Can training make a real difference? Yes, it can. Does it always make a difference? No, it does not.
That's the problem. The pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars a year on training, but what do they get in return? That's a very difficult thing to measure. According to the Hay Group, although nearly 40% of companies report plans to conduct ROI analysis on training, only 8% do so...and many of those studies are highly imprecise. Other surveys show, though, that operational managers are often very sceptical about the benefits of training outside of new-recruit training.
However, training can have an enormous positive benefit. The IMS Health Learning Solutions and Change Management practice has carried out numerous training programs in which concrete results analysis was done on KPIs such as sales, market share, and target coverage, proving a significant and immediate positive impact due to training initiatives. The question is, how can you make sure that the training initiative is going to provide those kinds of results?
First, it's important to remember the objectives. What does good training do for you? It comes down to the old "capability vs. motivation" grid. In order to be effective, people must have the capabilities to do their jobs well, and the will to do their jobs well.
Different training courses will tend to focus more on one or another side of the equation. On one hand there are pure technical training courses, those that concentrate on the skills or knowledge necessary to do a job. In the extreme, this might consist of a technical manual explaining product features. On the other hand there are motivational or inspirational courses that don't touch at all on the skills and knowledge that make up capabilities, but focus purely on self-motivation, teamwork, values, etc.
The very best training initiatives will do both at the same time; they will address capabilities while increasing motivation.
In introductory training this is somewhat easier. New recruits tend to be enthusiastic about their new environment and eager to prove themselves.Wha's more, they don't need to change any behaviours, they just need to adopt the new behaviours that go with a new job.
For continuing education, however, it's a lot more difficult. The openness of the new recruit is replaced with a comfort zone carved out of the bedrock of experience. Once someone has an established set of behaviours, it is far more difficult to try to get them to adopt new ones via training.
Training Methodologies and Retention
How to make a difference then? Given the above, and given the objectives of increasing both capabilities and motivation, the first step is to choose training that employs the best possible methodology.
There are a lot of different types of training, running from “read that book” to getting a university degree. Usually, initiatives will employ a mix of methodologies. For example, if you do decide to go get a university degree, you’ll be doing a lot of reading, listening to lectures, engaging in multimedia venues, doing case studies… the list goes on.
For continuing education, the key is to look at the impact you’re expecting, your budget, and the time you have available.
From the point of view of capabilities impact, a good measure of the effectiveness of the different methodologies available is the degree of retention: how much does the participant remember afterwards?
The educational theorist Edgar Dale developed his famous “Cone of Learning” in 1969, in which he studies retention rates for different types of learning methodologies. What he found was striking – retention levels can range from 50% in traditional “academic” methods (lectures, reading, etc) to 70% once methods like case studies are used. However, the ultimate in learning experiences consists in simulation, where retention can reach 90%...not much lower than retention levels found with actual experience.
Training Methodologies and Change Management
What about the other side of the equation, the motivation side? Once again, we see the importance of Dale’s cone of learning, but for quite different reasons.
Any change management expert will tell you that change really occurs when individuals observe their peers demonstrating new behaviour. Management can talk all it wants, but I’ll change the way I work much more readily once I observe my colleague adopting the new approach.
In some cases, such as with sales forces, this presents a major problem, since reps don’t actually observe each other work on a day-to-day basis. Even with individuals who do observe their peers at work, the best training will still accelerate the process.
How? Let’s look back at the cone of learning. Dale calls the top part of the cone the “passive” area. Someone, usually a trainer or facilitator, is presenting to me. The bottom half of the cone is the active part, where I’m participating. Now, if you create a training initiative in which people are participating with their peers, then they will observe each other’s reactions to the material.
Once again, we’re drawn to the level of simulation – because at that level we’re not only participating, we’re practicing. Therefore, participants can not only gauge the reactions of the colleagues, but they can observe them putting new behaviours into action in a simulated setting.
Beyond Methodology
Methodology is crucial, and that’s what you’ll pay your trainers for, whether they’re internal or external. In the end, though, the biggest factor is going to be support from management for new behaviours. In the course of a company-wide quality improvement initiative, Motorola found that those plants where quality improvement training was strongly backed-up by senior management reported a 330% return on training investment, whereas those plants that carried out the same training but had no management follow-up reported negative ROI.
This is not surprising. In the end, it means that you can’t outsource change management, you have to do it yourself. However, you can make it much, much easier by choosing the right training methodology.
Summary
It’s not surprising to see the Learning Solution and Change Management practice at IMS advocating simulation-based training, as there were some good reasons to adopt this approach in the first place… the reasons outlined above.
Simulation-based training is by far the best approach when the objective is to link capability enhancement with motivational effect. Dale’s cone of experience is just one approach that validates this methodology.
It’s true that simulation-based programs are by nature generally more expensive than most “spray and pray” approaches, in which a trainer comes and talks to a group, takes them through some exercises, and then hopes he hit the mark with some of the participants. The realism and underlying quality of a simulation increases its relevance and therefore its impact, but sophisticated software of this kind must be carefully developed, tested, and maintained. For some highly technical, or less critical training needs, the cost-benefit analysis may therefore point to less sophisticated techniques.
It is in the domain of marketing and sales that simulation-based training is generally the right choice. These are areas in which technique and capability must be married to the willingness to adopt new, ever changing approaches, and in which companies often want to change their strategies, requiring almost constant change management.
These approaches, coupled with real management support and follow-up, can provide astonishing and measurable results.