Learning Transfer

Figure 1 Learning transfer

No matter how good, training is a waste of time if it does not help improve the business. Training will not impact the business unless the skills are used back at the workplace. Unused skills are soon forgotten; within six months, it will be almost as if the training had never happened.

Learning transfer is so important you would think that companies would put considerable effort into making it happen. Yet surprisingly, few training organisations give learning transfer the priority it requires. Perhaps they think that learning transfer is a natural outcome of training and, as such, does not need nurturing.

Nothing could be further from the truth. New learning soon withers without constant attention. Unless a considerable effort is put into learning transfer, the effect on the business will be, at best, random and haphazard. Even companies aware of the importance of learning transfer find it difficult to make it happen.

In this article, we will look at the following:

• the definition of learning transfer,
• what prevents learning transfer from taking place,
• what assists learning transfer,
• putting learning transfer into practice.

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