60% of their time taking screened calls that were easy to deal with. We made sure the number of Associates to Managers was higher so they got a lot more one-on-one time with issues. After 6 weeks in the “nest”, they were then released to the floor and received additional support from their line managers for the next few weeks with their new team. I think that gaining a more realistic perspective on training will save Executives and HR Managers a lot of trouble and disappointment. They will understand that training takes time and is not a cure all for their troubles. Ultimately training is another management tool and learning how to properly use it should be an important part of every managers continuing education.