Companies are spending billions on training programs, yet rarely see the measurable return on investment. Co-founder and CEO of BetterUp explains how to rethink traditional training for lasting behavior change
In the U.S., the market for employee training and education tops $160 Opens a new window billionOpens a new window . Yet, a McKinsey & Co. surveyOpens a new window revealed that just 25% of respondents believed that training improved people’s performance at work. So why are companies continuing to spend money on training programs, when the results are hardly transformational?Â
The problem lies in our own expectations of these programs, and our demands of them. **On their own, training programs are like diet plans: they can arm us with the facts and guidelines we need to follow, but they can’t actually make us steer clear of that donut to lose the weight**. Training programs today are focused on the individual. We expect that by training individuals, organizational effectiveness and performance will also improve.Â
However, for training to succeed in a measurable way, the organization must support a culture of growth and change. Trainees need to have the support of their peers and bosses, aligned objectives, and sufficient resources to practice new learning for sustained behavior change. Training programs can lead to measurable results, but only with additional support to drive lasting behavior change.
What your training program is missing
In a survey conducted by Workplace Trends Opens a new window , nearly half of the respondents said that leadership is the hardest skill to find in employees; 39% offered leadership development programs, but only 15% of employees actually believed they were effective. Why?
Most conventional training programs fall short when it comes to delivering measurable outcomes — they were never intended to develop the critical skills that today’s workforce needs or wants, or deliver them in a way that will lead to sustained behavioral change. In today’s knowledge economy, integrated learning, where an individual not only gains knowledge about a specific skill, but also can generate insights and apply these new skills and insights to other areas in a virtuous cycle, is the type of transformational learning essential to organizational performance and effectiveness.Â
The U.S. workforce is changing dramatically: millennials now make up one-third of the workforce; by 2025, they’ll make up 75% of American companies. Yet training programs rarely touch upon invaluable leadership skills like empathy, resilience, and stress management (just to name a few) that this group desperately desires. Instead, traditional training programs tend to focus on ‘one-and-done’ learnings that aren’t focused on personal development, aren’t highly engaging, scalable, self-directed, or available in real-time.
These shortfalls significantly impact the overall effectiveness of learning & development programs that many companies continue to spend billions of dollars on. So should you scrap learning & development programs altogether? Absolutely not. But you should rethink how you’re approaching learning and development on a broader scale.
How coaching can reinvent your learning & development programs
According to Gallup’s 2015 State of the American Manager ReportOpens a new window , “the sought-after talent combination that characterizes great managers only exists in about one in 10 people. Another two in 10 people have some of the five talents and can become successful managers with the right coaching and development.†But training programs rarely focus on coaching and development, even though these efforts are the ones that can ultimately lead to measurable change.
**To develop great leaders, it’s imperative to align your training programs with a clear development plan**. This includes setting goals specific to the individual, identifying strengths and skill gaps tied to those goals, and ensuring that these efforts are all linked to your organization’s strategic direction and cultural values. Using coaching to augment training programs allows you to to increase accountability, provide ongoing support and maintain employee engagement.Â
Executive-level coaching has largely been reserved for senior-level executives because to date, it’s been cost-prohibitive for most companies to extend its benefits more broadly. But the effects of this siloed access to the professional development is disastrous: companies are faced with an entire group of high potential new managers who are unprepared for the leadership roles they’re assuming.
Today, technology and science have helped us make great strides in developing coaching programs that are scalable, evidence-based, more affordable, and accessible than before.
So while training programs can provide employees with the “what,†coaching is the “how†that can complement these learnings by giving individuals the skills they need — both psychological and social-emotional —  to put these learnings into practice in a way that will ultimately lead to day-to-day behavioral change.