4 Signs a Training Program Is Failing—and What to Do About It

It's one of the great dreads of any learning professional: All those hours and dollars put into developing and implementing a training solution, only to watch it wither on the vine.

Identifying early on that a training program is failing is critical to salvaging it. This requires attentiveness and rapid response on the part of the learning department.

Here are four telltale signs that your training program is in danger of failing. Note that this list doesn't include the most obvious sign—targeted business performance metrics failing to improve—because if you've not identified and remediated failing training prior to the return of disappointing success metrics, it's already too late.

1. There is a marked increase in training-related help desk calls.

Establish a relationship with the folks on the other end of your organization's help line. If workers keep asking the same questions repeatedly, whether the same or different users, then there is likely something about the training initiative that they are failing to grasp. Pore over call logs and try to pinpoint areas of confusion or gaps in the training. You may need to fast-track a job aid, if a proper fix to the training cannot be quickly implemented.

As a bonus, consulting the help desk log may lead you to realize other unrelated performance gaps that require a future learning intervention.

2. The workplace mood is turning dour.

Keep a finger on the pulse of the workforce. A negative change in tone and worker satisfaction—whether it's an anecdotal feeling of gloom, or a defined dip in happiness measured through a polling mechanism like TINYpulse, or your team has overheard disgruntled chatter around the water cooler—can be a proxy signal that the audience of learners may not be taking to the training initiative.

This doesn't necessarily mean that the training is failing, of course; as we all know, organizational change is scary, and you may need to turn to a change management remedy rather than a program revamp. Ensure that stakeholders are engaged and enthusiastic about the initiative, and that they continue to make their elevator pitches throughout the organization. That said, don't simply assume that a dour workplace mood coinciding with a new learning initiative is mere grumbling about new processes—it could very well signal worker frustration or confusion requiring a tweak to the training itself.

3. Attrition rates start to rise.

Workers may flat-out leave a department or organization because they don’t understand a new application or because they strongly disagree with a new process. This is an extreme reaction, to be sure, but an increase in turnover following a new training rollout could be indicative of L&D-related frustration among line workers. Again, this may be a change management issue and not necessarily a sign of failing training. But in this scenario, work closely with HR and find out through exit interviews what role, if any, the training initiative is playing in the exodus. It's possible that the training is actually misfiring and leading to unnecessarily difficult or even counterproductive processes for the learning audience.

4. Initial milestones and goals aren't being met.

Prior to rolling out the training program, you should have defined some short-term learning KPIs (key performance indicators) to gauge initial uptake. Depending on the scope of the training project, it may take many months or even years to ultimately measure the training's success, but identifying some short-term milestones and goals can serve as an early-warning detection of training troubles.

To ensure the success of your training and performance solutions, stay clued in to the training initiative throughout the execution phase. Learning professionals who tune out of a project after implementation, only to check in again when Level 3 evaluations come back, will lose their last good opportunity to course-correct.