Training succeeds if the trainees can demonstrate that they have mastered the material taught. They should be able to apply the skills learned in the workplace, and their performance must improve in a way that benefits the organization.

Training Success Factors

• Value
  Every organization is full of training needs or performance improvement opportunities. A high-value opportunity exists when there is a large performance gap among employees in the same job or task, or when something new must be learned by all employees, and when training can mean significantly increased effectiveness or productivity for the organization.
• Focus
  Training should focus on all relevant performance factors, not just knowledge and skills. Other factors to be considered include clarity of expectations, lack of capacity, poor job or work flow design, inappropriate feedback, lack of positive incentives, and inadequate tools or resources. The organization’s support of training will guarantee effective learning.
• Power
  Interventions must be powerful enough to overcome all the forces in the system that resist change.
• Mass
  A support system is usually essential for trained employees to maintain their new knowledge and skills over time. Factors such as who is trained and when they are trained are as important to pay attention to as the training itself.
• Duration
  It is virtually impossible to achieve long-term, verifiable performance improvement or effectiveness with a single training program. New skills take time to become part of a person’s repertoire. The concept of duration combines the concept of ongoing training with a four-step process for training:

  system adjustment
  preparation
  training
  follow-up