Your recent article "tell me again why we're doing this" [Outbound, February 2006, page 96] was excellent and touched on many important points regarding professional development.
My experience consulting for and managing training initiatives in the logistics industry has shown that employee or "learner" adoption is the key to successful large-scale technology implementations. But the project team may be so focused on getting the application up and running that they devalue learner adoption.
Here are just a few of the issues I've seen over the years:
- Training is delivered in a way that is not conducive to learning how to use the application and is conducted by "technical people" rather than experienced trainers.
- Training does not simulate how the employee will use the technology to do his or her job more efficiently and effectively.
- The training event is used to deliver messages that detract from the value of the new application.
- Training stands alone with no support or reinforcement of skills afterwards.
- Training is blamed because the application is not being used.
Communication strategy, learning strategy, leadership development and coaching are all important in addressing these issues and facilitating learner adoption. But the training must also be accountable to the learner audience. So it is equally important to clearly define the measurement of success and define how the organization will help the employees sustain the level of adoption required.
When new technology is introduced into an organization, employee development that focuses on learner or employee adoption can turn the challenge of change into an opportunity for organizational success.
Owen Davis, TrainingFolks Inc.
