From Training to Transformation: The Key to Sustaining Change

If you’re like most staffing leaders, you’re probably planning a skills improvement initiative for later this year, currently running a sales or recruiter training program, or working through a broader sales enablement effort. 

Regardless of what you call it, your organization is engaged in a change management initiative.  Asking employees to adopt new skills, behaviors, tools or processes means you're really asking them to change their normal work routines.

Let’s assume for a moment that you’ve done the hard work:

• You’ve developed a world-class strategy
• You've created engaging training content
• You've secured buy-in (on your strategy and content) from the field.
• You’ve delivered a compelling learning experience
• You recevied overwhelmingly positive feedback from employees

Now, it’s time for your team to start applying these new strategies, messages, skills, tools and behaviors.

But will your world-class strategy and engaging content guarantee lasting results?  According to John Kotter,  who is internationally known and widely regarded as the foremost speaker on the topics of Leadership and Change, No . His research, highlighted in his book, Leading Change, states that 70% of transformation efforts fail. 

So, how do you beat those odds and achieve sustainable success?

The most common mistake with employee training initiatives is focusing too much on launching the initiative while neglecting post-training reinforcement and user adoption. Without reinforcement, employees revert to old habits, rendering your training efforts ineffective.

This is one of the reasons why so many organizations have adopted sales enablement as formal disciplline in favor of traditional training.  Training wasn never designed to support users in the field.

When sales leaders enroll their team in training, they’re essentially saying, “We need our team to sell differently.” This shift requires leaders to understand how to drive behavioral change and apply change management best practices.

The Role of Sales and Recruiting Leaders Driving Change

Successful change management is about achieving business results by changing behaviors—and it starts at the top.  Sales leaders must reduce and manage resistance to change by helping their team adopt new skills, behaviors, messaging, and strategies. Employees naturally resist change because altering familiar routines creates uncertainty and stress. To sustain behavioral change and achieve business objectives, leaders must:

• Communicate the specific changes in behavior they expect to see

• Communicate WHY making this change is important, and how employees will benefit

• Lead by example by modeling the new, desired behaviors (and how to use or apply the new tools, messaging, etc)

• Recognize and reward adoption (not just results) 

• Design and execute a structured approach to reinforcement and coaching

Post-Training Reinforcement: The Key to Lasting Success

Post-training reinforcement and user adoption include everything a frontline manager must do to support employees in making new behaviors the standard way of working. This starts with setting clear expectations on how employees will be supported, coached, and evaluated on what they learned during training.

Whether it’s delivering a message, selling to an executive, crafting a persuasive email, leaving a compelling voicemail, or having a consultative conversation, post-training reinforcement activities are essential to ensure adoption.

Here’s what leaders must do:

1. Prioritize Key Behavioral Changes – Identify the critical skills and behaviors that need to change post-training.

2. Establish a Reinforcement Plan – Define specific tasks, coaching sessions, and exercises that will reinforce learning.

3. Ensure Manager Involvement – Frontline managers must actively participate in post-training activities, offering guidance and feedback.

4. Create a Coaching Cadence – Set a regular schedule for follow-ups, skill application exercises, and progress assessments.

5. Embed Continuous Learning – Foster a culture where learning is ongoing, and coaching is an integral part of daily operations.

Building a Culture of Continuous Learning

Post-training reinforcement activities may feel like extra work, but they are the bridge between training and long-term sales success. These activities drive application, which leads to adoption and eventually ingrains habits that generate results. A structured reinforcement plan ensures that training investments yield tangible business impact.

Sales leaders, particularly frontline managers, should focus on reinforcing and sustaining behavioral changes. By outlining a clear post-training roadmap—including key activities, coaching responsibilities, and follow-up cadences—leaders can ensure that new skills become a lasting part of their organization’s DNA.