Training helps new employees learn the skills required to perform their job. But simply providing training once upon hiring doesn’t necessarily cause a meaningful behavior change.

Included below is a list of three tips to increase your employees’ productivity and reduce on-the-job performance issues.

Open Communication & Feedback Loops

Create an environment where learners feel like they’re able to openly communicate their opinions. This allows you to actively gather feedback that can later be used to increase the impact of your training.

In addition to encouraging open communication, ask your employees if they have the tools to perform their job effectively:

• Do they still have questions?
• Do they need additional training?
• Do they think the information could be applied?
• How are they going to apply the new information?

Follow Up After Training is Complete

Your organization has invested a lot of time and money into developing a successful training program. A top priority now should be creating a follow-up program. As seen with the Forgetting Curve, it's important to begin reinforcing material directly after training ends.

A successful program transforms your training material into bite-sized microlearning activities, including videos, infographics, quizzes, and open response questions, that increase knowledge retention and drive behavior change.

Your follow-up plan shouldn’t focus solely on increasing knowledge retention, it should also focus on creating behavior changes that increases your training ROI. 

Focus on Behavior Change

On average, 31.5 hours are dedicated to training each learner. Microlearning activities are small and require just a few minutes to complete, leading to greater engagement. With a $1,200 average direct learning expenditure per learner, it's time to start focusing on reinforcing their knowledge to create a lasting behavior change.

A goal-based, structured reinforcement program dramatically increases your training impact by ensuring your learning culture is focused on creating behavior changes.

Take Action

Increase your training impact by implementing feedback loops, opening communication, having a training reinforcement plan, and concentrating these efforts on behavior change.
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Learn how to determine your reinforcement objectives in our step-by-step guide. Download the 10-Step Guide to Determine Your Reinforcement Objectives. 

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This post was originally published on April 5, 2017.