Is Your Corporate Training Sticky Enough?

Sticky Training
Stickiness is not something we consider desirable in most contexts. But insofar as corporate training is concerned, stickiness is a measure of training effectiveness. Training stickiness gauges whether or not participants in a training program consistently and effectively adopt the desired skills, behaviors, knowledge, and attitudes on the job. Is your corporate training sticky enough?

In other words, will participants go beyond awareness and insight and demonstrate proficiency and competence when it matters most?

Training Stickiness Best Practices
Here is what we know about business training that accomplishes desired behavior change on the job. To be truly effective, corporate training needs to be:

• Relevant and Timely
  Training relevance certainly matters to the target audience. But training should also be highly relevant to the boss and the business as a whole. If the training doesn’t fill priority skill gaps that are needed in the near future, if the skills are not aligned with strategic priorities, if the skills don’t matter to leaders enough to have them provide adequate resources and ongoing support, don’t waste your money and time.
• Practiced and Coached
  It takes rigorous practice over time to embed new behaviors into one’s routine. For training to stick, learners need to be stretched out of their comfort zone to try out the new ways of working. They may not get it at first but with frequent and expert coaching over time, they will improve and be encouraged to incorporate what they’ve learned into their daily activities.
• Reinforced and Rewarded
  It is up to managers to observe, reinforce, and reward the desired behaviors. Without management support and active engagement, learners will quickly lose their motivation and momentum to climb the learning curve.

The Role of Management for Sticky Training
The key to sticky training is to have managers actively aboard from the beginning. Not only do they need to believe that the new behaviors will have a significant positive impact on their team’s success, they must be willing to invest the time and effort to hold their employees accountable.

Do managers know what to look for and how to coach effectively? Do they know how to provide constructive feedback? Are they committed to doing the hard groundwork necessary before positive results buoy the effort on their own?

The Bottom Line
Building the right talent for the right job at the right time takes a strategic view of what the business needs to succeed. Training may well be the answer to build the capabilities of your workforce. The stickier the training, the better the adoption and impact. Is your corporate training sticky enough and are you doing all you can to prepare your management and your learners for training that will make a difference?

To learn more about how to increase corporate training adoption and impact, download Increasing the Adoption & Impact of Training Using RAI