What Is a Good Training Program?
Most companies can tell you how many people attended training last year. Very few can tell you what those people do differently now. That gap is the whole question. A good training program is not the one with the biggest catalog or the highest completion rate, it is the one that changes behavior and that the organization actually funds when the need appears in the middle of the fiscal year.
This article sets out what separates a good training program from an expensive one: treating training as an investment rather than an expense, teaching the vital few instead of the trivial many, running the program on a Deming Cycle, and giving trainees a real chance to use what they learned before they forget it. It also includes a scorecard you can run against your own program in about ten minutes, and a worked example from ISO 9001 Internal Auditor training showing why good training classes sometimes take months to pay off.
What Is a Good Training Program?
There are certainly ways to enhance your company’s training and training programs, and the first part of answering “what is a good training program?” begins with your training investment.
Training Investment
The strengths and weaknesses of training programs are developed with the premise that training and knowledge are an investment in employees, rather than an expense. Training is an investment in your company’s future and can be a factor in the future success of your company. That premise decides almost everything downstream: how the program is budgeted, who is allowed to attend, and whether a legitimate need raised in the middle of the year gets funded or deferred.
Purpose of Training
The purpose of training is to change behavior, regardless of the level of training. Everyone wants positive behavior or positive behavior changes, and good training leads to positive behaviors and changes that hold after the class ends. This is also known as continuous improvement. If you cannot name the behavior a session is meant to change, you do not yet have a training objective, you have a calendar entry.
Training is also not the automatic answer to every performance problem. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management puts the limit plainly in its guidance on planning and evaluating training: “Sometimes training is not the best solution, and it is virtually never the only solution.” Some performance gaps close faster through clearer expectations, a better work environment, or a correction to job fit. Check the diagnosis before you book the room. See the OPM planning and evaluating guidance for the full treatment, and the common training mistakes that follow from skipping it.
Training Activities
Training activities, whether classroom or on-the-job, must have willing participants and enthusiastic instructors. Along with the enthusiasm, the instructor must be a subject matter expert or at least have subject knowledge a couple of levels beyond the trainee. Delivery mode matters less than competence: OSHA notes in its recommended practices that “Peer-to-peer training, on-the-job training, and worksite demonstrations can be effective in conveying safety concepts, ensuring understanding of hazards and their controls, and promoting good work practices.” Read the full OSHA education and training practices for the surrounding guidance. Workplace training programs work best if:
- Managers are involved in the training needs identification and program development.
- There is an understanding that the purpose of training is to change behavior.
- Expectations are created prior to the training.
- Training is Simple, Relevant, and Factual.
- Juran’s thinking is followed in that the vital few concepts are taught and not the trivial many.
- There is an understanding that training is not an expense, rather it is an investment.
- Effective training programs in general follow a Deming Cycle: Training needs are identified; Training is developed; Training is delivered; Training feedback and effectiveness are obtained.
- In-House trainers are well trained, enthusiastic and passionate ‘experts’.
- Training is made as enjoyable as possible for both the trainer and trainees.
- Training is considered part of one’s job. When a person goes back to their normal activities the work is not piled up waiting for them to catch up, rather it has been distributed to others as much as possible.
Those conditions apply just as much to the first weeks on the job as to a formal class. Build them into employee onboarding and into procedure training, where most behavior is actually set.
Score Your Own Training Program
Score each row 0, 1 or 2. Score honestly against the last two training sessions you actually ran, not against the program as written. Total the column, then read the bands below.
| # | Criterion | 0 points | 1 point | 2 points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Behavior target | No stated behavior change; the goal is attendance or compliance | A behavior is named but not written down before the session | The target behavior is written down before the session and known to the trainee |
| 2 | Investment or expense | Training is coded and discussed as an expense | Treated as an investment in principle, as an expense at budget time | Treated as an investment in budgeting, scheduling and reporting |
| 3 | Mid-year requests | A legitimate need raised mid-year is answered with “Sorry, that’s not in the budget” | Mid-year requests are possible but require an exception | A contingency exists so a genuine mid-year need can be funded |
| 4 | Manager involvement | Managers see the training only after it is designed | Managers are consulted on training needs | Managers are involved in both needs identification and program development |
| 5 | Instructor depth | Instructor knows only the material being taught | Instructor is one level beyond the trainee | Instructor is a subject matter expert, at least a couple of levels beyond the trainee |
| 6 | Simple, Relevant, Factual | Content is long, generic and partly aspirational | Two of the three hold | Content is Simple, Relevant, and Factual throughout |
| 7 | Vital few, not trivial many | Everything in the manual is covered | Some prioritization, no explicit cut list | Juran’s vital few concepts are taught and the trivial many are left out |
| 8 | Deming Cycle | Training is delivered; needs and feedback are informal | Training needs are identified and training is delivered, feedback is inconsistent | All four stages run: needs identified, developed, delivered, feedback and effectiveness obtained |
| 9 | Time to first use | Trainees wait months before applying the training | Application happens within a month | Trainees apply the training within days, or a paired practice opportunity is booked at the time of training |
| 10 | Workload during training | Work piles up and the trainee catches up afterward | Some work is covered | Training is considered part of one’s job and the work is distributed to others as much as possible |
17 to 20. A good training program. The remaining gain is incremental. Run PDCA on the two lowest rows and keep the anonymous evaluation survey in place.
12 to 16. A functional program with a structural leak, almost always in rows 1, 8 or 9. Fix the weakest of those three before adding any new course.
7 to 11. You have training activities, not a training program. Start at row 1 and name the behavior each session is meant to change. Nothing else scores until that exists.
0 to 6. Training is being treated as an expense. Rows 2 and 3 are the blockers, and they are management decisions rather than training decisions. No amount of course improvement will move the total until that is addressed.
Positive Behavior Change
Training programs are an investment leading to a positive behavior change. No organization sets out to make a bad investment or to facilitate a negative behavior change, and yet many, if not most companies do not support strong, comprehensive and effective training programs. Those that do support training programs may only do so within the confines of their budget and only if there are budgetary funds available. That is, the company must be making sufficient profit.
Rather than making an investment in the company, whether training, equipment, new customers and markets, or eliminating waste, the typical response is to eliminate people. So rather than investing in their people and processes, the company has the people disappear, and sometimes the processes with them. Most companies also do not budget sufficient funds or time for training programs, even if the funds are available. What happens if a training opportunity or need comes up in the middle of the fiscal year? Answer: “Sorry, that’s not in the budget.”
Why Some Companies Do Not Train
For one thing, managers, including top management, don’t understand the benefits and need for thoroughly training employees at all levels. Secondly, managers don’t understand that employee training is an investment and not an expense. Note that both of the reasons rest with management.
Managers, who are often not trained past their education or OJT, do not understand the need for and benefit of a well-trained workforce. The key element here is the need for enlightenment. Different learning factors apply to different people, and a company needs to invest in their entire workforce with relevant and appropriate training. As management becomes more enlightened, they will see the need and benefit for a well trained hourly and professional workforce. The same logic applies to competence and awareness across the organization.
Too often companies are run by cost and tax returns, which means by the accounting department. Companies operating in this mode typically have problems. They state that they cannot afford to have direct labor employees taken away from their normal work and put into training sessions. That activity is measured as a loss of productivity and is considered an expense.
Use What You Learn
Another concept to understand is that if people do not use the information provided in training, regardless of the quality of the training, they will lose the information and knowledge as time goes by. The more time that passes before the training is utilized, the less of the training will be retained. Sometimes it is genuinely difficult to put the training into use right away.
Regulators treat applied competence, not attendance, as the test of whether training worked. Under OSHA 29 CFR 1910.132, each affected employee must demonstrate an understanding of the required training and the ability to use personal protective equipment properly before being allowed to perform work requiring that equipment. The standard is published in full at OSHA 1910.132. Applies to PPE specifically, but the principle generalizes: demonstrate the behavior, then sign off the training.
Internal Auditor Training: A Worked Example
An example is Internal Audit training as required by the ISO 9001 Quality Standard. Typically, in those organizations that understand Internal Auditing and its benefits, the training is in a classroom setting with several attendees. Let’s say there are six people in the Internal Audit class and the company does an Internal Audit every other month. Further, assume that newly trained Internal Auditors are paired with experienced Internal Auditors.
Another factor to consider is that Internal Auditors must be independent of the area being audited. When all of these factors are taken into consideration, it may be a period of several months or longer before all newly trained Internal Auditors have had a chance to be involved in their first audit. Run that arithmetic against row 9 of the scorecard: six auditors, one audit every other month, independence constraints, and a pairing rule will stretch first use well past the point where unused training starts to decay.
However, all is not lost. Internal Auditor training of this kind is an investment, and those employees completing the training gain a much better understanding of the Quality Management System requirements than they had prior to the training. Some companies put many employees through Internal Audit training for this reason, even though many of these employees will never actually perform an Internal Audit.
Many companies use the same logic for sending employees to ISO 9001 Lead Auditor training. They become QMS “experts”, but do not actually function as a Lead Auditor. As one can see there are benefits to a good training program beyond the initial scope of the training.
Training Program Improvement
Once an organization has implemented a training program it will hopefully strive to improve it. The first important tool to consider is the training feedback or evaluation survey. These tools should have enough information so as to be relevant and should be filled out anonymously by the training attendees. Use this information. If there is criticism, turn that criticism into a positive and put forth the effort to eliminate the cause of the criticism.
A second improvement tool that works well in training is the Deming Wheel or Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA). PDCA as a continuous improvement tool will help an organization to enhance their training, with a focus that it is never acceptable to stop striving to make improvements.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long should a training program be?
Length is the wrong measure. Set the length by the behavior you intend to change and by how soon the trainee can apply it. A two-hour session applied the same week will outperform a two-day session applied in six months. If you cannot name the behavior the session changes, the session is too long at any duration.
Who should own the training budget, HR or the department manager?
The department manager should own the budget, with HR owning the delivery standards. Budget ownership belongs with whoever is accountable for the behavior change, because that is the person who can answer whether the training worked. When HR owns the money and the manager owns the outcome, a mid-year request is usually refused on budget grounds rather than on merit.
How do you measure whether training worked?
Measure the behavior, not the attendance. Record the target behavior before the session, set a date to observe it again after the trainee has had a real chance to apply it, and compare. Completion rates, seat hours and satisfaction scores describe the class, not the change. Keep the anonymous feedback survey for improving the course itself and keep it separate from the behavior measure.
Is on-the-job training enough on its own?
Not by itself. On-the-job training transfers what the current operator already does, including the errors and the undocumented workarounds, and it has no mechanism to introduce a better method. Pair it with a documented procedure so the trainee learns the intended process rather than the local habit, and so the next trainee starts from the same baseline.
Organizations get better with well developed training programs. An organization that is getting better, that is improving, reduces waste, increases sales, beats out the competition, and becomes more profitable.
