Six ways to link training with business performance: Strengthening the impact of acquiring new skills
| Published date | 01 November 2006 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14754390680000937 |
| Pages | 20-23 |
| Date | 01 November 2006 |
| Author | Ron Vonk |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
20 Volume 6 Issue 1 November/December 2006
HEN TRAINING GOALS ARE linked
to employee performance, the leap to
business-performance improvement
seems clear. Yet, too often, progress stalls
and new skills are underused or ignored
when employees get back to work.
Based on more than four decades of helping
organizations improve performance through training,
Kepner-Tregoe, a management consulting firm, has
identified six key actions that will encourage employees
to change and really utilize new skills. Taking these
actions can help ensure the success of any good
training program by clearing the path from training to
improved business performance.
The actions can be summarized as “creating an
effective performance system” – in this case, making
sure everything in an organizational context is
contributing to a person or group of persons
(performer) using the skills they’ve been trained in
(response). See Figure 1, right, for Kepner-Tregoe’s
performance framework.
1. Set expectations before training begins
People are enrolled in a workshop and know the date
and time it begins. But do they know what to expect,
how to prepare, or how the learning is relevant to their
work?
One pharmaceutical company we worked with,
which has operations in more than 60 countries,
tracked a direct relationship between setting training
expectations and achieving results in several North
American facilities. The company had received a Food
and Drug Administration warning letter citing its
backlog of open investigations and the company’s
failure to consistently get to root cause. A select group
of employees went through Kepner-Tregoe’s “Train-the-
Trainer” program to become Program Leaders. In this
program, employees were trained to conduct Problem-
Solving and Decision-Making workshops as a licensed
trainer for colleagues themselves, coach them in
application on a daily basis and facilitate tough
corrective and preventive-action programs.
Putting new knowledge to the test
Initially, the Program Leaders conducted workshops for
all employees involved in the writing of investigations.
This was followed by facilitated corrective and
preventive action programs using troubleshooting skills
learned in the workshops.
In one facility, the Program Leaders also conducted
hour-long, pre-workshop meetings that set expectations
for the workshop participants. This facility
outperformed all others in reducing backlog and
finding root cause of product quality problems and
equipment failures. In addition, the departments in
this high-performing facility that had managerial
participation in the pre-workshop meetings
by Ron Vonk, Kepner-Tregoe
Six ways to
link training
with business
performance
Strengthening the impact of acquiring
new skills
W
Maintaining momentum after learning new skills and
techniques is of paramount importance if companies
are to maximize the benefit of upskilling employees.
Management consulting firm, Kepner-Tregoe, has
identified six steps to ensuring the training doesn’t go
to waste, but is instead harnessed early, to produce a
positive, noticeable effect on the business.
To continue reading
Request your trial