CHAPTER 24

Learning Transfer: The Missing Link

Emma Weber

One of the biggest challenges that businesses have always faced in the development and delivery of training relates to what happens after the training course is complete; is the company going to see a real change in employee behaviour?

The answer most often is no. Achieving truly lasting change requires the most robust training reinforcement approaches, an approach that creates and measures learning transfer.

There have been many debates around the concepts of making training stick and the organisational benefits of embedded learning and the like. These, of course, have merit, but they are predominantly about people being able to remember or recite what they were taught. Retention of learning in terms of what people actually remember is rarely the issue. This should not be confused with learning transfer, which is about changing, in a very practical way, how individuals operate in the workplace after a training program.

Study after study shows that learning approaches are typically only around 10 to 20 percent effective. This means that the return on financial and time investments in training is rarely, if ever, fully maximised. Employers are often unsure how to hold people accountable to change after training, and thus they are unable to ensure effective learning transfer; in essence, people follow a strategy of hope!

Meeting the learning transfer challenge isn’t helped by the fact that one of the key metrics of evaluating an L&D team is “training days delivered.” This means that if participants leave a training event, in theory, knowing what to do and demonstrating the desired new skills or behaviour in the classroom, this metric is satisfied regardless of whether that knowledge is ever actually implemented back in the workplace. Even when the intention to transfer is captured, this still isn’t a measure of whether an outcome happens. As a profession, we have the opportunity to hold ourselves to a higher standard and start creating and demonstrating real behaviour change.

Whenever L&D professionals have a “light bulb moment” and recognise this flaw in the evaluation of training, they realise that providing training is only half of their job. They also need to ensure that what they taught is transferring to the workplace to demonstrate real business benefit.

Learning’s Missing Link

Clearly, for the learning transfer problem to have been evident for so long, there has to be something missing in the instructional design process (IDP). The acknowledgment that behavioural change is the key to massively improving business results and learning transfer will close that gap. If there is no robust learning transfer after training, it doesn’t matter how well the rest of the process—analysis through to evaluation—has been implemented.

Why It’s Been Missing for So Long

The individual elements of the IDP have been perfected over the years, but because training still falls short of meeting goals, there must be a missing link. But why is this link missing? Let’s review a few causes:

•  No ownership. Too often, the different parts of the IDP are divided up across resources, and there is no common finish line for each stage. This simply means there is no ownership present.

•  Wrong objectives. When planning a program, the wrong objectives are often mistakenly set. From the beginning, the objective is set to gauge what people intend to do and what they demonstrate they can do in the classroom. Rarely are they set to deliver results after the training is complete. With these loose objectives, there’s limited chance that learning transfer can occur because it wasn’t included or prioritized within the objective stage. You cannot hit a target without having one to aim at. The ROI Instrument Alignment Model can help you consider learning objectives in addition to preparing for evaluation. Beyond Learning Objectives: Develop Measurable Objectives That Link to the Bottom Line, by Jack and Patti Phillips, is a great resource for helping identify the difference between learning objectives and behavioural objectives.

•  Obsession with content. L&D functions have become obsessed with finding new and innovative ways of getting content delivered, especially through the avenue of technology. While the intention is good, it has also allowed people to believe that improving the content and delivery will create a behaviour change when this simply isn’t enough.

•  Obsession with evaluation. Level 1 evaluation, Reaction, represents the Holy Grail of learning and development, but it does not create change; it only measures the extent of it. Forget the happy sheet!

•  Focus on learning, not on change. Effective learning transfer needs strategies to promote change. If the training program’s primary goal isn’t to create behavioural change, then how can we expect this to be the result?

At the very beginning stage of the IDP process, when analysing the business situation and identifying if learning could be the solution to the problem, you also need to ask the question: Do I need to supplement the learning with a learning transfer solution?

In most cases the answer will be yes, and this is when you come to grips with the concept of near and far learning transfer. Patti Shank (2004) captures this beautifully in her article for Learning Solutions magazine, “Can They Do It in the Real World? Designing for Transfer of Learning”:

In my book, this pretty much means anything that involves people or situations that change!

It’s perhaps easier to confirm when you don’t need a specific learning transfer solution or when it won’t add value. Ask yourself, is this training program taking the form of a performance support tool? Imagine the program is a piece of content that the individual has sought out to solve a particular issue at a moment of need. In that case, it is less likely that a transfer strategy would be required, as it’s highly likely that the information would be applied because the person has an immediate need for it.

Some may think, “Perhaps all learning should be like this: We should always learn in the moment of need.” I would argue that for some skills, particularly technical skills, that is ideal. However, with many learning programs we are talking more about developing softer skills (or the human skills, as I now like to call them!)—things like listening, leadership, and communication. These skills are ingrained as part of who we are. Judgment is required. They go beyond an immediate, specific need (like having a performance conversation), to helping individuals grow in who they are.

In this chapter we are exclusively talking about the problem of scrap or waste learning, where learning isn’t applied back in the workplace, and how this can be resolved. Our discussion assumes that you have a training program in place that is designed for transfer. Ask yourself:

•  Have I designed the learning program to a point that it can be applied?

•  Do people know how to apply what they learn?

•  Have I given time for reflection in the training and given people the opportunity to work out how it is relevant to them?

•  Fundamentally, have they reached the stage where they can then apply what they’ve learned?

If the answer to these questions is “yes,” then transfer is the next step supporting them to apply it. But the training has to get them to a point where they can do what they actually need to do.

In addition to the program being designed for behavioural change for a whole host of people, it needs to be able to be applied back in the workplace at an individual level. If you find yourself or the participant saying, “This isn’t relevant to my role” or “I can’t apply this for another six months,” then a transfer strategy isn’t going to produce positive outcomes. Additionally, if it’s a behaviour that will be used by the individual only once every few months, rather than on a weekly or daily basis, it is much harder to create transfer, and a different strategy could be required. An example of this would be focusing on presentation skills training for someone who rarely presents as part of their role.

Learning transfer can also be difficult for something like a Preparing for Tough Communications program. I was recently speaking with a client about a program they were creating to help upskill leaders in having tough communications. The transfer challenge was that in attendees’ minds this was a skill they would need infrequently, because they may have a tough conversation only once a quarter or even less. I suggested they switch the program to a focus on meaningful conversations and cover the types of conversations that can happen all the time at different levels.

Think of it this way: The tough or “high stakes” conversation can be compared to lifting 200 pounds. You can’t walk straight into a gym and begin by lifting that amount. You need to work your way up over time and with repetition using smaller weights. With time, practice, and experience, you’ll eventually reach your goal of lifting 200 pounds. You can’t expect to go from lifting 20 pounds to 200 pounds immediately. And comparatively speaking, if you haven’t been practicing with 50-pound or 100-pound “situations,” lifting the 200 pounds straight away would be extremely challenging. If you have identified what a 50-pound situation looks like and are managing it on a daily or weekly basis, then the 200-pound situations won’t seem like such a challenge.

Key to transfer success in this case was shifting the focus from a program that would be applied in rare situations to one that could be applied weekly. And how do we set up people to decide what a 50-pound conversation is for them? We ask them! They need to identify it themselves to promote accountability and ownership. Then, throughout the transfer period they could track how they are doing with these different weights of conversations.

The Principles of Learning Transfer

Knowing the three fundamental principles of good learning transfer—reflection versus reminding, ownership, and accountability—is a great place to start when you are deciding your learning transfer strategy. Let’s look at each of these individually.

Reflection Versus Reminders

You can’t nag someone into long-term behavioural change. We all know from our own personal experience that when we are reminded of behavioural change, it becomes more about the person who is reminding or nagging than the person hoping to change themselves. Regardless of how the message is worded, reminding someone to take action on what they have learned isn’t an effective way to create that change and make it stick.

It’s easy to fall into the follow-up trap of pushing additional learning content out to participants to deepen the message. This provides little value when creating and measuring learning transfer and change—and can even be a bit of a red herring. The Ebbinghaus forgetting curve and discoveries in neuroscience have educated us in the importance of spaced learning for memory and recall. In reality, however, the learning transfer phase is about promoting behavioural change and not about pushing more content for retention. For adult learners, it’s rarely because people don’t know what they’ve learned that they fail to apply it. At worst, if learners can’t remember content, they typically have very easy access to tools where they can reference it. It’s much more likely to be our own thoughts, values, feelings, beliefs, fears, and needs that control our behaviours and are either a barrier or a doorway to effective behavioural change. Our internal dialogue ultimately controls our behaviours, so the goal should be to encourage people to reflect on what is actually happening with the application of learning, rather than reflecting on the learning content.

The key to effective reflection is to use an intrapersonal approach, including internal dialogue and imagination. When people reflect, they are opening up a conversation with themselves. This is one of the key reasons that chatbots can be so valuable in this realm. This rich, reflective state is easier to achieve one on one rather than in a group—or solo if you are using technology. Often the higher the psychological safety, the easier it is for a person to reflect. This could be one of the contributing factors as to why it’s harder for a manager to help an individual with learning transfer conversations than an external or uninvolved person.

Note also that we aren’t talking about reflection on the learning itself but specifically a reflection on the application of the learning. This includes application in the real world in real time. Learning within the flow of our work has become a buzz phrase; learning transfer requires learners to reflect on how they apply what they learned to their work.

Ownership

The work of Daniel Pink in Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, supports the idea that autonomy is critical in adult learning. Self-determination theory, developed by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, highlights the importance of intrinsic motivation for behaviour change, with the drivers being autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Giving people ownership of what they are putting into place is therefore key to successful outcomes.

Anne Bartlett-Bragg talks about “scaffolding” for technology adoption, which is a form of guiding and shaping that ultimately leaves the final decision to the learner. In learning transfer, this principle can be applied to scaffolding autonomy. An example in the learning transfer context could be to allow learners to decide when to conduct a reflective conversation about their learning. A second example is to allow people to determine which goals in their action plan to address first. The scaffolding is the framework for the conversation; the autonomy is allowing people to decide what they use the time to work on.

Likewise, we can help learners create ownership by trusting them to choose their own goals for an action plan rather than suggesting what their organisational goals should be. Empowering people to take ownership over what they choose to change will lead to more effective and sustained growth.

Accountability

Although accountability has historically been viewed through a negative lens, this likely stems from a legacy of command and control leadership styles, where people are used to being told what to do. For adult learners, being told what to do isn’t an effective way to create behaviour change. That being said, there is an opportunity to create an environment where accountability looks more like empowering people to keep themselves accountable to themselves rather than being pushed by a manager. Accountability can be achieved by asking questions about how the learners will follow through.

“How will you hold yourself accountable for following through?” can be a really good question to ask (just make sure to use the right tone!). Many learners will immediately know what they can do to hold themselves accountable. If they need a prompt, three areas to consider could be rewards, reminders, and relationships. See the resources section for an animated video that shares ideas for each area.

The most effective way to intertwine these three principles of reflection, ownership, and accountability is with a conversation. That will, in most cases, be with another person who is able to support someone to have a conversation with themselves. As described, if you can tap into a person’s internal dialogue, it’s the fastest and most permanent way to shift behaviours.

Where to Begin Your Journey?

What can you do now to start bridging the knowing-doing gap and creating true business outcomes from learning? Choose your methodology, adjust the finish line, and get to grips with action planning, and you will be well on your way! When you are beginning your learning transfer journey, get clear on the conversation methodology that you will use for transfer, focusing on driving ownership and accountability.

One example of a learning transfer conversation methodology is the TLA (Turning Learning Into Action) Conversation model. The TLA model recommends holding conversations over a period of weeks while the participant is embedding the learning. As a rough guide (which will depend on the type and depth of the changes being made (these are three 30-minute conversations over a 10- to 12-week period). The TLA model expresses the interplay between structure and flexibility that creates enhanced coaching and differentiates TLA.

ACTION is an acronym for the stages that the conversation must pass through to successfully facilitate transfer of learning and behaviour change back in the workplace:

•  Accountability. Establish the process context and the learning transfer conversation parameters.

•  Calibration. Create a score for where the learner is now, as well as their future target.

•  Target. Where the individual is trying to go for the session.

•  Information. Gather information about what occurs in the workplace and highlight the context with the learner.

•  Option. Define the options that are available in this situation.

•  Next steps. Plan for how the individual is going to commit to action and move toward their target.

Having a methodology means it is replicable across cohorts and programs. It is program agnostic and doesn’t rely on adding more content in. The only content of the conversation is the action plan, which is driven by the individual. Whatever conversation methodology you choose or whether you create your own, ensure that the driver is helping the individual have a conversation with themselves to drive accountability and ownership.

A next key step is to educate the learner by identifying their new finish line and setting expectations up front.

Learning transfer can’t be presented as a surprise or as optional! When given the choice of being held accountable or not, it’s human nature that we would rather not change—change is easy; it’s just a whole lot easier not to change.

In their book, The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning, Calhoun Wick, Andrew Jefferson, and Roy Pollock talk about the importance of the finish line. Educating the learners that the process of learning isn’t focused exclusively on receiving the content or instructional aspect is key. We have historically set the expectation that learning happens in a classroom. As we have shifted more toward virtual learning, this has started to change the notion of the classroom being at the heart of learning, but the idea that content and instruction are the crux of learning still remains. Helping people see that the learning doesn’t finish when they leave the learning environment—be that virtual or face-to-face—is essential in shifting the finish line of learning and creating behavioural change and program outcomes. The true finish line is back in the workplace, where the new information is applied to consistently improve business outcomes.

Finally, connect the bridge between the program and the behavioural change with meaningful action planning.

Action plans are the bridge between learning and behaviour change. Yet they are often rushed, ignored, or pushed off the learning agenda to allow time to cover more content. Once someone has left the learning environment, their perspective shifts on what is possible to implement. Despite the best intentions, unless people commit to an action plan as part of a learning event it is rarely completed afterward, let alone followed through with. It is essential for actions to be captured during the instructional phase.

Most important, don’t leave developing action plans till the end of a program. This is a bit counterintuitive because how can people complete action plans when they haven’t completed the learning? It’s a trade-off. The upside of completing more thoughtful action plans during the learning program outweighs the benefit of having rushed plans at the end of the program.

For a free action planning tool, visit turninglearningintoaction.com or turn to the handbook’s website at ATDHandbook3.org.

Many facilitators are walking away from the humble action plan because they worry about what will happen to it afterward. And of course, what happens to the action plan is the crucial question in ensuring success from the process.

In a robust transfer environment, the action plan becomes the document that is used as the basis for the learning transfer conversations, hence the quality of the action plan is crucial to successful learning transfer outcomes.

The Powerful Combination of Data and Learning Transfer

Your learning transfer strategy and learning data strategy will be closely linked. Transfer will create the outcomes, while the data captures them. And of course, data can also be used throughout the learning transfer process to identify and minimize the risks of program outcomes not being met.

In the ACTION methodology, you’ll notice references to calibrating scoring goals on a scale of 1–10. The specific number isn’t important, but that people are moving in a direction of improvement is key. As a basis of data collection, these numbers can be used to track progress as they are captured in the learning transfer conversation. Tracking these action plan progress numbers can be supplemented with outcome-based questions.

When this data is captured 10 to 12 weeks after the program’s content phase is complete, a picture can be created of the benefits and the impact of the learning implementation. This process is far superior to a happy sheet capturing Level 1 data at the end of a learning initiative and it opens the opportunity to capture data reflecting both behaviour change and business impact—data that can then be used to calculate the ROI of the learning. One practical tip when capturing summative data is to label the tool a Progress Review Form rather than a Feedback Form. The Progress Review Form, which is an opportunity for learners to share their progress with the organisation, has a much higher perceived value than completing a feedback form and therefore a much higher response rate. Typically, 80 percent plus of learners share progress review data with their organization 10 to 12 weeks after a training program.

Trish Uhl from Owl’s Ledge challenged my thinking about data and learning transfer, highlighting the power that using technology in transfer can bring to data capture. In conversation with Trish, while I was insisting that working with chatbots in learning transfer had created a whole new opportunity to scale a person-centred approach to transfer, Trish saw the potential that chatbots created for generating rich data about the progress and outcomes of learning. While valuable, it’s essential that this data is treated within the legal and moral bounds of data privacy frameworks, including aggregating and deidentifying data, holding it securely, and deleting it appropriately.

The data captured can be used to improve the learning design and, in due course, learning outcomes. Leveraging AI, text analysis, trend analysis, and factor analysis to unpack that data can provide valuable data insights for the learning team. It can also be used to identify what outcomes have been generated and provide actionable insights for the organisation.

Final Thoughts

Consider learning’s missing link through the lens of learning transfer. This should encourage you to ask even more questions about transfer—more than one chapter can answer. Engage your colleagues in these discussions, experiment, collect evidence of behavioural change, and continue to stretch your thinking beyond the traditional context and confines of the learning environment.

Get curious about what happens when learners leave the classroom, whether that classroom is virtual or in person. How do they integrate the behaviours into their day-to-day role? How can you support, challenge, and capture the outcomes for continued learning and improvement for all? How can you embrace this as part of your role and remit to get even closer to the outcomes that drive business results?

The great news is that for most organizations it doesn’t mean learning programs need to be redesigned or rewritten from scratch. In fact, organizations generally have an extremely high quality of learning design and execution. There is little to improve on in learning design—the race for learning excellence, and indeed organizational excellence, will now be won by those who develop and deploy effective learning transfer strategies. Those who realise the tools that can aid learners to slow down and reflect, develop their meta cognition, and provide data along the journey will have a true advantage. Developing leaders and organisations fit for tomorrow will require us as learning professionals to drive accountability and ownership in both our learners and ourselves. Are you up for the challenge?

About the Author

Emma Weber, CEO and founder of Lever—Transfer of Learning, is a learning transfer authority. She makes it her mission in life to make a difference in learning transfer worldwide. Frustrated by the amount of learning that is wasted, Emma created the Turning Learning Into Action methodology in hopes of solving this problem. This methodology is deployed in 20 countries and 12 languages thanks to her talented team and Coach M, a conversational intelligence program. Coach M is challenging the industry’s thinking of what’s possible in learning transfer. Emma shares her passion and expertise through conversations with others and her writing, including her first book, Turning Learning Into Action: A Proven Methodology for Effective Transfer of Learning, published by Kogan Page in 2014. Reach out to join the conversation through email ([email protected]) or on her website (transferoflearning.com).

References

Phillips, J.J., and P.P. Phillips. 2008. Beyond Learning Objectives: Develop Measurable Objectives That Link to the Bottom Line. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.

Pink, D. 2011. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. New York: Riverhead Books.

Shank, P. 2004. “Can They Do It in the Real World? Designing for Transfer of Learning.” Learning Solutions Magazine, September 7. learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/288/can-they-do-it-in-the-real-world-designing-for-transfer-of-learning.

Weber, E. 2014, Turning Learning to Action: A Proven Methodology for Effective Learning Transfer. London: Kogan Page.

Wick, C., A. Jefferson, and R. Pollock. 2010. The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.

Recommended Resources

ATD Case Study Team. 2019. “Bayer: Chatbot Coaching for Learning Transfer.” ATD Case by Case, November 20. casebycase.td.org/bayer-chatbot-coaching-for-learning-transfer.

Dirksen, J. 2016. Design for How People Learn, 2nd ed. Indianapolis, IN: New Riders.

Turning Learning Into Action. n.d. “Online Action Planning Tool.” turninglearningintoaction.com.

Weber, E. 2021. “Accountability Video.” YouTube video, June 1. youtu.be/Bkeb79rEaWg.