axonify interval reinforcement

Interval ReinforcementImproving Employee Knowledge Retention To Gain Measurable Business Results

A Knowledge Series White Paper

Executive Summary A distribution center needs to reduce workplace accidents and health and safety violations, but is having difficulty keeping safety knowledge top-of-mind with their employees.

A sales organization needs to meet revenue quotas, but is having challenges with knowledge retention among its sales people. Product features change frequently, and people only sell what they remember.

A retail organization is experiencing significant inventory shrink and wants to create a program to encourage employee integrity and increase the use of their internal tip line. They need a way to ensure employees understand the program and are incented to participate.

A training and development organization is frustrated with the lack of measurable outcomes from significant dollars invested in event-based learning. They are challenged to identify real-time, ongoing knowledge gaps in employees and have no effective tools to address them.

A customer support organization is experiencing inconsistency in service levels, and needs to implement a program to educate CS reps on good service practice and processes, but is challenged to keep employees engaged in the improvement program on an ongoing basis.

Every day, executives in organizations are faced with finding ways to improve the performance of their business, whether to increase revenues or more effectively manage costs. Regardless of the measures implemented, the biggest gains are achieved through improving the performance of the people within the organization. For most organizations, that means investing in employee training programs.

Organizations are spending literally millions of dollars on training, but most are not making huge strides in achieving bottom line results.

We have identified four key challenges that contribute to this inability to realize solid results from training investment.

We believe the solution is a technique known as Interval Reinforcement, which builds on traditional learning and knowledge transfer, enhancing knowledge retention so that employees can consistently improve their performance and contribute more positively to the bottom line.

Enhancing Results Through Improved Employee KnowledgeEvery day, executives in organizations are faced with finding ways to improve the performance of the business – whether it’s a sales executive looking to increase revenues, a loss prevention executive looking to decrease retail shrink, or a safety executive looking to reduce staff injuries and workplace fines.

Regardless of the measures implemented, the biggest gains are achieved through improving the performance of the people within the organization. For most organizations, that means investing in employee training programs and it often starts with ensuring they remember - and operationalize - what they’ve been trained to do.

The ideal return on training scenario looks something like this:

Many organizations are severely limited in their ability to achieve real and lasting return on training investment. There are four key challenges causing this.

The Cost of Repeat Training Is SkyrocketingEmployee knowledge and skills are a critical part of the intellectual capital of any organization, and almost all organizations recognize that employee training is a must. Generally, the cost of employee training can range from 2% to 10% of payroll. In addition to direct costs such as the development or purchase of classroom led training or eLearning systems, organizations also incur costs due to lost production time and disruptions to business activities while employees are on training.

Having employees sit in training sessions for hours or days and then not retain information and operationalize what they’ve learned is a massive waste of time and money. If an employee requires re-training, the cost can be doubled, which quickly erodes any return on training investment. It’s a given that most organizations MUST provide some level of training, but they need a way to improve their ability to leverage that investment successfully, and translate it into business results.

1

Employees Don’t Retain Enough of What They LearnOne of the biggest challenges facing training departments is the fact that people often quickly forget what they’ve learned. Popular education theory and research suggests:

• People can only learn so much at one time: Cognitive learning theory asserts that people can only absorb 4 to 5 pieces of information into short-term memory at any given time.

• Items stored in short-term memory can be quickly lost if not used or reinforced regularly after the initial training.

• Information learned and used or reinforced quickly and consistently can be moved to long-term memory, where it can be maintained and retrieved as needed.

To obtain maximum effectiveness, organizations need to ensure that training events are enhanced with consistent, regular reinforcement of the information learned, immediately after training, and on an ongoing basis.

Training Is Not Effectively Applied In The WorkplaceFor training to be considered effective, it must be operationalized. By this we mean the knowledge must be internalized by employees, they must modify their attitudes and behavior as a result, and they must apply this to their jobs for improved performance. This must be done to the extent that the organization can identify measurable benefit derived from the training.

After event-based training, it appears that employees have benefited: post-training surveys indicate they enjoyed the training and everyone is optimistic that the training

2

Knowledge Retention Knowledge retention is the level of an employee's internalization, adoption and ability to achieve future recall after being exposed to training. Excellent knowledge retention means that employees gain a lasting awareness, understanding, and comprehension of the training materials - even months after the training was initially administered.

3

Training is not taking hold. From Interval Reinforcement Events over time: what the research says.

will make a difference in their effectiveness. But once back on the job, old habits and practices quickly take over and the training is left behind.

This suggests that training is just not taking hold over the long term, and not long enough to have a sustained impact on business operations. What’s needed is a consistent, continual intervention that refreshes employee knowledge, fills in information they may have missed or forgotten, and keeps motivation high. This will keep the training knowledge top of mind, and help employees to apply it to the job.

Organizations Can’t Effectively Establish The ROI of TrainingRecognizing the return on investment for training can be a real challenge. Typically organizations measure their training based on a 4-level evaluation model developed

by Dr. Donald Kirkpatrick1. Since Dr. Kirkpatrick developed his model in 1950, the ROI

Institute2 has defined a measurement methodology that allows organizations to go one

step further, and connect training to tangible business results, including Return on Investment.

Most organizations routinely implement level 1 evaluations post training, but fewer implement level 2, as once the training is complete and employees are back at their jobs, their incentive to complete forms has significantly diminished.

Level 1 (Reaction) To what degree participants react favorably to the training.

Level 2 (Learning) To what degree participants acquire the intended knowledge, skills, attitudes, confidence and commitment based on their participation in a training event.

Level 3 (Behavior) To what degree participants apply what they learned during training when they are back on the job

Level 4 (Results) To what degree targeted outcomes occur as a result of the training event and subsequent reinforcement.

The challenge in measuring at level 3 or level 4 is that they require significant data gathering, and to date, most of that needed to be done via observation or other time-consuming and costly ways. As a result, very few organizations even get to a 4th level of evaluation, where results are translated into ROI.

4

How can organizations be more effective in establishing training results? Aside from developing the appropriate objectives for the training, the key is in gathering data to perform level 3 and level 4 analyses, and to then establish return on investment. This is the information that must be obtained after training, and over a significant enough period of time to establish changes in employee performance and business results. This requires a sustained, consistent method of data collection from employees and supervisors, to identify how employees are applying their knowledge, how that meets desired training outcomes, and what impact it’s having on the business.

Introducing Interval Reinforcement

Interval Reinforcement (also known as Spaced Repetition) is a technique of reinforcing learning to maximize knowledge retention, plus measuring

knowledge and its application in the business.

It’s a process that involves taking “content” (information or knowledge) and repeating the presentation of that content to employees over predefined intervals so it is effectively reinforced. In other words, it IS an ongoing and interesting test-refresh cycle in bite-sized pieces that makes learning stick.

Interval Reinforcement is a technique that builds on traditional learning and knowledge transfer, enhancing training programs, and offering organizations a way to measure not only knowledge but also retention and application of that knowledge.

Typically, an Interval Reinforcement program starts with the critical learning points from a prior training event, and performs an iterative test/refresh process until knowledge retention to a specific level is achieved.

The space in between each iteration is also important in maximizing information retention.

Interval Reinforcement is essentially implemented as a feedback loop:

• An employee is tested on specific information to uncover knowledge gaps. • The employee is presented with the correct, bite-sized answers to refresh key

learning points. • At pre-determined intervals the employee is re-tested, and success is measured

again.• Once the employee has provided correct answers a specific number of times, new

information and questions are incorporated into the loop.

This typically involves:

• Implementing a daily, semi-weekly, weekly or even monthly topic review process to ensure the most relevant learning stays top of mind.

• Providing bursts of training in as little as 30 seconds per day to reinforce learning and close the knowledge gap.

• Asking 5 or more iterations of the same question (sometimes using alternate question styles) to ensure that the learning sticks.

Interval Reinforcement can have a significant impact on knowledge retention and job performance.

When Does Interval Reinforcement Happen?

Before Learning Interval Reinforcement can be leveraged in pre-training evaluation to uncover knowledge gaps and help define the training content. It can also begin the content transfer process and contribute to knowledge retention during the training.

After Learning Whether a longer training session or quick presentation of a policy or procedure, Interval Reinforcement strengthens the information learned and helps the employee transfer the knowledge into long-term memory. It also augments the information presented in the initial training event to continue the learning process.

Anytime New Knowledge Is Needed

When new information suddenly becomes an organizational priority, it’s easy to quickly and dynamically present that information and reinforce it, ensuring maximum retention.

The Benefits of Interval Reinforcement

Most of us understand intuitively that repeat information will be retained more effectively. But how does this translate into business benefits?

• Improved employee performance: If employees actually remember what they’ve learned, they have the ability to operationalize it on the job. Whether training relates to new product features and pricing, or safety procedures that must be adhered to, high knowledge levels will increase employee performance, and reduce loss in a multitude of ways for the employer.

• Higher knowledge retention, lower cost of training: If employees continue to learn consistently after initial training, knowledge gaps left from cognitive overload will be filled in and memory recall significantly improved. Investment in training dollars will be maximized and the overall cost of training significantly reduced.

• Higher employee productivity: Interval Reinforcement greatly reduces and often eliminates the need for retraining. Employee utilization and productivity are maximized because they spend their time doing what employers pay them to do.

• Improved employee retention: Highly engaged and motivated employees means greater job satisfaction and lower turnover for employers. Feeling confident in their knowledge and skills helps employees achieve more of their goals, and feel better about themselves and their companies. In fact, intrinsic rewards such as education and training opportunities can have a greater impact on retention than increased pay.

Key Attributes of An Interval Reinforcement Program

For Interval Reinforcement to truly contribute to your overall training and knowledge efforts – and ultimately the bottom line – it must be implemented in a way that ensures maximum success.

What’s needed is a cost-effective, automated system that can deliver training to employees quickly and easily with minimal ongoing Training Department intervention. A web-based software solution offers the best opportunity for cost-effective, efficient delivery of Interval Reinforcement: once the initial system is configured, delivery is automated, providing bite-sized chunks of information to individual employees and measuring their own personal knowledge retention.

Fast And Easy For Employees

The ability to deliver bite-sized content on a continuous basis is proven to help employees retain and operationalize their training. An Interval Reinforcement system should allow you to deliver 2-3 questions plus correct answers to an employee in a single session – which avoids overload, and can take as little as 30 seconds per day.

Universally Accessible By using a web-based solution, employees can log in each day for their bite-sized session from anywhere with a simple web browser. This easy access facilitates participation, as employees can quickly complete their session at any time it’s convenient for them in their workflow, and with a device they prefer, such as a laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

Personalized The system should allow you to create content that is personalized for each employee, focusing on the employee’s specific role, as well as what he/she knows and doesn’t know. The employee proceeds along a personalized knowledge map that is unique to them, targeting their specific knowledge gaps along the way. As employees correctly answer questions, the system should acknowledge this and provide new questions to continually measure knowledge levels and reinforce correct answers. The system should also be able to intelligently repeat certain questions and information multiple times and over specific periods to drive knowledge retention.

Engaging And Motivating The Interval Reinforcement system should allow you to incorporate games, leader boards and other reward systems to enhance and maintain engagement and motivation. It should also allow for social interaction to create a sense of community and offer opportunities for employees to make suggestions and help each other.

Success Tracking And Measurement

Your Interval Reinforcement system should provide detailed reporting and analytics that allow you to measure the success of your program, establish clear return on investment, identify issues quickly and enable informed action and decision making. Detailed information about knowledge gaps – at the individual, departmental or regional level – should be easily accessible, allowing you to correlate any metrics or key performance indicators that you’re tracking, such as incident rates, revenue and support calls, or even employee performance and/or participation levels.

Easily Configurable Your system should provide an intuitive interface that allows you to easily set up users and modify their profile and personalized learning path. Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) should be able to quickly update and manage content, keeping questions and training modules relevant, dynamic and fresh. You should be able to easily change the difficulty, subject and priority of questions, allowing you to respond to urgency around a particular topic, such as a new product introduction.

Cost Effective An Interval Reinforcement system should be cost-effective, driving a significant positive return on investment. A web-based solution (Software as a Service) is one in which the actual system resides on the vendor’s server, and your employees access the system via any common web browser. This approach offers the best economy with a lower total cost of ownership than implementing a system in-house.

Interval Reinforcement In Action

A distribution center needs to reduce workplace accidents and health and safety violations, but is having difficulty keeping health and safety knowledge top-of-mind with their employees. They create an awareness program about health and safety messages, and after presenting to employees in a single session, they begin delivering bite sized training each day to employees via their Interval Reinforcement system. Employees are tested on their knowledge about safety in specific areas on an ongoing basis, and long term retention of information begins to climb towards the 80%+ mark. Eventually, the company will reduce workplace accidents and health and safety violations, potentially saving millions of dollars a year.

A sales organization needs to meet revenue quotas, but is challenged because salespeople don’t remember enough about the product line and pricing, which change frequently. Not only that, time out of the field getting constant updates means salespeople are not selling, and they’re becoming impatient. The organization develops product education in bite-sized chunks and delivers it to sales representatives via mobile devices. Sales reps log in when they have a minute of

downtime to answer two quick questions on the product suite. Each correct answer nets them points on the leader board, which eventually leads to bonuses. Sales reps are motivated to improve their product knowledge and obtain even more financial reward for performance.

A retail organization is experiencing significant inventory shrink and wants to create a program to encourage employee integrity and increase the use of their internal tip line. They need a way to ensure employees understand the program and the benefits of participating so that participation goes up and shrink goes down. They used an Interval Reinforcement system to identify what their employees didn’t know about their anti-theft policies or tip line, to deliver the information to increase knowledge and understanding, and to improve employee engagement in the initiative. Calls start increasing to the tip line as employees become more knowledgeable about internal theft, and shrink is reduced from 1.7% to 1.2% of sales.

A training & development organization is challenged to identify ongoing knowledge gaps, plus deal with constantly changing requirements. They’re pressured to produce more results with the same or fewer resources, while creating learning engaging and rewarding experiences. And finally, they need to prove that employees are operationalizing learning, and must find a way to measure Return on Investment.

Interval Reinforcement allows them to leverage content from their existing Learning Management System and deliver bite-sized training, continually assessing knowledge levels and improving knowledge retention while targeting learning gaps. Because the system is easily configured, they can quickly change the content of training as it is needed.

Employees enjoy the system, as it’s easy to access, offers a game-like interface, and gives them incentives such as a leader board and points accumulation. They readily participate, and knowledge retention goes up. Small surveys are inserted into the system so that employees can identify how and when to apply learning to the job. As the company sees improvements in specific areas, they can correlate learning reinforcement with performance improvements to establish ROI metrics.

A customer support organization is experiencing inconsistency in service levels, and needs to implement a program to educate CS reps on good service practice and processes; but is challenged to keep employees engaged in the improvement program on an ongoing basis.

They implement an Interval Reinforcement solution that delivers daily information on good service practice and process. Employees log on each morning for 60 seconds prior to their shift, and participate in the learning process. For each correct answer, they receive points which eventually convert into gift cards for their favorite shops and

restaurants. Employees are divided into teams, with high team scores netting free monthly lunch for members.

Consider this: what kind of organizational impact would occur if employees actually remembered what you needed them to, and consistently put knowledge into practice? Would it reduce safety

violations or accidents? Would it improve sales? Would it enhance customer service? How would it contribute to the bottom line?

Conclusion

As a business technique, Interval Reinforcement not only helps leverage the investment in existing training programs, but offers a way to improve employee knowledge retention, which ultimately leads to an improvement in performance and the bottom line.

Interval Reinforcement can be used to identify knowledge gaps before the training event is designed, to boost the effectiveness of training, and to rapidly define and deliver new information to employees to address corporate priorities.

Interval Reinforcement works across all industries and for multiple objectives: anywhere improved employee knowledge retention contributes to improved business performance, Interval Reinforcement is the answer.

The best method of Interval Reinforcement is a web-based software service, which provides the lowest cost of entry and lowest business risk.

About Axonify

Axonify is revolutionizing the way organizations think about and deliver corporate learning. Combining the latest in brain science with the art of gaming, Axonify is the only corporate e-learning solution that truly drives knowledge retention, engages employees in the learning process, and delivers specific and compelling ROI for you.

Axonify is designed for the way people learn.

Based On Brain Science Based on the concepts of Interval Reinforcement, Active Recall and Chunking, we provide learning in bite-sized chunks in a learn-test-feedback model, proven to enhance learning and retention.

Personalized To The Learner We create a learning environment unique for each individual, by using a personalized knowledge map that can be customized based on role, location, learning style and more. Learning and testing adapts as an individual learns and progresses.

Engaging And Fun Experience We incorporate games, social elements like teams and leader boards, and reward systems with prizes, to ensure people are more deeply engaged in the success of their learning.

Woven Into The Workday We make learning accessible via any web-enabled device, including PC’s, tablets and smartphones. Training is on-demand and real time, and can be accomplished in as little as 90 seconds. This makes it easy to incorporate one or more learning interventions into a workday, without requiring unnecessary time away from the job.

Easily Managed Content Learning professionals can easily modify or add new material quickly, making Axonify the perfect solution for providing learning in a volatile environment.

Measuring & Reporting Performance can be measured by individual, workgroup or even plant on a topic-by-topic basis. Axonify measures and reports on performance through a host of analytics, and correlates that performance to your key business objectives.

We are committed to making a measurable, bottom-line impact on your business by improving knowledge retention of your employees.

For more information on our Interval Reinforcement solution, or for a demonstration, contact us at [email protected] or 1-855-AXONIFY or visit us at www.axonify.com.

1 www.kirkpatrickpartners.com

2 www.roiinstitute.net

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.axonify.com

http://www.axonify.com