Stop Abandoning Your Learners

By: Justin Ferriman • May 10, 2016
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board-room-trainingI have seen it countless of times.

Employees are encouraged to take a virtual training course (or perhaps a live seminar) because they are told that it is vital to their job.

They take time out of their busy schedules to learn new skills and processes.

The instructors (be it virtually or in-person) are full of energy about the material they are teaching.

There are practice scenarios, quizzes, and discussion to make sure everyone understand the material.

Then the event ends and the learner is sent on their way with the expectation that the new information they have just learned will be used.

But then it happens…

The employees that attended the training go back to their day-to-day tasks and forget nearly everything they have learned – but it’s not their fault. They simply weren’t properly supported in the post-training.

What Is Your Post-Training Support Plan?

The pattern outlined above is most commonly seen in the context of live training events, but it can apply to a variety of teaching methods.

So much time is put into creating an engaging course or seminar that there is often no support plan in place for after the event.

The instructors pat themselves on the back for a job well-done but in the process are doing a disservice to the attendees without having proper support mechanisms in place.

It’s time to change this.

After the event there are three components to offering post-training support:

  1. Follow-up communication plan
  2. Clarification webinars
  3. Support portal

Immediately after the training takes place the attendees should start receiving communications around the content they learned, the first of which should be a summary (with answers to the frequently asked questions).

Regular communications should take place for a few weeks after training.

During this time it is a good idea to host a webinar to “check in” with employees to see if there are more questions and if they are applying what they have learned. This webinar could be anywhere form an hour to three hours in length depending on the complexity of the content. You may even have multiple webinars.

Finally, there should always be a support portal available to learners that contains important documents and information relating to the training. This portal should have a place to ask questions as well.

If you are creating a training program where live instruction is needed, don’t abandon your learners after the event. With the proper post-training support plan in place you will make your training all that more effective.

Justin Ferriman

Justin started LearnDash, the WordPress LMS trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. He is currently founder & CEO of GapScout. Justin’s Homepage | GapScout | Twitter