Planning to Perfection: The ‘How-to’ of Training Implementation
Congratulations! Your organization needed some employee training and you purchased or developed the PERFECT training solution that meets your needs and aligns with your goals and objectives.
Planning for Training Implementation
You’re about to start booking classes, but your brain is thinking about when (and how!) you will have to measure the program’s success. You’ve worked hard to get where you are and only want to push the button and ‘make it happen.’

That said, there are still critical areas requiring your time and consideration when planning to roll out your training to help ensure you maximize success and have everyone love this training as much as you do.
To paint a picture for you: As a standard, you hand off all registration admin for your course to the admin team. They send a standard training registration e-mail a week before training starts. It includes no goals, objectives, or reasoning for why they are being invited, who else is coming, nor can they tell whether their managers are aware they’re being ‘sent to training’. Now, on Day 1 of your course, you have learners showing up unprepared, irritated, and questioning why they’re there.
Bad gas travels fast, and it happens to YOUR course before they even get to the class!

The Question We’re Answering Today
The question we’re answering today is: How can you ensure your training solution rolls out to maximize both return on investment and the overall LOVE of your program?
Here is how we’ve broken this down for simplicity (and the opportunity to create a fun acronym). Using these four keys, you can help ensure success in planning for your training roll-out.
I – Involvement
C – Communication
A – Accountability
R – Responsibility
1Involvement
Many people will play a role in implementing your training, from the facilitator in the room, to the support staff who send invitations and arrange the accommodations, to the learners themselves. And now is not the time to ‘hand off’ the program and let it run itself. Consider your partners in this roll-out and identify how and when to involve them.
- What do your stakeholders need from you? (Heads up, communications, outcomes, etc.)
- What do you need from them? (cooperation, commitment, follow-up)
Communicate with them early and as often as needed. The more your stakeholders know about what’s coming, what’s expected and how they can best support learners in the workplace, the better positioned they are to provide your audience with positive experiences.
2Communication
This is my favorite key. It’s like the master of all keys. Communicating and preparing people for training is one of the best ways to set your learners up for success.
- Provide pre-training communication and materials to help learners be ready and engaged when they arrive. This includes letting them know what to expect and how they are expected to participate.
- Prepare your support staff and facilitators with everything they need to field questions, encourage learners, and support one another in rolling this out.
Having your audience show up for training interested, eager, prepared, and aware rather than irritated, confused, and skeptical.
Communicating with all stakeholders is a low-cost, high-return activity using the information you have already prepared. If you want to learn more, let us know.
3Accountability and Responsibility
We’re grouping these two keys because even though they’re separate enough to be alone, they like hanging out together.
When a change is happening, people need to understand what they’re on the nut for.
Accountability is when the buck stops with you for the successes or (or shortcomings) of the program.
Responsibility is about the tasks that each stakeholder is responsible to carry out.
When talking about accountability and responsibility, we ensure that everyone involved understands what behaviours and outcomes are expected of them pre, during, and post training. The responsibility doesn’t end with ‘attend training next Monday.’

Consider other responsibilities such as:
- Complete pre-training reading
- Consider your own learning objectives for the session
- Allow time for your staff to practice new skills on the job
- Attend bi-weekly follow-up sessions
- Complete your action plan items
The Phases of Organizational Training
Applying the concepts of ICAR is simple if you think in terms of the different phases of training. Who needs to be involved, communicated with, accountable, and responsible at each of these stages?
Pre-Training
- Who should be involved in identifying and rolling out communications?
- What do your stakeholders need from you to implement training?
- What do you need learners to know or do to prepare for the training?
During Training
Make sure this is all about the learner!
- What will they need during training?
- What should the venue include?
- Who else do you need to work with to support this?
Bottom line: How can you facilitate the best learning experience for your audience?
Post Training
Training is not a single event that begins and ends at the door of the training room. If you’ve been around the training world, you’ve heard of the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve. This curve is a formula that shows how quickly people forget new information over time if a learner experiences no active recall or application of new skills or knowledge.

If you don’t want your learners (and, by extension, your organization) to suffer a loss of skills and knowledge post-training, there needs to be clear accountabilities established for what is expected of your learners. How are you setting them up for success?
Establish clear accountability for each stakeholder for what happens after the training.
- Check-ins and follow-ups
- Post-training task lists and action plans
- Knowledge boosters and reminders
- Time on the job to practice new skills
Conclusion
Training budgets are no joke. The cost of purchasing or developing training—plus the cost of taking people off their jobs to attend training—is significant.
Delivering the right training is your primary responsibility.
Delivering it in a well-planned, thoughtful way that involves and communicates with your learners and stakeholders is critical in ensuring your program delivery is well-received and effective. It demonstrates respect for your audience and those supporting the learning.
And who wouldn’t want that?
Want to discuss how to quickly and efficiently map out your training implementation plan in a fun, effortless, and easy way? Book a free discovery call to learn how we can help.
About TouchPoints Learning & Innovation
We are an enthusiastic team of experts in learning, change and innovation. We help organizations solve business problems through facilitated creative problem-solving, team development services, outcome-driven innovation, and custom training development and delivery.
