Training Industry Magazine - Summer 2014 - (Page 50)

T R AC K I N G TRENDS - KE N TAY LOR SUSTAINING TRAINING'S IMPACT Time plays a key role in business. It has a meaningful impact on how corporate training programs are developed, whether it's the speed of delivery, the length of the program, the time the learner interacts with the materials, the time the behavior is demonstrated by the employee after the training, or the introduction of tools and technologies that can get information to learners quickly. Looking across three research studies, I have collected a group of factors demonstrating the impact of time or speed on training programs. Time is a major constraint in the delivery of training - creating tension between desire for shorter training and longer impact. In the Training Industry and ON24 research study, "Using Virtual Environments for Leadership Development," 68 percent of respondents cited that sustaining the impact of training is a key challenge. What's interesting to note is that the drive to shorten the duration of the programs crosses with the FIGURE 1. DURATION OF FORMAL LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM Percentage of Respondents, N=194 50 notion of effectively sustaining the impact of the program. In this study, we looked at the length of leadership development programs, and found that more than half of leadership development programs last one week or less (see Figure 1). Interestingly, the companies that felt their program was effective actually had longer programs, ultimately sustaining the impact of training by extending the entire program (see Figure 2). In a related piece of research, "Strategies for Sustaining the Impact of Sales Training," we found that continuous training leads to sustained impact. Effective organizations utilize more pre-training strategies for sustaining training and post-training reinforcement, logically extending the program, but making it more impactful. One of the key problems that these longer more effective programs introduce to the learning management team is the potential for cost increases. Logically, longer programs cost more to support and deliver. So the learning leader is challenged to find new ways to make these programs happen, and

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Training Industry Magazine - Summer 2014

From Where I Sit
Table of Contents
Guest Editor: Developing Emerging Talent Pipelines
The Inherent Inertia of Training
Stop Harping on Generational Differences
Learning to Live the Brand
Leading through a Merger and Acquisition
Organizational Change through Applied Learning
Influencing without Line Authority: A Key Skill for Virtual Project Managers
The Currency of Trust: The Difference between Flourishing and Floundering
Building Buy-in for Learning Investments
Sales Winners Sell Differently: How Selling Is and Isn't Changing
From Mind-Full to Mindful: The Intention/Instruction Intersection
The Implications of Organizational Forgetting
Casebook: ADP: Improving Sales Process Effectiveness
Sustaining Training's Impact
Managing at the Speed of Business
Becoming an Authentic Leader
What's Online
Company News

Training Industry Magazine - Summer 2014