Creating Lasting Changes in Employee Behavior

Applying a Behavioral Science Lens to Employee Training

Image Credit: Nadya Fedrunova

When companies or teams first learn about the powerful core principles of behavioral science, they’re typically excited to apply this new thinking to their business challenges. But in doing so, they often encounter a familiar dynamic:

Employees leave the room (or the call) energized. And then, nothing happens. They return to their offices, meetings and colleagues — and they fall right back into familiar patterns.

In fact, this Intent to Action gap (and its sidekick, the Forgetting Curve) applies to training of all kinds. Over $87.6 Billion is spent annually on corporate training and development (in the United States alone!) and it is often claimed that 80% of all training dollars are wasted. While this figure is debatable, we all know — often from personal experience — that most training sessions don’t lead to consistent behavior change.

Why Typical Employee Training Doesn’t Work

The primary reason is quite clear: Most training simply doesn’t take into account all we’ve learned about how people actually learn, nor how to actually change their behavior. For example, traditional training is typically:

• Conducted in large groups, within specific extended blocks of time (driven primarily by the convenience of the trainer or organizer).
• Dominated by a teacher, introducing new material (at the same pace for all participants)
• Evaluated via immediate feedback from participants, based on how much they “liked” or “valued” the session (before they’ve even had a chance to apply the learning).

Yet this ignores several core realities about learning:

• We all learn best in small doses (as our Cognitive Load is limited).
• We all learn at our own pace (as our speed, strengths and interests vary)
• Most importantly, we all “learn by doing” (rather than by listening).

In short, there appears to be a significant gap or tension between training (as commonly practiced) and learning and application (the end-goal of most efforts). By relying on traditional training methods, organizations are not optimizing efforts to help people actually absorb and apply information — and ultimately change their behavior.

By delivering information in traditional ways, organizations are not optimizing their efforts to help people absorb new information and actually change their behavior.

What Does Behaviorally-Informed Training Look Like?

To help employees learn, we must turn the traditional training model on its head. In fact, we need to apply the latest in Behavioral Science thinking to the challenge of teaching, infusing and instilling new ideas within organizations. But what exactly does this mean?

Re-Thinking The Format 🖼

Replacing extended group classroom sessions with short, pre-produced videos introducing key concepts, which people can watch individually at their own pace. Linking these Distributed Learning sessions to brief quizzes to reinforce knowledge (rather than evaluate) — because Test-Enhanced Learning promotes better retention than simply listening or reading.

Customizing Each Experience ✅

These quizzes, in turn, can provide the feedback needed to personalize each person’s learning experience, by revisiting specific topics and concepts. This Adaptive Learning approach can be enhanced by peer-to-peer project assignments, as we know that teaching others is a great way to learn.

Focusing on Coaching & Application 👏

Most importantly, complementing individual and peer learning sessions with interactive group sessions focused squarely on specific business challenges. Having these Applied Sessions moderated by coaches whose main purpose is to answer questions (rather than lecture) can help people better apply concepts to their own initiatives.

Creating Lasting Changes in Employee Behavior

Yet these fundamental changes in format are only a first step. That’s because our end goal is not simply to educate, but rather to create lasting changes in employee behavior. For this to happen, we need to view training/learning as the start of an ongoing process (of behavior change and habit formation), rather than as an isolated event.

Our end goal is not simply to educate, but rather to create lasting changes in employee behavior.

And in fact, it is here that most companies fall short. A recent study revealed that, on average, companies spend 85% of their training budgets on specific learning activities — and a mere 5% on “post-event training.” Thus, we need to correct this imbalance, by devoting comparable energy to behavioral strategies and tactics designed to instill new habits, including:

• Changes in the physical environment and “choice architecture” (to facilitate new behaviors)
• Small timely interventions (“nudges”) to prompt/remind people to act differently
• Process to reward and reinforce new processes, behaviors, and ways of thinking/working

For example, we’ve found that simply making desired behaviors more visible (via public calendars, e-mail signatures, shared surveys/tracking, etc.) can significantly improve compliance.

Re-Thinking Employee Training

In a rapidly changing world, organizations need to continue investing in their people. But for their training investments to provide desired returns (and instill new behaviors), they will need to apply Behavioral Science insights about how people learn — and what helps them to change their habits. Specifically, organizations will be well-served to:

✅ Re-think how efforts are evaluated — and more consistently emphasize, measure and reward the application of learning.

✅ Re-visit traditional teaching models — and transition from Training towards Coaching.

✅ Re-allocate resources — from one-time training sessions toward ongoing “Nudges” to reinforce behavior change.

At the Behavioral Insights Team, we regularly adopt this mindset to help build the Behavioral Science capacity of our partners. In other words, we apply Behavioral Science to teach Behavioral Science. Yet clearly, this approach can significantly improve training of all kinds, by increasing learning , retention and application. In our experience, we’ve found that applying Behavioral Science (to learning) is the key to helping organizations improve training, instill a new way of thinking — and overcome the Intent to Action gap.

Scott Young (scott.young@bi.team) is the Head of Private Sector at the Behavioral Insights Team (BIT). He joined BIT after 20+ years leading Perception Research Services and later PRS IN VIVO, a Top-25 global shopper insights agency. Scott is passionate about finding “win-win-win” opportunities (that benefit companies, consumers and society) — and in applying Behavioral Science to help individuals and organizations make better decisions and adopt healthier, more sustainable habits.