Why was classroom training rated so poorly?

In “The Changing Nature of Organizations, Work, and the Workplace,” Judith Heerwagen of JH Heerwagen & Associates and Kevin Kelly and Kevin Kampschroer of the US General Services Administration point out that work is now more: cognitively complex; team and collaborative; dependent on social skills; dependent on technological competence; time pressed; mobile and less dependent on geography.

Managers and employees need new skills to handle these challenges effectively, requiring learning and professional development options that go beyond traditional classroom training.

This is validated by the results of a 2017 workplace learning survey conducted by Jane Hart, founder of the Center for Learning and Performance Technologies. More than 5,000 managers and employees were asked to rate the importance (value/usefulness) of 12 work-related learning methods as: NI = Not Important; IQ = quite important; VI = Very Important; o Ess = Essential.

The results of the poll they are identified in rank order below, with 1 being the highest ranked learning method. Methods were ranked according to their combined VI+Ess (Very Important and Essential) scores. (The total of VI+Ess is in parentheses after the method):

1. Daily work experiences (i.e. doing daily work) (93)

2. Knowledge exchange with your team (90)

3. Web search (eg Google) (79)

4. Web resources (eg, videos, podcasts, articles) (76)

5. Manager feedback and guidance (74)

6. Professional networks and communities (72)

7. Feedback and guidance from coach or mentor (65)

8. Internal resources (eg documents, guides) (60)

9. Blogs and news feeds (56)

10. E-learning (for example, online courses for self-study) (41)

11. Conferences and other professional events (35)

12. On-site training (31)

As you can see, the survey results reveal that the least valued form of learning in the workforce is classroom training.

We do not know why respondents rate classroom training so low. There can be many reasons, such as:

• Content focused on theory rather than practical application.
• Too general examples that are useful for everyone, difficult for the participants to translate and apply to their own work situations.
• Ineffective training methods, such as the prevalence of PowerPoint lectures.
• Lack of helpful job aids.
• The wrong people received the training, due in part to the need to ensure a sufficient number of cigarette butts in the seats.
• Inconvenient programming.
• The time commitment and high cost of registration and travel for off-site classes.
• Content that is poor, out of date, or irrelevant to the real needs of the job.
• Poor instructors, lacking effective presentation skills and/or classroom management skills.
• There is no monitoring by supervisors to reinforce learning.
• Lack of support to implement any new learning.

Since I design and deliver classroom training, I would like to believe that it is not the classroom training itself that is rated so negatively by respondents, just poor curriculum design, delivery and facilitation.

What do you think?