The Performance Improvement Blog

Organizational Learning & Improvement Challenges

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Why Learning Is Not Applied

How would you answer the question, “Why do you think learners forget what they’ve learned so quickly?” This is the question that Charles Henderson asks in the Linkedin Learning, Education and Training Professionals Group discussion. He has received nearly 700 (and counting) comments which seems quite a lot for a Linkedin group. He must have hit a nerve.

Maybe it’s the request to keep comments to 10 words or less. Maybe it’s the northern hemisphere summer down-time that gives some Linkedin members more opportunity to contemplate this kind of question. I think it’s more likely that this is a question that cuts deeply into the psyche of educators and trainers. Respondents are not doubting the implicit assumptions that students and trainees do not retain everything they learn and that this is an important issue for schools and businesses. Rather, they readily acknowledge the problem and seem defensive about offering solutions. 

When I asked Mr. Henderson about the large response to his question, he said,

I guess I'm not alone in believing that retention is the biggest challenge in the L&D profession. Our industry is tasked with changing the results of our organizations, schools and communities and we inevitably fall short if the learner doesn't retain what is taught.

The responses run the gamut from, in effect, saying that learners are stupid and lazy to saying that instructors are incompetent and ineffective to saying that senior management doesn’t know and doesn’t care. Most of the responses seem to be an attempt at rationalizing the problem and placing blame.

In a way, I think everyone is right and no one is right. If by “forgetting”, we mean the failure to apply
what was learned in school or on the job, then there are many individual and organizational factors that contribute to this. It’s not one thing. It’s learners who don’t know why they need to know. It’s instructors who do not have reasonable expectations. It’s the failure of managers to encourage and support learning. It’s having no opportunity to apply new learning within a short period of time. And it’s because nobody is holding the learner and organization accountable for applying learning. We know from research that when these are the conditions, application of learning is highly unlikely. This is true for technical skills as well as managerial and leadership effectiveness.

Learning and the retention of learning cannot be left to trainers alone. Organizations as a whole must create an environmnet that supports the learning process. Leaders must make learning a core value, managers must facilitate and support learning for their direct reports, trainers must provide learning interventions appropriate for the content, and learners must participate enthusiastically in the process. Retention of learning is a systems problem, not an individual employee or individual trainer problem.

Employee Engagement: Define Your Terms

Employee engagement is in decline according to a Gallup Inc. report that was released this month. That might be the case, but without a shared definition of employee engagement, we can’t agree on what can be done about it, if anything.

Gallup defines levels of engagement in this way:

Engaged (30% of the U.S. population): Deeply committed to the success of their organization and emotionally connected to its mission and goals. Routinely willing to put forth discretionary effort.

Disengaged (52% of the U.S. population): Less emotionally connected to their work and less compelled to put forth extra effort. They show up for work but generally do only the minimum required.

Actively Disengaged (18% of the U.S. population): Actively against what the organization, and their boss, is trying to get done.

Different definitions of employee engagement are used in other studies. Thomas Britt, professor of industrial psychology at Clemson University, says that a worker can be engaged but not committed. - See more at: http://stephenjgill.typepad.com/performance_improvement_b/2009/06/employee-engagement-is-not-employee-commitment-.html#sthash.rleKZilv.dpuf  Engaged but not committed workers are likely to leave an organization when resources get tight or those workers are unhappy with leadership.

In an April 2008 post, I asked this question about the meaning of employee engagement: Is it about enthusiasm for one’s job, satisfaction from one’s work, acting to further the organization’s interests, dedication to doing the work, applying discretionary effort, involvement in the business, connections to others at work, emotional attachment to the company, a sense of empowerment, or a willingness to go the extra mile to get something done for the company? - See more at: http://stephenjgill.typepad.com/performance_improvement_b/2008/04/define-your-ter.html#sthash.FIP33ezE.dpuf

Sharlyn Lauby, of HR Bartender, offers this as an attempt at an all-inclusive definition: 

Employee engagement lies at intersection of maximum contribution for the business and maximum satisfaction for employees. It’s a sustainable level of high performance that benefits both the company and the employee. See more at: http://www.hrbartender.com/2013/employee/the-definition-of-employee-engagement/

Many more definitions and meanings of employee engagement can be found on "The Employee Engagement Network." See more at: http://employeeengagement.ning.com/

I don’t have a problem with having different definitions as long as we are clear about the definition we are using in a particular study or in any action we take to improve engagement in a particular organization and situation. Somebody might be enthusiastic about his or her work but not agree with the direction of senior management, or vice versa. Increasing that person’s engagement will depend on whether we are talking about attitudes toward the work or attitudes toward strategic goals. One requires changing an employee's job and the other requires creating a shared vision. 

Continuous Workplace Learning

I might quibble with Jane Hart’s assertion that continuous learning is a new role for learning and development professionals. However, the more important point is that the urgency for this role shift is growing every day. Workers don’t need a course schedule; they need to continually acquire new knowledge, new skills, and new attitudes. And they need L&D professionals to help them with this learning.

Hart writes that L&D professionals must change their role in these ways:

From “order takers” to business partners [working as a partner with team managers]

From “packaging” content-based solutions to “scaffolding” frameworks for learning to take place  [creating the conditions for learning to take place]

From a focus on learning to a focus on performance [learning is a means to an end and that end is performance improvement, whether individuals, teams, or whole organizations]

From teaching “old skills” to modeling “new skills” [working and learning in a collaborative and networked world]

From course designers/trainers to performance, collaboration and professional learning specialists [providing learning assistance where, when, and how it is needed]

I would add these other ways that the L&D role must also change:

From scheduler of courses and workshops to facilitator of on-demand, informal learning experiences

From resource for information on-demand to curator of information vital to organizational performance

From content expert to learning coach

From passive responder to active pusher of information

The need for this role change will continue and become more intense. As I wrote in a previous post:

The accelerating pace of change and competition means that every employee must be learning continuously. Course schedules and annual meetings are insufficient. Managers must make continuous learning part of everyone's job.

T&D professionals have an obligation to meet the learning and performance improvement needs of employees. This means a dramatic shift in role. Resistance to this change is to be expected because designing and delivering courses and workshops is something that they can control and therefore is safe and non-threatening.  Continuous workplace learning is ambiguous and messy, but it is imperative that L&D professionals adapt to this evolving role.