Supervisors—After Learning

Monitor progress of action plans with learners and revise as needed

Supervisors, trainers and learners have invested time and energy in creating action plans. Now is the time for those efforts to pay off. Meet with the learners to review together the current action plan and make sure that you are in agreement regarding expectations and how and when they will be met. Supervisors and learners can use action plans as a monitoring tool to gauge progress, identify problems, and work on solutions. Routine supervisory meetings are a great time to provide constructive feedback and check learners’ progress toward mastering and using their new skills, as well as to ask what more you can do as their supervisor to support the transfer of learning. When necessary, action plans should be revised to correspond with changing needs at the work site. Using action plans can also help to identify feedback for trainers or facility administrators about problems and solutions that only they can address.

Conduct post-training debriefing with learners and co-workers

Supervisors and learners should involve other staff at the work site in the transfer of learning process by briefing them shortly after the training. This is a good time for you to identify your expectations regarding implementation of action plans and for learners to share what they have learned with their co-workers. Supervisors and learners should set clear objectives for debriefing meetings to make sure that the discussion stays focused. Consider using these meetings for the following purposes:

• Sharing with co-workers the key concepts learned during the training
• Providing an opportunity for co-workers to ask the learners questions about the training
• Reviewing the needs assessment findings and discussing how newly acquired knowledge and skills can address current needs at the work site and be of value to everyone
• Brainstorming on how to integrate newly acquired knowledge and skills into present services
• Reviewing key activities from the learners’ action plans and assigning resources to facilitate implementation.

Conducting a post-training debriefing provides an excellent opportunity to update all staff and discuss how the transfer of learning will improve service delivery at the work site. It is critical that your staff understands the reasons for any new interventions, services, or changes in procedures and knows how to implement them. This is an appropriate time for you to voice your support for the change process and the newly acquired knowledge and skills.

Be a coach and role model— provide encouragement and feedback

Encourage and, when possible, coach learners as they incorporate new knowledge and skills into their work. A coach must be able to demonstrate the skill, observe and give feedback, and evaluate learner performance against a standard. If you cannot coach the learners, identify someone with appropriate expertise to provide coaching. Even though you may not be able to coach learners in a particular skill, you can still provide encouragement to help them build their self-confidence and realize their full potential as they master new skills. Encouragement and coaching are very important to the transfer of learning. Below are some specific approaches to consider:

• Give frequent reinforcement and immediate constructive feedback to learners as they try out new skills. Voice your support as you observe learners properly implementing newly acquired knowledge and skills by giving immediate positive feedback: "Nice job Anjou, I’m glad to see you preparing those instruments for processing according to the infection prevention practices that you learned."
• Use mistakes as learning opportunities. When learners make errors while practicing a skill, call the mistakes to their attention in a tactful and culturally appropriate manner. Your comments should describe the specific behavior that you observed; include steps that the learner performed correctly and those that need improvement. In most cases, unless a client is in danger, it is best to give feedback to learners after rather than during client-provider interaction.
• Coach learners as they try new skills. When learners begin practicing skills that are difficult or involve many steps, their skill levels will likely vary—some learners may still be novices while others may be closer to mastery. Offer to assist individual learners in a manner that is appropriate to the degree of progress they have made toward mastering the particular skill. When providing guidance, remember to always point out something that the learner is doing well before you offer suggestions for improvements or ask what the learner perceives he or she is doing well. Very often learners can make appropriate suggestions for self-improvement when given the opportunity to reflect on their performance.
• Model new skills or behaviors in your work. To show that you support the changes that learners are implementing, adopt new behaviors along with the learners and their co-workers. Don’t expect your staff to make changes if you don’t model changes as well.

Evaluate learners’ performance

Supervisors can have a significant impact on the transfer of learning by evaluating performance and providing feedback. Discuss with learners the reasons why evaluation is important, emphasizing that the goal is to provide them with feedback so they know how they are doing. Assure learners that you will provide ongoing guidance as well as formal periodic evaluations. It may be appropriate to include these periodic evaluations on the learners’ action plan. If you cannot evaluate the learners’ performance because you lack the technical expertise, identify someone who can.

When you evaluate learners, review with them the standard for the desired performance that is included in their job description or outlined in procedural guidelines or a skill checklist from the training course. Discuss how the standard compares to their present performance—are they failing to meet the standard, meeting the standard, or exceeding the standard? Involving learners in a self-assessment is one way to stimulate this discussion. Remember that evaluations should always include feedback on what learners are doing right.

Stay in contact with trainers

Maintain contact with trainers so that you can provide feedback about which aspects of the training were most effective. This allows you to receive information from trainers about how best to facilitate transfer of specific knowledge and skills. The interactions with trainers also serve as your direct contact with the training system, thus providing you with an opportunity to share your ideas regarding other training needs.