Bus 375: Employee Training

Transfer of Training
Wonda Smith
BUS 375: Employee Training
Professor Lawrence Arillo
March 27, 2011

Transfer of Training
Transfer of training refers to trainees effective and continuous applications of what they learned in training to their jobs. This includes acquired knowledge, skills, behaviors, and cognitive strategies. In this paper we examine some of the aspects of that transfer and the primary factors that play a role in the success of the process. It also explores some of the challenges that may be involved that inhibits this process.
After conducting a needs assessment, ensuring that employees are ready for training, and creating a learning environment, the next step is to ensure that what is learned in training is applied
on the job. This step, transfer of training, it should however be planned for before the training. Training design, work environment and trainee characteristics all play an important role in ensuring that transfer of training occurs. Transfer of training includes both the generalization, trainee’s ability to apply learned capabilities, and maintenance, the process of continuing to use newly acquired capabilities over time. Capabilities must be learned and retained in order for generalization and maintenance to occur (Noe, 2010).
According to Raymond Noe, author of Employee Training and Development, training design, trainee characteristics, and the work environment are the three factors that influence learning, retention, maintenance, and generalization.
These are the primary factors that play a role in the success of the process of transfer of training.
Training design refers to the characteristics of the learning environment. Important features of the learning environment including meaningful material, opportunities to practice, feedback, learning objectives, program, organization and physical features of the training site. For transfer of training to occur, managers need to apply transfer of training theories and encourage trainees to take responsibility for learning and to engage in self-management strategies. The theory of identical elements, the stimulus generalization approach, and the cognitive theory of transfer are implications for training design.
The key aspects of this model of learning are to recall the storage and retrieval of information. Application assignments are work problems or situations in which trainees are asked to apply training content to solve them. The use of application assignments in training helps the trainee understand the link between the learned capability and real-world application, which makes it easier to recall the capability when needed (Noe,
2010).
Conventional approaches to evaluating cognitive outcomes of training typically use paper-and-pencil tests that emphasize gains or differences in declarative knowledge. Yet a key factor in differentiating expert and novice performance is the way individuals organize their knowledge. Accordingly, the acquisition of meaningful knowledge structures and methods of assessing structural knowledge are potentially important issues for designing and evaluating training programs (Davis, Curtis & Tschetter, 2003).
The next factor that influences learning, retention, and transfer is the work environment.
The work environment includes factors on the job that influence transfer of training, such as managers’ support, peer support, technology support, the climate for transfer, and the opportunity to use newly acquired capabilities on the job. Low levels of opportunity to perform may indicate that the work environment is interfering with using new skills (Noe, 2010).
Application assignments increase the likelihood that trainees will recall the training content and apply it to the work setting when they encounter the appropriate problems, situations in the environment. Application assignments are work problems or situations in which trainees are asked to apply training content to solve them. The use of application assignments in training helps the trainee understand the link between the learned capability and real-world application, which makes it easier to recall the capability when needed. This will help ensure applications of the training objectives are sustained (Noe,
2010).
The last factor that influences learning and retention is trainee characteristics. Trainee characteristics include ability and motivation. If trainees lack the basic skills needed to master learned capabilities are not motivated to learn, and do not believe that they can master the learned capabilities (low self-efficacy), it is doubtful that learning and transfer of training will occur. This can be considered one of the challenges facing the process. Also trainees may need self-management skills to cope with a work environment that is not always conducive to transfer of training (Noe, 2010).