Getting management commitment to training, to ensure employees are allowed and encouraged to attend, and to support the transfer of training back to the work site can be quite a challenge. Even when the training is indicated by performance problems,

and sometimes even when it has been requested by a manager, freeing up staff time to attend training and supporting participation by staff can still prove something of a struggle.

Here are some tips from seasoned trainers and instructional designers. Many, one way or another, speak to the need for training to address the right issues and solve real problems.

• Work toward performance improvement, not just “training,” so real problems are solved.

• Listen. Don’t interrupt. Learn how the organization really works.

• NO mandatory classes. If your instruction isn’t good enough for folks to want to attend, you aren’t doing your job, and managers can only do so much to support you. Even if the courses are mandated by law or something else, there’s no need to announce it.

• Have line management involved in the analysis and course development phase so you know what the problems are and what they need. This will also help to gain their support in helping learners transfer new skills back to the work site.

• Set an expectation that line management is primarily responsible for skill development for their staff. They know those jobs better than you do. Your job is to produce the training their folks need. Make it a partnership. Provide a valuable service and real solutions, not just “training.”

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• Understand the jobs you are developing training for by shadowing staff and managers, doing the jobs, and walking in their shoes.

• Don’t get sucked into fads and easy answers.

• Have orientations for managers about new initiatives, emphasizing the “what’s in it for you” factor.

• Make managers responsible for signing off that training has occurred. Establish managers as the fi nal assessors.

• Be credible. Don’t make promises you can’t keep—and keep the ones you make.

• Focus on those things you have control over, such as providing data to managers about performance issues or training needs.

• Make an explicit link between your training materials and your training marketing materials to the organization’s mission, vision, and values.

• Help learners make connections between their performance and the organization’s goals.

• Invite managers to present modules in your sessions.