Every year, most of the companies have a large budget for training and development programs. But unfortunately, there are so many company leaders who complain that they have spent so much on training programs and still did not made any significant changes or not effective. This has been an open secret for years: Companies waste money on training.
Why Training is Not Effective?
Here are 5 reasons why training at your company not effective:
1. Having the Wrong Mindset About Training
One of the most common misconceptions is the notion that training is like a magic, the solution or remedy for all performance problems. So whatever the problems that exist in the company, the orientation of the solution is: training. They thought that with training, it could easily and quickly change the nature/attitude/performance of the employees.
However, there are many problems with performance. In addition to HR factors, there are also factors of work equipment, procedures and systems, work environment, remuneration policies, etc. In one of the clients we have given training on customer service, they generally have sufficient mindset and competence. But what obstacles do they feel? Turns out their computer is slow. This greatly hampers their performance.
In addition, training is often seen as a “workshop”. If you have a problem with your vehicle, then the solution is to leave the vehicle in a repair shop. And when finished from the workshop, then the problem is gone. Unfortunately, this kind of mindset also occurs when there are problems in performance.
Well, it is not that simple!
2. Wrongly Determine KPI
Yes, you would not expect this factor. So far, many companies have wrongly determined the training KPIs. For the most part, KPIs are only in the form of number of training a year, hours of training a year, number of participants a year, level of participant satisfaction.
When we have KPIs like this, training and development practitioners will only focus on achieving numbers. In fact, in fact the training and development program aims to solve problems or reduce the company’s capability gap in achieving business goals.
So a new training program can be considered successful if it is proven to be able to solve problems or help the business achieve its goals. The number of training figures is irrelevant.
Read Also: 8 Hacks To Stay Consistent In Business When You’re Bored With It
3. Not Doing TNA Right
The third reason, but perhaps the most important reason why training in your company does not bring about a change, is because it is rare for anyone to do the Training Needs Analysis correctly.
Yes, this TNA is one of those things that is often being underestimated. In fact, this TNA is the key. Wrongly doing TNA will result in the training program you are doing is not right on target, does not eradicate the root of the problem, so that the results do not have an impact.
Unfortunately, there are still many training and development practitioners who don’t even understand how to do TNA properly. Some of the companies only copied the titles of the previous year’s training. Or ask for opinions from the users what trainings they need. Or what is quite often is “what training is currently being hit?”.
Continuing with point #1, if training and development practitioners do TNA correctly, then there will be a lot of performance problems that maybe the solution is not training. For example computer repair to help work faster.
4. Wrong Training Design
Changing attitudes, motivation and work competence is not an easy thing. Because humans are not mechanical like machines. Training for 2-3 days alone will not be able to significantly change a person’s performance. Especially now in the era of the pandemic, where training has turned online, the challenges have become even more difficult.
In designing the training we recognize the 10:70:20 principle, where 10% is classroom or online training. (Yes, it turns out that training only has a 10% impact on change). 70% is field practice, and 20% is coaching and mentoring. The design should indeed be comprehensive, where someone learns, practices, and then makes continuous improvements through coaching programs. This is the design that must be done to create an impactful training program.
So sending employees for 1-2-3 days of training and hoping that they will change is a good thing, ladies and gentlemen.
5. Not Doing Training Evaluation
The final reason why training is not effective, because change is immeasurable. For example, you want to lose weight. You make various efforts such as diet and exercise. Then know where your program works? It’s easy, you have a measuring tool right? That is the scales.
Unfortunately, in many companies, the results of training are not fully measured. If we use the most widely used training evaluation method, the Kirkpatrick model, then we understand that there are 4 levels of evaluation. Which are: (1) Reaction, (2) Learning, (3) Behavior, (4) Impact. Meanwhile, the most frequently used evaluation level is only level 1 (through the training satisfaction evaluation form) and a maximum of level 2 (via pretest and posttest).
Most of the time, this is not being done properly. The pre-post test sometimes only measures the increase in knowledge through 10-20 multiple choice questions. Whereas the increase in understanding should be measured by more comprehensive methods such as case studies or other assessments.
So it can be seen, why training is not effective, because the impact is not measured.
Final Thought
Training is not cheap, there are so many companies that spend fantastic numbers to realize training programs that can have an impact on company achievement. However, because of 5 points above, billions to hundreds of billions of budgets will evaporate in vain.
Therefore, it is important to evaluate and investigate the result of all the training and re-think all the possible other factors to improve the employee performance.
