Assessments and Training Materials

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

How to Deliver Training and Development that Delivers the Desired Business Outcomes

By Leanne Hoagland-Smith

To be competitive and to remain a player in today’s 24/7 knowledge driven business world requires that your employees be thoroughly trained to deliver the best customer service both to your external and internal customers. The old 19th and 20th centuries’ paradigm of controlling the employee has transformed to one of freedom for today’s knowledge worker.

Yet, continued research suggests that the majority of training and development initiatives estimated at 80 to 90% whether they come from the human resource department to the executive management team fail to deliver a positive return on investment. Consequently, when training fails, the first department to experience budget cuts is human resource because of this failure.

Part of this reason that a positive return on investment is not achieved potentially begins with a failure to connect the learning with the desired results. For example using customer service, is the training about the correct procedures in processing the sale or is the training about creating a loyal customer during the sales process? A recent customer service survey indicated that the number one response customers do not want to hear is “That is not my department.” This response is probably a result of knowing the procedures, but those procedures do not necessarily create happy and more importantly loyal customers.

Another part of may reside in how the training is delivered. Most training goes against the best learning research that indicates repeated exposures to a learning event deliver significantly greater long-term memory when compared with one time exposure. From our earliest school days, we all know what 10x10 is, almost without thinking. However, to respond as quickly with the correct answer to 23x24 is far more challenging. Common sense tells us that if we can’t remember what we learn then we can’t apply what we have learned.

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