Eliminate Scrap Learning

Last week I participated on a webinar called How to Measure Formal and Informal Learning, by bizlibrary, which caused me to reflect on how many resources are spent on worthless training.  It was very insightful to say the least.  I learned a term to describe when people attend training and they never use what they learn back on the job.  The term is "scrap learning". 

One of the major causes of "scrap learning" is caused by sending people to training when the gap in performance isn't caused by knowledge and skill gaps...one of my pet peeves!  This leads to wasting time and money on a solution that is not going to be effective in helping employees perform better on the job.  Most times people don't use what they learn because the environment, back on the job, doesn't support it or it wasn't the right solution for the performance problem.  Why not look at some of the other causes of performance e.g. motivation, standards, capacity, etc.?

We as learning and development professionals need to do a better job and take more care to identify the root causes of performance problems and identify the right blended learning solutions.  Once we do a better job of identifying causes for performance problems, then our work to convince the organization of our "worth" will not be such an uphill climb.  We must be sure that we aren't just taking orders from people who want training, but ensure that we are actually addressing needs. Eventually, we may be able to begin eliminating "scrap learning."

Let's challenge ourselves to do a better job of eliminating "scrap learning."  Every learning experience should improve or enhance how we do things on the job and/or in our personal lives.