Training is only one piece of the puzzle

Has your client ever said, “We just need training!” Change management and training experts know that it’s often not that simple. Level-setting expectations, updating job descriptions, refreshing policies, providing employee incentives, and making updates to performance reviews are just a few of the things that training doesn’t solve for. We met with Jennifer Eichenberg, change adoption consultant, who shared that often leaders think that the solution is simply to provide training, but by asking the right questions, setting expectations with employees, and relying on a skilled change management professional, organizations can uncover the root problems to solve for.   

Ask the key question 

Let’s say that a company is implementing a new system. The change management professional could ask the client, “What should employees be doing and what are they currently doing?” This question can help the client articulate the gap in performance. If the root problem is truly a lack of knowledge or skill, then training can solve for that gap, but oftentimes, the root problem requires using proven change management techniques to address the who, what, where, when, why, and how the change is happening.  

Set expectations with employees 

The client must understand that employees won’t be proficient just because they’ve attended training. If employees can revert to old habits, chances are that they will. This can be minimized when the executive sponsor sets expectations with employees. By having an influential leader speak to employees and say something like, “You've just been trained, these are the expectations of you now, and here's how we’re going to support you as you gain proficiency,” it sends a powerful message. It shows that leadership thought about the implications of the change and plan to support employees through the change and beyond.   

Rely on a change management professional  

Training can help an employee learn how to input information, when to input it, and how to analyze and generate reports; this is the knowledge and skills part. A change management expert can help address the broader, strategic puzzle pieces of implementing a change such as preparing employees for the change, offering incentives for adopting the change, and addressing updates to policies, job descriptions, and metrics that employee will be measured on. For example, employees shouldn’t necessarily be measured on completing a task in a new tool the same way that they completed a task in the old tool; the steps could be entirely different. On top of this, employees won’t be proficient at using a new tool right after training. If a company only trains on the knowledge and skills components, the likelihood of successful change is much lower with the absence of change management. In other words, while training can teach an employee how to use a system or follow a new process, if no one has set expectations or offered adoption incentives, why would an employee choose to follow the new process? The answer is, they won’t.  

Advice to the client: Be open-minded 

Just because the client is familiar with the software or knows their employees well, this should not detract from what the change management professional advises. Be open-minded to the advice from the OCM lead because a good change management professional is going to ask questions that uncover risks to the change initiative, such as: How are we incentivizing employees? What will be different from what they're doing today? Who is the executive sponsor that will continue to champion this change after launch? An OCM lead can find blind spots and help come up with solutions to increase the adoption of change. After all, you hired an OCM expert with a different perspective to ask pertinent questions at the right time so be sure to rely on their expertise to get the highest return on investment for the change initiative. 

It's a common misconception that training is all that’s needed to prepare people for major change. Change management serves as the foundation for preparing people for change and should occur before and after training occurs for the highest likelihood of success. By asking the right questions, setting expectations with employees, relying on a change management professional’s guidance, and remaining open-minded, organizations have the greatest opportunity to help people adopt a change and ultimately receive the change initiative’s return on investment.  

Contact ChangeStaffing to learn more about how to best prepare people to adopt change!  

Thank you to Jennifer Eichenberg for her thought leadership and for collaborating with us on this blog.  

Written by Kylette Harrison