Have you ever invested time and money in an employee training program only to discover that the new skills, concepts and/or tools never made it back to your workplace?  You're not alone.  Many leaders are frustrated when the transfer of training to performance does not take place.  There can be many different reasons why a particular training program is not effective, such as lack of motivation among employees or lack of training support from management.  However, a good way to ensure training transfer takes place is to follow up with employees through a variety of methods after the training is complete.

Try using these 3 strategies the next time you need to ensure that the transfer of training to performance takes place:

• Tie performance improvements to performance system. If the targeted behaviors are important enough to teach in a course, then the formal performance system should support those behaviors.  That means the behaviors should be included in the performance expectations, reward system and performance review system.
• Create a support network.  Create groups for ongoing learning and support.  Training an intact work group ensures that everyone learns at the same time, thereby increasing the acceptance of new behaviors.  For team members who don't work together, provide a list of names and telephone numbers and ask them to follow-up with one another.
• Work with training coordinators to have employees develop an action plan.  Requiring team members to develop an action plan requires them to consider how they will apply the course concepts and commits them to action.  To enhance action plan implementation, have employees make the action plan very specific and ask them to report on their progress by a specific date.