Major Tips About Employee Training Transfer

Major Tips About Employee Training TransferMajor Tips About Employee Training TransferResults, measurement, return on investment, testing, behavioral change, performance improvement, expectations, accountability, and learning applied on the job are this centurys language of education, employee training, and performance development. Successful performance technologists, managers, consultants, and training professionals provide a real-time connection between the classroom and the workplace. If not, why provide training at all? In my earlier articles, I gave concrete suggestions for training transfer to the workplace. These suggestions focused on actions and best practices that should take place before and during the employee training session to promote the transfer of learning to the job. Equally important to training transfer are the activities that abflug during and occur following the employee training session. You can help create an environment that fosters the ability of each empl oyee to assimilate learning and apply employee training on the job. Just follow these four guidelines. You can help employees apply training on the job. Your second mission is to continue to assess the effectiveness of the employee training over time. Determine whether the trainees feel able to apply the training on the job. Talk about specific behavioral changes, ways to apply the training, and different approaches to try as a result of the training. Share evaluation data from the employee training session, and consider ways to improve the employee training session. For this longer-term evaluation, you will want to use a written tool as well as ongoing discussion. You will want to meet with the trainee and the supervisor several additional times over the three to six months following the employee training. Four Training Transfer Tips Meet with each trainee, their supervisor, and possibly, their coworkers, following the employee training session.The purpose of the meeting is to assess the difficulties the training participant will experience in applying the training on the job. You want to help the supervisor, especially if she did not attend the training, understand the results she can anticipate from the employee training.You also want to help the participants discuss work environment changes that will enable training application. Because you also met with the supervisor prior to the training, this is part of an ongoing discussion. Remind the supervisor, particularly, or coworker that one of the most powerful methods for helping others apply training in the workplace is to act as a role model using the training or skill.Coworkers can offer suggestions, when requested, about applying the employee training. The supervisor is expected to assist with the application of the employee training. It presumes the supervisor is either skilled in the training content or he attended the employee training. Another powerful approach to training application involves an entire workgroup, including the supervisor, learning and then practicing the employee training content together.In a mid-sized manufacturing company, a group of managers, supervisors, and quality professionals attended the same customized employee training sessions for several hours a week. A central component of each employee training session welches a facilitated discussion about the application of the concepts learned the prior week. Follow up with the trainees and their supervisor about progress on the goals and action plans they developed during the employee training.In an effective employee training session, the group discusses how to apply the training back on the job.They also talk about how to overcome the typical roadblocks they will likely encounter when trying to apply the employee training. Persuasive evidence supports these as legitimate and effective methods for training transfer. According to Marguerite Foxon, currently Principal Performance Technologist for Motorola , in theAustralian Journal of Educational TechnologyThere are several transfer strategies outlined in the literature which can be incorporated into training courses, and research has produced some encouraging results.In particular, when learners are given goal setting and self-management instruction as part of a training course, they demonstrate a significantly higher level of transfer (eg., Gist, Bavetta, Stevens, 1990a 1990b).Such strategies increase the likelihood of transfer because they acknowledge the impact of organizational system factors while at the same time assisting the individual to focus on potential applications and to make plans for using the training.Both designers of instruction as well as those delivering it have a responsibility to address the transfer issue - to help learners think through how to integrate the skills into their jobsand to plan in terms of what will facilitate or inhibit the transfer. It is no longer good enough to leave it up to the individual learner - if it ever was. Help facilitate a partnership between the supervisor and the individual who attended training.They need to meet periodically so the trainee can share his application plan and progress with the supervisor. This partnership also consists of praise, positive reinforcement, and rewards for learning and applying the employee training.This partnership ensures that failed attempts to apply new learning are viewed as learning opportunities instead of failures. Never punish an individual for attempting to practice a new behavior or approach. If your organization approaches performance reviews in a traditional manner, the system or instrument cannot grade him or her down for practicing a new skill. Additional Information 6 Tips to Make Training WorkTraining Can Make a Difference (During)

Top 5 Soft Skills for Job Hunters

Top 5 Soft Skills for Job HuntersTop 5 Soft Skills for Job Hunters10Youve revamped your resume. Youve coordinated a killer interview outfit. Youve studied up on the company and even scoped out the interviewers LinkedIn profile so you can feel your most prepared. In short, youve done everything necessary in order to have a successful job interview. But what about your soft skills?Did you know that when youre sitting in the interview chair your potential employer is judging you on a whole tischset of skills that you may not even be aware of? These soft skills have nothing to do with that multi-million dollar merger you helped orchestrate- they are all personality-based. Here are five of the most popular soft skills your hiring manager is grading you on- and heres how to score an A.Self-confidence. If youre quick to chat about your previous accomplishments, it can appear to be boastful. But if you seem too meek, you might miss the opportunity to impress your interviewer. Try to answer q uestions confidently, without seeming overly confident, and let them see you can handle the requirements of the job with ease.Time management. Did you show up 15 minutes late to your interview? Or were you late signing in for that Skype interview for a virtual job position? That will most definitely count against you. No matter what position you apply for, being able to be punctual says a lot about your character and how dedicated you will be to getting all of your work done on time.Working well under pressure. Youre having a great job interview, when all of a sudden your potential boss asks you to take a surprise quiz. What do you do? If you become flustered- or worse, refuse to take it- it could potentially cost you the job. Being able to go with the flow is a quality that all hiring managers look for in any new hires.Accepting criticism.Your interviewer critiques a previous employer- negatively. If you bristle or become annoyed, that can be a big strike against you. Unless it is an extremely harsh comment or something that is derogatory in nature, try to let the criticism roll off your back and turn it into constructive criticism instead.Being a team player. Is your resume riddled with numerous accomplishments that youve achieved solo? Do you express disdain about working in a group? Unless you are specifically hired to work alone (which, lets face it, few people are), youll need to work with others- and do it well. So be sure to show that you have been a team player in the past or else you might strike out with your potential boss- permanently.As you speak with an interviewer about your previous work experience and skill set, be sure to exhibit in your behavior and your body language the soft skills he or she is looking for. That way, you can show that you are the right candidate for the job.Readers, how do you show off your soft skills? Let us know in the comments section below

3D Printing and the Jumping Robot

3D Printing and the Jumping Robot 3D Printing and the Jumping Robot 3D Printing and the Jumping Robot3D printing has helped improve many fields, so it would only be natural to see some impact on the field of robotics. As a postdoc at Harvard University, Michael Tolley, now an assistant professor at the University of California, San Diego, got in touch with people in chemistry who had been working on the idea of soft machines. And a question welches, Can you make a robot move and be composed primarily of soft materials? he says. He became part of a team that decided to find out the answer. Get Moving A major challenge was that it is hard to move pneumatic robots quickly when they are non-tethered. Its fine to be tethered for some things, but if you want to do search and rescue you have to be able to cut the cord, he says. Thats a major area of how robots can be of value. Thats where wecame up withjumping as a way to move quickly. Rob Shepherd, now at Cornell, came up with internal com bustion as a way to help make this happen.Silicone rubber is naturally resistant to extreme temperatures and pressure. Image Harvard University And all of what they would create for this jumping robot would be 3D printed except for the microcontroller valves, jump batteries, and fuel sources, he says. The body of the robot, the rigid core, and soft exterior were all printed, Tolley says. Some of it was actually very intuitive. Even though the team was focused on a soft body, batteries and motor controllers seemed to be incompatible. Unless youre going to reinvent all these things, you have to deal with the interface between hard control parts and soft bodies, he says. We thought we should grow hard components into a soft body, and they should not really be fixed to each other in any way, and it worked. But it was a perpetual challenge in terms of interfaces. Keeping things connected, considering pneumatic connections, ignore these and you could find the robot could be jumping violen tly into the air. Taking the Leap They hoped bringing in soft materials would absorb the impact of coming down from the jump, and prevent the creation from breaking. When you consider how much robotics can cost, anything that can help its lifespan has to be considered, he says.The soft materials help it work on many surfaces and for a longer period of time. The robot was ultimately designed in a nestled hemisphere design and is described by Tolley as looking like a deflated basketball. Then when oxygen and butane are injected, it becomes a full basketball and thats how the jump occurs. Testing proved successful, and the robot is able to repeatedly jump roughly a meter high without breaking. Even though Tolley says theyre proud of their accomplishments to this point, he says this marriage of differences came long before the team went to work. Much of the inspiration between soft and hard materials came from asking how nature does this, Tolley says. Like the octopus. It can be rigid w hen you think of the beak but then other parts of the body are soft. Its amazing what clues are all around us. Learn more about the latest technologies in 3D printing at ASMEsAM3D Conference Expo. Eric Butterman is an independent writer. For Further Discussion Much of the inspiration between soft and hard materials came from asking how nature does this.Prof. Michael Tolley, University of California, San Diego