What are the main reasons a training program costs so much and eventually fails?
According to experts and training managers, one of the least known factors that contribute to training program failure are:
1. Low attendance
If no one’s there to attend your training program, the resulting uneven skill sets and knowledge may be more detrimental than helpful to the workers. What’s more, low attendance means that your employee benefits and development initiatives aren’t truly reflecting what your workers want. They won’t avail of something they consider useless, after all.
2. Lack of continuity
This just doesn’t include follow-up sessions and questions regarding the subject material. If your trainees resign or leave their jobs a few months after the training program, then you have just lost money on employee development. Choosing loyal employees to benefit from training is important to maintain continuity and timely knowledge transfer.
3. Lack of technical support
Any training program that lacks technical support in terms of help desks, secure hosting and management of projects and even online knowledge transfer almost ensures failure. In today’s digital age, supporting your training with tech is the only way to go.
So how do you mitigate or address these weaknesses? One of the most effective strategies is the use of subject matter experts.
What are "Subject-Matter Experts"?
Instead of training your whole employee base, why not select a few personnel to be taught intensively that they can echo the training. These "subject matter experts" should have some sort of bond with the company to stay at least a year to recoup the losses of training them.
These SMEs should also be able to answer 2nd level questions coming from their own colleagues. They should also be the most adept at using project management software and knowledge data banks that pertain to the training topic.
Keep in mind that the subject matter experts must be able to echo the training with enough coaching and preparation.