Why was the face-to-face training rated so poorly?

In The Changing Nature of Organizations, Work, and Workplace, Judith Heerwagen of JH Heerwagen & Associates and Kevin Kelly and Kevin Kampschroer of the US General Service Administration note that work today is more: cognitively complex; team-based and cooperative; dependent on social skills; dependent on technological competence; Time pressure; mobile and less geographically dependent.

Managers and employees need new skills to meet these challenges effectively—and they need learning and professional development opportunities that go beyond traditional classroom training.

This is confirmed by the results of a 2017 survey on work-based learning conducted by Jane Hart, founder of the Center for Learning & Performance Technologies. Over 5,000 managers and employees were asked to rate the importance (value/usefulness) of 12 work-based learning methods as follows: NI = not important; QI = fairly important; VI = very important; or Eating = Essential.

The results of opinion poll are identified below in order of priority, with 1 being the highest ranked learning method. Methods were ranked by their combined VI+Ess scores (very important and essential). (The VI+Ess total is in parentheses after the method):

1. Daily work experiences (i.e. doing day job) (93)

2. Knowledge sharing with your team (90)

3. Web search (e.g. Google) (79)

4. Web resources (e.g. videos, podcasts, articles) (76)

5. Manager’s feedback and guidance (74)

6. Professional Networks and Communities (72)

7. Feedback and guidance from coaches or mentors (65)

8. Internal resources (e.g. documents, guidelines) (60)

9. Blogs and News Feeds (56)

10. E-learning (e.g. online courses for self-study) (41)

11. Conferences and other professional events (35)

12. Classroom training (31)

As you can see, the survey results show that the least appreciated type of learning in the workforce is classroom training!

We don’t know why respondents rate face-to-face training so poorly. There can be many reasons, such as:

• The content focuses on theory rather than practical application.

• Overly general unit examples that are difficult for participants to translate and apply to their own work situations.

• Ineffective training methods, such as B. Dominance of lectures with PowerPoint.

• Lack of useful work aids.

• The wrong people were given the training, in part due to the need to ensure a sufficient number of butts in the seats.

• Inconvenient scheduling.

• The time required and the high registration and travel costs for external courses.

• Bad content, either outdated or irrelevant to actual job needs.

• Poor trainers who lack effective presentation skills and/or classroom management skills.

• No follow-up by supervisors to reinforce learning.

• A lack of support for the implementation of new learning.

As I design and deliver classroom training, I would like to believe that it is not the classroom training itself that respondents rate so negatively – just poor curriculum design, delivery and facilitation.

What do you think?

Thanks to Deborah Laurel | #facetoface #training #rated #poorly