6 September 2022
Martin Lauzier, an occupational psychologist, full professor in human resources management in the Department of Industrial Relations at UQO and senior researcher at ISM, has received a major grant from SSHRC-SSHRC ($183,504) to carry out his research program on improving the transfer of learning within organizations.
The main objective of this project is to provide resources to immediate supervisors to support their employees before and after the training they attend, in order to increase the application of their new learning once they return to work.
Study
Training is one of the most widely used means of promoting the acquisition, maintenance and renewal of an organization’s skills capital. Despite major investments in training, estimates of the transfer rate of learning, which is the application by the learner of his or her newly acquired skills, remain worrisome. The lack of consultation between training professionals, learners and their immediate superiors (SI) is one of the most cited causes of the low transfer rate
Overall objective
This project addresses this issue and focuses on the role of IS as a facilitator of the transfer process. IS support has been repeatedly identified as one of the most influential factors in the transfer achieved by employees upon their return from training. This project aims to advance the field by assessing whether it is possible to increase the provision of support by making IS aware of their role as a transfer agent and by proposing a structured, albeit short, intervention.
Specific goals
- Design a short intervention to help immediate supervisors better support their employees before and after training
- To study the effect of this intervention on the transfer made by employees upon their return to work
- Assess, using a multilevel strategy, the degree to which the effects of the intervention may vary according to certain moderators
Methodology
This project will use an experimental research design in an organizational setting with two measurement times and two levels of analysis. It will be conducted simultaneously within several experimental sites in the public and private service sector. The study conditions will be distinguished by the fact that the experimental group will be made up of employees whose SIs have held a discussion with them before and after their participation in a training session.
Expected results
It is expected that differences between the experimental and control groups will be reflected in employees’ more positive perceptions of IS characteristics (e.g., perceived support, perceived competence, and openness to innovation). Then, the effect of the short intervention is expected to be reflected in a higher transfer rate among employees who received a greater provision of support. Finally, it is expected that learners’ goal orientation styles (measured at the individual level) will moderate the relationship between IS support (through the short intervention) and transfer of learning. It is also expected that the perceived competence of the IS and its degree of openness to innovation (measured at the collective level) will moderate this same relationship.
Conclusions
Scientifically, this project will deepen our understanding of the role of IS in the transfer process by testing the impact of a simple means that can influence the provision of support and by identifying the elements that can condition its effect. Methodologically, this project innovates by proposing a multi-level research strategy to better understand the role of IS in the handover context. On a practical level, this project will provide decision-makers and potential knowledge users (or even practitioners) with simple and inexpensive ways to improve the transfer of learning within their organizations.