In Kirkpatrick terms, most “learning professionals” don’t like looking beyond level two. Because it is generally considered too difficult to evaluate training once learners leave the classroom, they have a good excuse for setting themselves much more easily achieved objectives.
A couple of weeks ago, in a reputable training forum, I heard a trainer proudly declaring that his learning objectives were always cast in such a way that they would be fully achieved by the end of a course. I was appalled, and said so. My reservations about competency-based learning management aside, surely instructional designers and trainers seek to impact the performance of learners once they return to the real world? If that is true, instructional designers and trainers have a responsibility for the ultimate on-the-job effectiveness of their handiwork. And, if they have a responsibility, they should set objectives to know whether or not they are meeting that responsibility.
I was stunned by the number of people who came back at me as if I were mad, declaring adamantly (and somewhat self-righteously) that their responsibility for learner performance stopped at the door of the classroom or at the closing of the e-learning browser window. What happened after training was not their problem. If instructional designers as a group have such a limited perception of their importance to the business, then whoever is training them is doing a lousy job.
The question "what things will participants be able to do at the end of the session that they were not able to do pre-session" is a common cop-out that does not produce learning objectives. Rather, it produces a reverse-engineered set of often grotesquely constrained learning promises that have as much substance as those of a used-car salesman.
I am increasingly wary of any learning objective whose time horizon is only the end of a course. By the end of any learning experience, learners may have acquired some new competence. But within months that competence should have grown, been applied, and be achieving business results. That scope should characterise our learning objectives. To be satisfied with taking responsibility only for that which is directly within our domain, important as it is, ignores the fact that learning has a greater business purpose.
Setting objectives that do not look beyond the point where a learner hands in his/her smile-sheet is abdicating responsibility for the effectiveness of training. If course-end is the training performance horizon, then post-course drop-offs in recall or ability become acceptable to trainers as "not my problem."
You could argue that as long as the trainer has created an acceptable change between pre-training ability and post-training ability, then he or she has performed successfully.
But learning is not only about acquiring temporary knowledge and skills. Motivation is an important part of what a trainer should be doing. At the very least, we should design our courses and conduct them in such a way as to motivate people to want to learn, to want to keep learning, and to want to apply what they are learning once they leave the training environment. If that motivation is absent, we have not done our job.
Admittedly, there are many factors beyond the control of individual trainers that impact transferability of learning to the workplace. Management and systemic obstacles all affect the way people grow in their jobs. But trainers can’t simply ignore these. We should try to exert influence even if we have no overt responsibility. And if those obstacles are immovable, we should design our training to accommodate them and to equip learners to deal with them.
Simply saying "not my job" is an inadequate response in someone who has taken on the task of improving the performance of fellow employees. Trainers and instructional designers do not have total responsibility for a learner’s performance on the job, but I think they should share some of that responsibility. If their salaries, bonuses, or careers depended on it, we’d see much more effective learning experiences being developed.
* To read more of Godfrey's columns go to Parkin Space.
As a new member, I have only just had access to your column. The subject covered in this particular write up is very close to my heart.
As a health and safety trainer, I am often looked at as the company budget blaster. This is because once you advise the delegates of their duties and rights under the health and safety law, they usually go flying straight back to their managers for the equipment or paperwork required for them to comply. As you quite rightly say in aater comment the 'bean counters' appear to see us as a non cost effective evil! However, when an accident occurs and the lawyers look at the training regime, they then start to try and pass the buck back to us. I have also found that as we do try and evaluate our training at the 'sharp end' so to speak during our safety tours and evaluations, the whole culture of bean counting becomes more apparent. Our problem is that our cost's are not in their eyes 'productive'. This therefore, leads us to become somewhat of a lip service rather than a pro active training department. I feel that your latest comments and this article are very heavily linked and I agree that it is about time that 'bean counters' realised the benefit of training by allowing the departments the budgets to carry out effective work. I also agree that in many cases, training departments do feel their remit ends at the training room door, however as I have already said, I feel the rot has developed alot higher up the tree than the department. Chris Cork
Matt Brewer , 11 May 2005 @ 12:35 PM Split Responsibility
As an L&D team we feel that we absolutely have a responsibility to ensure that the skills learnt on our programmes are transferred to the workplace, and that those skills are appropriate. To ensure this happens, all nominations for programmes come from the delegate and their manager and include their expectations for the course. At the end of the course, they complete an eval form that asks about the course but also what their key learnings are and what they'll try to do differently back at work. After 3 months they receive a follow up eval asking what they can do now and for a specific example of application. Then after 12 months they get the final one asking similar things but also the benefits the skills have had to their business area. All evals are 'open question', not tick-box. This is a fairly new process for us, but by using these, the business, the users, their managers and us can monitor the effectiveness of the programmes. We can then adjust them to ensure the business and employee development needs are always met, or create new programmes as required. Matt Brewer
Cathy Read , 10 May 2005 @ 21:47 PM Well said!
If people are not able to take away and use what I hope I've taught them through training, then what's the point of me doing it? I would hope that a trainer is not someone who is just there for the pay packet. Maybe I'm wrong, but didn't we get into this because we want to provide people with the tools to help them to develop and grow?
Godfrey Parkin , 10 May 2005 @ 14:38 PM Response to Leslie
Leslie, Objectives are not “laid down by the organization”, they are defined by people. To regard any organization as an entity with a will of its own is to deny that absolutely everything that happens in an organization is decided on by individuals. Trainers cannot do a superb job if they regard themselves as merely reactive slaves to the machine.
Tainers are responsible for generating in the learner the ability and the will to carry out the implementation of learning. The only way to know if trainers have lived up to this responsibility is to measure on the job performance. You can’t measure meaningfully if you don’t set goals. So job performance improvement goals should be an important part of the definition of any training intervention. Responsibility for achieving those goals may be shared by the manager, the learner, the instructional designer, and the trainer. But it is not up to the manager alone to make the training work – training must be designed and carried out to be “workable” in the first place.
Leslie Rae , 09 May 2005 @ 19:25 PM Responsibility
Godfrey, The responsibility for the implementation of learning is not the trainers' - it is that of their line managers. If the trainers run a learning event from which the learners learn, in accordance with the objectives LAID DOWN BY THE ORGANIZATION they have done their job admirably and should have the sense to send the learners back to work with an Action Plan so that the real, responsible person can take over. Otherwise, this is why so many trainers either try to do too much or not enough! Leslie Leslie Rae
Stan Broadhurst , 09 May 2005 @ 12:51 PM Superb
At a time when ROI for learning is a headline topic, it is valuable as a professional to be reminded of this responsibility, I believe that the comments that you have made are equal in importance to " understanding the client requirement " & setting correct learning goals.
