The Current State of Scrap Learning and Manager Engagement
By John Mattox
In an ever changing business world, sustainable competitive advantage is gained through the development of human capital. Learning organizations adapt quickly to meet market demands because employees are flexible enough to retool with new knowledge and skills. Training is the lever that most organizations turn to when searching for performance improvement. However, most organizations overlook an important aspect of training that often makes it many times more effective—manager engagement.
Recently, KnowledgeAdvisors, the world’s largest provider of learning and talent measurement solutions, conducted a survey to investigate the current state of training application and manager engagement. More than five thousand people were contacted from over fifteen hundred companies. One hundred and fifty nine responses were compiled. The majority of respondents were from companies with 5000 or more people, and their role within the organization was most often learning and development (56%) or human resources (25%).
The remainder of this article is based on the results from KnowledgeAdvisors’ research. Full details are available in a whitepaper on KnowledgeAdvisors’ website at http://www.knowledgeadvisors.com/media-research/white-papers/research-paper-manager-engagement
Archimedes once said, “Give me a lever long enough and fulcrum on which to place it and I can move the world.” If performance improvement is the world that organizations attempt to move, they often turn to training as the lever. Our research findings confirm this notion. More than three-quarters (76%) of all respondents to our survey indicate that training is a key organizational tool for optimizing employee performance.
Unfortunately, that lever tends to get shorter with time as forgetting sets in and skills go unused. Brinkerhoff (2010) suggests that after training, learners typically fall into one of three categories: 1) they do not try to apply training, 2) they attempt to apply it but realize no worthwhile results, and 3) they apply training and get some positive results. Those positive results tend to be reinforcing and prompt the learners to apply their skills again. Yet, Brinkerhoff (2010) estimates that successful application (group 3) is as low as 20%. The remaining 80% is known as scrap learning—learning that was delivered but unsuccessfully applied (groups 1 and 2) and is therefore wasted training.
KnowledgeAdvisors’ study confirms that scrap learning is pervasive. By respondents’ best estimates, only 9% of learners actually apply what they learn with positive results. Seventy-six percent indicate that learners apply 50% or less of what they learn. That is, the scrap rate is 50% or higher among more than three quarters of all companies.
Elements of training clearly impact the quality of learning; great instructors, relevant materials, and the right delivery method are essential to effective learning. However, factors external to training are also influential. Brinkerhoff (2006) studied the influence of managers on learner behavior before and after training and found that managers can lengthen the lever, or at least prevent it from shortening, by engaging their direct reports. Brinkerhoff’s Learning-to-Performance Model addresses the behaviors that managers can perform before and after training to reduce scrap learning.
Before training, it is helpful for the manager to assess the business case. Is the person the right person to attend training? Is it the right time? Are the costs appropriate? Secondly, the manager should meet with the learner to set learning and performance expectations. Together an action plan can be created. These actions by the manager ensure that training is valuable to the learner and aligned with the business goals. Moreover, the conversation and expectations setting prepares the learner for the event.
After training, the manager should review the action plan with the learner to determine if it is still aligns with what was taught. As the learner applies training on the job, the manager must supervise and provide meaningful praise and corrective feedback to reinforce success and correct mistakes. It is also the manager’s responsibility to seek projects, events or situations where the learner can hone new skills.
Keeping Brinkerhoff’s model in mind, KnowledgeAdvisors asked respondents to consider how well managers were engaged in these efforts throughout their organizations. You might find the results surprising.
When asked how often managers pre-assess learners before sending them to training, only 21% indicated their organizations assess learners “some of the time” or “most of the time”. This means that for more than three quarters of the organizations, learners might be attending training they do not need or training is too advanced for their situation. Furthermore, only 25% of managers have a dialogue with learners before 50% of training to set learning and performance expectations with direct reports. Granted not every course deserves a check in or a dialogue. When the training is directly related to job performance, critical to the employee’s future success, costly and aligned with the business goals, it is reasonable to expect some level of manager engagement. Thus, these figures seem low knowing that manager involvement up front can increase the effectiveness of training.
The level of manager engagement is only slightly better after learners attend training. With regard to generalized involvement, 42% of managers “encourage learners to use training” and another 11% “hold employees accountable” for applying training. However, for a large minority of respondents (44%), mangers “have little involvement in how my employees use what they learned back on the job.” In other words, almost half of the managers do not support learners after training, thus foreshortening the performance lever that the organization has invested in.
Following up on expectations is a powerful way for managers to check in with their direct reports. Together the manager and learner can compared expected versus actual actions and diagnose what led to successful application of training or prevented it. When asked about expectations, survey respondents indicated that only 35% of managers follow up on expectations by requiring a summary debrief of what was learned. Almost one-third (32%) require a demonstration of the learning within a reasonable time frame. Among other required actions, the percentages get smaller and smaller: 19% provide a specific program or project to use the training; 16% require an action plan that describes how training will be used on the job, and 13% require measurement of a business result within a reasonable time frame. The decline in percentages for these actions seems to be linked to the amount of effort required from the learner and manager. As effort increases, the percentage decreases.
Managers have a variety of resources available to support and reinforce learning. Just like parents who help their children grow through praise and correction, managers have many of the same behavior-shaping tools at their disposal. Survey respondents were able to select any or all of the five support options discussed below. Most often 25% of managers supported learners by publically recognizing and celebrating successful application of training on the job. At a slightly lower rate, 22% of managers formally observed and provided feedback to learners with 90 days after training. While these two actions are critical to developing an application-feedback learning loop, at best only one-quarter of managers perform these tasks. Other support tasks include: reprioritizing a learner’s daily tasks to emphasize use of training (21%); setting aside time to allow learners to try new concepts (16%), and allocating money to learners to fund new ideas that can be implemented on the job (9%).
Several measurement tools can facilitate manager engagement. Prior to training, managers can be surveyed to determine how much support they provide to learners before the event (e.g., expectation setting). Using specialized evaluations systems, the post-course learner feedback can be routed automatically to the manager who can gain insight about challenges the learner might have faced during training as well as barriers that might prevent on-the-job application. A performance management tool can also be used to document goals and provide automated check-ins between the manager and learner at regular intervals. While automated check-ins are important for providing information, they facilitate a more important process—ongoing dialogue. KnoweldgeAdvisors’ evaluation system, Metrics that MatterTM, provides all of these functions.
To quote B.F. Skinner, the famous behavioral psychologist, “Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.” This quote is undoubtedly a variation of a similar quotes by George Saville and Albert Einstein, but it carries substantial weight coming from Skinner, who spent his career shaping the behavior of others. He clearly implies that learning degrades over time due to forgetting whether it is generalized education in the liberal arts or specific training aligned with a job task. Despite some degree of forgetting, education can be prolonged and increased and skill can be acquired and shaped by using behavioral shaping techniques.
How is this relevant to manager engagement? Managers have the ability to prepare employees for learning prior to training. And after training, they have some ability to control the work environment to allow learners new opportunities to apply, practice and perfect what was learned. Lastly, managers have the ability to praise and reinforce successes as well as correct and coach mistakes. The results of this study indicate that manager engagement, both before and after training, is relatively low. If organizations are searching for ways to improve job performance through training, they should first look at performance improvement through manager engagement. How effective can managers be? Consider another of Skinner’s quotes, “Give me a child, and I’ll shape him into anything.”
