Training Industry Magazine - Summer 2023 - 18

If you look at the reason we're in this
business, which is to help those we serve
to perform effectively and efficiently on
the job, we need to rethink our aversion
toward a training-first mindset. Years
ago, I was introduced to " train, transfer,
sustain " (Figure 1), and it challenged me
to look at my deliverables in ways I'd
never considered before. It represents
the journey our learners are on when
they try to become, and remain,
competent at their jobs. It shows both
the stages - train, transfer, sustain -
and the heavy lifting around gaining and
applying skills in the workflow.
Historically, we've lived in the " train "
stage. We host learners in our training
deliverables, whether live or digital, and
help bring them up to some level of
mastery. As you can see, that's only onethird
of the journey and it is forgotten
quickly. The learner leaves our offerings
and faces the two greatest performance
challenges of their life - becoming, and
remaining, competent by transferring
that knowledge into applications on the
job. The training stage is important, and
often the beginning of the journey, but
true application and performance happen
once that stage ends and the learner is
back in the workflow. In too many learning
deliverables, technologies and even
strategies, we leave our learners woefully
unprepared to face transfer and sustain as
is represented by the question marks.
Before I found workflow learning, I had
little to no intentional design strategy for
the transfer and sustain stages. Sure, I
hoped that the resources I shared during
the training stage were used beyond the
event, but that's not a strategy that targets
the final two stages. A performance-first
strategy begins in the workflow and works
back. It inverts our thinking from one of
creating training first to one of supporting
performance first. We design from right to
left instead of left to right. You do that by
adding a workflow learning framework as
the underpinning of your design approach
(Figure 2).
This will require you to add two new
deliverables - a digital coach and
targeted training, and you create them in
that order. This shift isn't only about the
deliverables, it's about a design pivot. If
you add these two tools to your toolkit
but start with targeted training first,
you are still designing from a trainingfirst
mindset. If you design your digital
coach first and enhance that with only
the critical things that need to be trained
(more on that later), you have shifted to
a performance-first approach.
3 Powerful Results That
Will Drive This Change
Three remarkable things happen when
you make this shift:
1. Your training footprint
shrinks by 50% on average.
With a digital coach in the workflow,
you no longer need to teach everything.
Think about how refreshing that would
be! Just ask any trainer, the elephant in
the room with a training-first approach
is that we often over-teach. If you only
build training deliverables, they must
carry the day and cover everything. This
has been a travesty that's burdened our
industry for years and has underserved
our learners in unfair ways. If you design
workflow learning by building a digital
coach, the classroom no longer has to
Figure 2. Train, Transfer and Sustain With a Workflow Learning Framework
Mastery
of Tasks
& Concepts
o
o
Workflow Learning is embedding learning and support
in the workflow to be acessed WHILE trying to perform
on the job.
Targeted
Training
Digital
Coach
This is done by designing Performance Support and an
EPSS or Digital Coach as a base which provides the
foundation for Targeted Training.
Time to Competency
TRAIN
TRANSFER
SUSTAIN
WORKFLOW LEARNING FRAMEWORK
Competency
on the Job
Continuous
Improvement
18
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https://www.ispringsolutions.com/blog/learning-retention#:~:text=Research%20shows%20that%20an%20average,an%20effort%20to%20retain%20it
Training Industry Magazine - Summer 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Training Industry Magazine - Summer 2023
