With the speed of change driving upskilling and reskilling efforts, it has never been more important to ensure that classroom and other formal learning events result in skill improvement.

Let’s say a learner elected to participate in a classroom course because they performed a competency assessment that identified a skill gap and recommended this event as personalized learning to close the gap. If their manager was involved in assessing them too, then the manager knows the required behaviors at the target proficiency.

When it comes to making learning stick, recognize that the motivation for both the learner and their manager is significantly different if this method is followed.

• If I identify my own skill gap, and I participate in a formal learning activity to close that gap, I will be far more likely to try to apply it because I said I needed it.

• As the manager, if I too identify a team member’s skills gap, I am more likely to support and reinforce action to close that skills gap.

With that in mind, here are 3 tips to make learning stick after a formal learning event.

1)     Follow formal learning with experiential learning

If you have mapped the skills in your competency model across the 70-20-10 spectrum (formal-collaborative-experiential), and you conduct a formal learning event in the “10”, at the end of that activity, recommend experiential items in the “70” to help learners practice on the job.

Example: Attend a presentation skills class

Post class activity: Use a customer-focused presentations skill practice to prepare for and deliver a presentation internally

2)     Follow formal learning with collaborative learning

If you are using a competency assessment system or tool, there should be an easily identifiable pool of people who can serve as task-based mentors to support on the job application. Task-based mentoring has been found to be one of the most effective (and cost-effective) means of learning. (Read more about the value of mentoring.) Have learners request a task-based mentor from their manager. (This starts the preparation for tip #3.)

Example: Attend a business case class

Post class activity: Work with a task-based mentor to complete a business case template for some proposal I want to make, which we may co-present

3)     Engage their manager

Manager involvement is a key contributor to learning transfer. However, we know managers are already strapped for time. So use “pull” by employees, versus “push” from managers. Make it the responsibility of the learner to engage the manager to ensure competency-based learning is being applied. Have them request their participation and make doing so part of the formal learning summary/action items. For example, in tip 2, the learner requests a task-based mentor.

Example: I do my self-assessment and find that I have a skill gap in Negotiating Skills. I talk to my manager and we agree I should take a 2 day class on it. I’m engaged and look forward to practicing what I learned.

Post class activity: At the class end, we are provided with activities using templates that I can use on the job. One of them is a negotiation planner and the activity is to use it to prepare for my next contract negotiation, then review it with a peer mentor. I fill out the planner with the details. Then my manager finds a task-based mentor, a high performer in my role, who reviews and challenges me on how I completed it and makes suggestions. I update the planner. Then I share it with my manager and we role-play how I’ll use it.

Can you see how these 3 tips work to make learning “stick” more effectively?

They also work in concert to create a culture of lifelong learning, and help people learn how to learn (learning agility).

Want to learn how to do it yourself with more examples? Watch recorded event “Convert existing content into experiential competency-based learning”.