Transfer of Learning Transfer From Learning to

Transfer of Learning Transfer From Learning To Context Transfer of learning has been defined in various different ways but the definition still revolves around a similar concepts. Some psychologists define it as: the broad, productive as well as supported use of acquired skills, knowledge and motivations within a new contexts and learning tasks; it is the extent to which a behavior will be repeated in a new situation. Transfer of learning tends to be the basis to understanding the manner in which people develop important competencies.

For an organization to successfully adopt change especially in terms of transfer of learning it has to find ways of putting it into practice for it may be faced with difficulties. For this to be avoided there are various ways to make learning transfer easy: automate the learning transfer process, focus on tactics rather than strategy, engage managers to do just what is necessary, use both a "push" and a "pull" approach.

Automate the process: Sometimes learning transfer includes management of a complex agenda with multiple participants as well as multiple modes and locations for delivery training, (Stephen M. Cormier and Joseph D. Hagman, 1987). Some of the challenges faced in training professionals tend to be finding enough resources and time in achieving learning transfer in a timely and efficient way.

In this way, for learning transfer to be improved and streamlined in limiting stress and increase effectiveness, leveraging current technology can be used in setting up a system of messages and activities that are automatically delivered to specific individuals and groups at place of work (Cree, V.E., Macaulay, C.,2000). Therefore, complexity becomes simplified and prevents the time consuming efforts of creating the entire communication and resources needed manually in completing learning transfer initiative.

An example is a manufacturing company that operates globally was to be managed to implement sales training over a year period for 1,000 sales people in different parts of the world. Most of them were situated in remote rural areas and the 100 sales managers were as well located far from their people who were in the field. The success was achieved in the process by making sure that the right message reached the right people at the right time.

Instead of specifying dates for every message and activities, everything was keyed off a "core" learning event. The only thing that was to be managed was participation date for every salesperson in the core event. Through the system every message could be adjusted from a central point. It also simplified greatly administration requirements and it made it possible for reminders, quizzes, follow-up activities and key tools to take place at the right time for every learner and every manager.

Focus on tactics rather than strategy: To ensure training with impact, focus should be concentrated on making sure specific learning transfer to the job, but not on creating, "transfer culture." For example, in case a given group has been involved in a sales course, it is important to involve them in timely reinforcement, feedback, follow-up, coaching in improving performance hence in the process helping transfer of learning to the work situation (Spring, 2012).

Strategies that wait for longer-term to take hold in many occasion means that if not lost for good learning becomes diluted. This worked in our organization in that activities aimed at learner readiness were initiated close to the time of the learning session and then follow-up was made immediately. Messages were conveyed with a clear connection to the objectives of learning being a priority.

Engage managers as much as necessary (but not more): The managers appreciate when they are involved, however, not to the level that do not fit in with other responsibilities and priorities. In order for this balance to be achieved as well as giving them the opportunity to use their experience and expertise, the managers need to be provided with tools and guidelines that they can utilize without consuming much of their time to create messages and even following up to ensure activities are carried out in time.

An instance for the above condition, when our managers were in need of taking part in effort of building trust with their direct reports taking to account the multicultural environment, the learning transfer efforts appeared to be burdensome since various reinforcement learning activities were to be planned to realize high impact, (Schein, E.H., 1990). The difficulties of the process were solved through use of automatic messages in managing various activities that involved both participants and the managers.

Participant messages involved interactive learning games, knowledge quizzes, application planners and links to videos. In this way managers could easily receive messages that helped them in simplifying coaching the targeted skills. The result was a significant increase in terms of work productivity as a direct outcome of the tools and skills that were used in enhancing the learning. Use both Push and Pull: Use of passive approach to learning transfer always fails to work.

According to a study of a learning transfer initiative, where assisting materials in further learning and reinforcement became accessible via a learning portal where participant were to be given opportunity of reaching and using them. The finding was that those who went to the site were about 6%, while those who turned more than once were 2%. It revealed that there is need to "push" materials to participants and on the other hand opportunities should be created in order to "pull" them back into the.