For Learning that Lasts, Link Tools to Tasks

Why is it the case that much of our time spent on training seems to have little impact when we come back to the office? How many people say, “I went on a course, but never used it and so completely forgot what I learnt!” Is this because the training was inadequate or simply not relevant? This issue can easily be ignored by training companies who just want to get bookings, and HR departments who must tick the relevant boxes to say their people have completed development plans.

To get away from this, and truly create organisations that evolve through the training and performance levels of their personnel, we need to make learning both appropriate and targeted to the role in hand. Learning must be task-driven and the onus is on the trainer to define the relationship between the tool and the task very clearly. Training that does not make this link does not teach people how to perform their daily tasks better and more effectively; instead it relies on those attending to see how the lessons taught fit with their day, and so old habits continue.

Training based on tasks and not tools, makes a course immediately relevant. Seeing the benefits, not only do people take in the information and actually learn but, when they return to their desk, they are more likely to question what other habits could be improved and learning moves from the classroom back to the desk.

Of course this requires effort on the part of the training company and companies must also look at how they work so that they can really enable their training provider to deliver appropriate and high performance learning. However, when this effort is applied, training creates good learners and leads to organisations that are constantly evolving through the ability to question and therefore improve processes and tasks.

It is vital that training delivers benefit. Helping people to be better, and therefore organisations to perform better, has to be the aim of training. There is no other way to do this but by looking squarely at what people do and asking, “How can we make this better?”

Arlene McDermott is the managing director of Senan Solutions

The Senan Method - A Pioneering New Approach to Training that Delivers Real Results.