Let’s assume that you’ve done everything to ensure that the training program you conducted was a success. You intelligently designed the program and made sure that your training partner delivered it in a way that hit the nail straight on the head. But is that enough? Or do you need something else to ensure learning transfer?

While a well-designed program and delivering for application plays a significant role in the process of imparting learning, Performance Support is a vital factor that ensures that employees actually make use of the learning.

What is Performance Support?
Performance Support involves specific activities that are designed to help employees in doing the right thing at the right time. It is an on-going process and not a one-time activity. It covers everything from managers and co-workers offering support to tools designed specifically to ensure that tasks are done in the right manner.

Performance Support depends on the nature of the task. Factors such as the location where employees work and how they execute the task, have to be taken into account.

Why is Performance Support Important?
Performance Support is essential because there is huge gap between acquiring knowledge at a learning program and actually applying it to increase productivity on the job.

Effective performance support reduces dependency on human memory. Not all human beings are good at remembering details and hence, a process to re-enforce the learnings from time-to-time helps in accelerating real transformation.

How to Provide Performance Support?
While employees may be good at recalling how a task is required to be executed, they may have difficulty in remembering all the steps in the precise order unless they have performed it several times. For this purpose, providing performance support in the form of a checklist, or a step-by-step procedural guide, or specially-designed activities that enhance memory should be provided to employees. When employees are in the process of learning a new skill set, providing performance support allows them to delegate their short-term memory on their performance at the task ahead. Thereby, drastically improving the quality of work.

Companies often tend to believe that Performance Support is required only for labor work or low-skilled jobs. However, the opposite is true. The higher the cost of an error, the more essential and valuable performance support becomes. As training partners, we at Challenging Horizons go the extra mile and assist companies in designing and providing optimal Performance Support after the completion of a training program.