Custom Training Sticks

Thirty-three minutes after training, students lost 42% of the material covered in a typical training seminar, according to the Research Institute of America. It gets worse. After the second day, only 33% is retained, and after three weeks that number drops to 20%.training retention

So how can you increase retention? There are many factors, but custom training can significantly increase retention levels. Work-Learning Research has shown that there’s a 55% improvement when there’s an alignment of real-world with the learning experience.

Huthwaite also supports these findings, and adds: “Learners remember more than four times as much from training sessions that are perceived as highly relevant to their jobs.” These findings support training customization, which not only increases the relevance to the learner, but also the retention down the road.

The following problems often arise with generic training classes:

  • Learning is at the pace of the slowest student, or too fast for the slower students
  • Students must listen to information that does not apply to their job
  • The training is not tied to the organization’s goals or business issues
  • Typically generic training does not provide follow-up or application experience on-the-job
  • The program does not relate to experiences of the participant.

Custom training can provide the comfort for participants that will insure that they can learn, and increase the likelihood that both the organization and student win from the experience. It can also help organizations increase the likelihood of return-on-investment.

  • Custom training can create a powerful sense of buy-in as your people play a key role in its design and development.
  • It gives them a sense of personal investment, so they are more likely to strive towards it’s success
  • Custom training is designed to be specific to your business
  • It uses your language and terminology
  • Participants learn from real issues through activities they face or will face in the real world. As a result, there is little or no gap between the content of the seminar and the actual challenges of the participant’s work
  • Custom training requires input from multiple sources including senior management to clarify training needs before the design and development of the program. This process often uncovers other performance issues that might not have been addressed. This helps to tie learning to your company’s organization’s goals and strategies.
  • Custom training can save money and time. At first, it may appear more expensive as there may be larger initial investment. But because custom training is specific to your needs, learning happens faster and better. That translates to fewer training days and a shorter learning curve for the participants.

Every company is also different. That is why we do not use a cookie-cutter approach for training or coaching. Most of our training programs are customized to meet our client’s unique needs.

For more information about custom training, call us at (513)772-5115 or contact us.