Summary Human Resource Development
Theme 1: Training effectiveness and transfer of training
Lecture 1 Notes
Training is often referred to as L&D (learning & development)
and Human Resource Development. L&D practices are divided
into categories:
1. Internal training
2. External training
3. Workplace training
4. Self-study
5. Conferences
The larger organizations are, the more training options/L&D
practices are offered.
How important is L&D? Of all HR practices, training and development practices show the largest
correlation with the performance of an organization. These practices are very important for increasing
organizational performance.
Training investment & performance in a longitudinal study
This shows the effect of investment in training.
These numbers show that investment in training will generate
profit for the organziation.
What is training? Interventions that are aimed at increasing people’s knowledge, skills, and abilities (or
attitude), it is a structured way of organizing the learning process that employees go through. It usually
happens away from the workplace and with a trainer that organizes something for the
learners/trainees.
Why should organizations invest in training?
- Employees: look at Maslow’s pyramid:
o People improve skills, and knowledge → Self-actualization
o Increase confidence → Self-efficacy
o Increased motivation, commitment and job satisfaction
o Promotion and employability (you have the right skills for the
job/another job)
- Employers: it is sometimes not clear because a lot of money is invested in it because you
invest in employees, they get better and then they leave the
company. The only right answer is, what if you don’t invest in
training and the employee stays with us?
The systematic approach: set up to make sure that huge amounts
of people were trained. Designed in US in the second world war to
train a lot of people for the war. This is professionalized in the
decades afterwards.
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, This is a very simple version. You can also think about the plan-do-check-act analysis. So you have
a problem defined, you can set objectives (attainable goals), then you can start designing your program
with activities, after you can deliver the program to the participants and after this you can evaluate
the extent to which the objectives have been reached. Then you go back to the analysis, etc.
Is training always the answer? To all organizational problems? NO. Although training and development
practices are very important to organizations, it won’t solve all organizational problems. The iceberg
analogy. So there are all kinds of problems in organizations, but what you see is not always the
underlying issue. So there is usually a whole lot below the surface. For instance if you are an HRD
professional and a manger comes to you and the team really needs a training because he doesn’t
understand what the organization wants. If you just say “okay, okay”, you are not doing it right because
you haven’t asked what the underlying issue is. Do the people just not get it or is something else the
case? So you have to go to the team and ask questions. Maybe the team is not the problem, the
manager is. If the manager really is the problem than it will be better to work on the leadership of the
manager instead of designing a training for the team.
1. Describe problematic performance situations.
2. Identify symptoms the visible ones.
3. Identfy underlying problem & matcihing interventions. Trainings should always be aimed at
the underlying problems:
a. Systems
b. Others (people that were not indicated to have the problems)
c. Motivation
d. Personality
e. KSA
Kirkpatrick’s model: often used in practice. It’s an evaluation model for training, a
way to look at the effectiveness of training. It has four layers/levels:
1. Reactions: the ‘smile sheet’ that you get at the end of a training session
with questions like: did you like the training/teacher? What did you think
of the materials and how things were explained? Etc. If enough people fill
out this questionnaire you get an idea about their first opinion of the
training. So it’s a first indicator of the effectiveness of the training.
2. Learning: relates back to the learning goals. Also called the learning outcomes, so the skills you
need to have at the end of the training. You try to show to what extent people have learned
the skills and knowledge that they should have in the training. For example, by using an exam
for skills. For skills you can ask people to show it to you. The trainer has to assess this.
3. Transfer: takes it back to the work situation. It asks to what extent can people show what they
have learned back on the job. While on training there is a safe situation and you are allowed
to make mistakes, on this level you are on the job and it’s more serious and real problems can
arise if you make a mistake. Sometimes you have to see if people are still willing/able to show
a certain skill that they learned in the training and were able to show in the training.
4. Results: what you really need. It’s only good from the organization’s perspective if the training
actually leads to results.
Each of these four levels shows their own indicator by which you can look at training effectiveness.
Problems are that it seems to assume that in order for results to happen, transfer needs to happen,
for transfer to happen learning needs to happen and for learning to happen reactions need to happen.
Studies show that this is not true. Perceived utility is something you can ask in reaction level. People
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,can say that they think they gained knowledge is useful, this indicates that they will actually use these
skills on the job (transfer level).
There is a fifth level that has been added later on: Return on investment (ROI): ROI (%) = net program
benefits / program costs x 100. You have to determine the costs, usually something that you can do
easily because you hired a trainer, you know people were not productive when they were in the
training room etc. You also have to isolate effectiveness, this is difficult and if you can the real problem
is that how can we be sure that the results are actually due to the training course? For example if team
productivity has gone up how can we be sure that this is because of the training program? To answer
this you need to have a similar team with the same problem that doesn’t take the training, then you
can compare.
Transfer of training: “Said is not heard, heard is not understood, understood is not agreed, agreed is
not memorized, memorized is not applied, and applied is not maintained ..” – Konrad Lorenz, ethologist
Figure that shows what transfer of training is. So people
gain a lot of insights in the workplace and they have to
apply and maintain this new knowledge. Studies show
that it is important that people have the intention to
transfer. If they don’t have this it is very unlikely that
people will use this. There are many inhibiting (e.g.
behaviors of colleagues and the workplace, what is good
is if you have a very supportive boss) and supporting factors.
Article Weisweiler et al., 2013: Training transfer: Social psychological theories that may explain
transfer of training:
- Goal setting theory (Locke & Latham, 1990): the
setting of goals by a person is actually a very
good way of increasing performance. So
especially if the goals that peoples set are
relatively demanding and specific than it
increases performance compared to people who do not set the goals. If people set goals
before or during the training what they really want to achieve a new behavior, knowledge.
That adds to the motivation to learn and motivation to transfer this to the workplace. For
the transfer it is important to invite people to set goals for the training. These goals do
have to be related to the goals of the training. This will increase the chances of the transfer
actually happening.
- Self-efficacy theory (Bandura, 1986): the idea is that
people gain confidence through participating in new
experiences that they can actually perform new
behaviors well. It is a form of confidence but directed
to a certain tasks. So people need to have the feeling
that they can do it. Usually training starts with easy
exercises because if you can do that you get a feeling
of mastery and are more confident that you can
complete the more difficult tasks. For transfer of
training it is important that people have self-efficacy so they can show the skills in practice.
It is important to increase the self-efficacy of employees by giving them a sense of mastery
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, or pointing out things that people already do well. This is what trainers can do to increase
people’s self-efficacy.
- Cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957): it
can go to a level where people freeze and don’t
know what to do and therefore go back to their
old behavior. In a training where people are
urged to give them new skills you actually take
them out of their normal workplace. You can
praise people when they do something well,
however they know that this will not happen
when they are on the job and therefore you have inconsistency. It is a human tendency to
decrease the dissonance. It shows that behavioral change is a difficult process as what you
learn is different from what you know in your job. This means that a good training doesn’t
just change people’s behavior, it also brings a form of refraining
to it. So a frame of why this behavior is needed, good and valued
on the job. It is very important that this is true. If there is not
enough support on the job to show certain behaviors people will
go back to their old behaviors and therefore the behavior stays
the same.
- Job characteristics model (Hackman & Oldham, 1976): it talks
about how certain job characteristics lead to psychological states
and work outcomes. Perceived autonomy and feedback are very
important predictors of transfer of training. So when people return on the job, they should
perceive that they have enough autonomy to change the behavior that is expected of them
and enough feedback from managers, teammates and maybe even clients that helps the
transfer of training. This is not a job for the trainer, but for the manager to show this and
create this environment. This will allow trainees to actually show the learned behaviors.
- Social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986): it involves around identity and
identity is constructed around sub identities. So for example the social
identity of a student. You are a student in school, you also have a side job
where you have an identity of an employee. You are also part of a family
where you have the role of son, brother, uncle, etc. You also have a role in
sports, maybe even team leader. This all feeds into the identity of a person.
You belong to certain groups, the in-group or the out-group. In which group
you belong also identifies if you are satisfied or not with your social identity.
Belonging to a certain group is important to the extent to which transfer of
training happens. So the notion of social support is useful. If you feel like you
belong to a certain group, this allows you to be able to make mistakes. If you
come back from a training you can be confident that your new behaviors are okay to show
because you are part of a group. If you don’t have this support transfer of training is much
less likely to happen. This is very difficult for trainers to manage, but analysts and designers
of training can look at. For example more people from the same team need to be trained,
by which you change the social identity of the group/team as a whole.
Article Burke & Hutchins, 2007: Training transfer:
- Literature review of factors impacting transfer of training. If you don’t look at this, you
won’t get the results that you hope for.
- Learning investments yield suboptimal results.
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