Performance: exactly what do you want your trainees to do?

      The first hard question to ask yourself before you invest a lot of time in researching the benefit of an environmental (or any!) training program is: “Is training the solution to the problem?”

      It’s no use making people attend training workshops if you can’t clearly define the training objectives and outcomes, or if workplace factors make it too hard for trainees to apply what they learn.

      The first of these relates to issues in your workplace; the second to issues in those of your trainees. I'll focus just on the first - it's the sine qua non of good training.

      Training won’t solve your problem if you can’t define the environmental performance gap in terms of what actions people need to change or acquire: trainees must have a clear definition of what they need to do. 

      But, yes, training can be the solution to the problem or part of the solution when you can carry out a training needs assessment and clearly define the following factors in measurable terms:

• what’s the desired environmental performance?
• what environmental benefits would flow from that level of performance?
• what’s happening in terms of the activities of interest and their environmental consequences? Where is performance below ideal? Who is performing well, and how do they do it?
• what’s the performance gap? Can it be defined in measurable terms that training can bridge?
• what’s the cause of the gap? 
• what new practices will bridge the gap to the desired performances and outcomes?

      If you have a new performance benchmark like a new guideline that clearly specifies the standard of environmental practice required, then appropriate training will help people step up to the new mark. 

      But if you have no clearly defined performance standard that the industry can meet, such as a guideline, you need to create one or adopt or adapt someone else’s before delivering any training. Without this, training won't be able to solve your performance problem.

      When developing a new performance benchmark, remember that ultimately, the success of your training comes back to Partnership: if the wider industry you’re working with understands the importance of better environmental performance in legal, business and environmental terms, its members will do their best to support application of the new performance standards on site. 

      In sum, training will be part of the solution for your environmental problem when you win support for the training initiative and its new practices and desired outcomes from the relevant internal and external players, thereby ensuring good workplace support for your trainees.
      What performance standards or guidelines do you have or could you develop on which to base your environmental training?

This blog is the third in my series of Top Five Tips for people starting to think about setting up or expanding an environmental training program. My last blog was on "Personas" - and there are two more to come!


The information comes from part of Chapter 5.1 of my book ‘Seven Steps to Successful Environmental Training’. I am indebted to many excellent trainers who have addressed these questions in the New Zealand Association of Training and Development. Thanks too as always to Ann Andrews for encouraging me to disseminate this material more widely.