One of the problems of sending people on courses is that a few weeks later, the statistics show that they are likely to have forgotten about 80% of what they have learnt. So what can you do to reduce this loss?
Post course briefing with the line manager on return from the course with agreed action points for putting the learning into practice is ideal. However, the reality is that few managers have the time to do this or simply don't think about it. As a trainer, I sometimes get people to write a letter to themselves at the end of the course about all of the things that they are going to do following the training. Then, about a month later, I post the letters to the delegates. I think that this can be effective, but I have no way of monitoring the success of this.
One of the other very effective solutions is to offer post-course coaching 4 - 5 weeks after the course. Today I worked with two managers who had attended one of my Introduction to Team Leadership workshops in August. They had both tried to put some of the things that they learnt on the workshop into practice. One told me that the concept of 'don't bring me a problem, bring me a solution' had been very helpful. However, we also spent time discussing some of the challenges of managing people and both were left fired-up to try some new approaches and had been reminded of some of the key learning points from the course.
Of course, post course coaching does not have to be done by an external consultant; if you have sufficient skills in your management team and they have the time; it should be a very effective and valuable process. Coaching can help to raise the level of learning retention from a training course ensuring that it has been a cost-effective and time-effective investment.
