Role of Training Transfer in the Aftermath of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Introduction

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic expanded quickly, moving from a local, then regional, worry to the cause of utter disruption in the daily lives of individuals in hundreds of countries throughout the world in just a few months (Bryan et al., 2020). The Covid-19 pandemic has had devastating consequences on businesses and organizations. Even for educational institutions, the Covid-19 has posed a massive challenge (Daniel, 2020). The influence of COVID-19 on education and training at all levels has been extraordinary (Kanwar & Mishra, 2021). Organizations are witnessing challenging times to keep their businesses afloat and are constantly looking for new ways to do so (Diab-Bahman & Al-Enzi, 2020). The Covid-19 lockdowns have changed the way we manage our schools, communicate with our loved ones, teach and learn, work, shop, travel, obtain medical treatment, spend leisure time, engage in trade, and carry out many of life's normal activities (Sneader & Sternfels, 2020). The human resources function has been struggling to ensure survival and continuity of training initiatives in the wake of such adverse circumstances. Evidence from the healthcare domain concerning medical fraternity clearly indicates the negative impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the training initiatives (Edigin et al., 2020; Ferrara et al, 2020; Amparore et al., 2020, Sneyd et al., 2020; Crosby & Sharma, 2020; Hall et al., 2020; Mishra et al., 2020). Training and development is a critical organizational task as it provides the personnel with pertinent insights on ways to perform their roles and the resources to deliver performance in their field of work (Suazo et al., 2009). Training is not only important in large corporation but it is also a game-changer in Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) (Dixit & Sinha, 2021). Results from study conducted by Dixit (2019) reveal that training of healthcare professionals ensured superior service performers by learners.

The entire training landscape has shifted drastically and is unlikely to regain normalcy in the immediate near future. Organizations that are willing to continue investing resources in learning interventions, thereby need to ensure successful application of trained knowledge and skills back at the workplace. An increasing number of organizations have realized that merely conducting training programs without implementation measures, is insufficient in causing desired behavior change at the workplace. Change management interventions at the workplace therefore, need to focus on getting their employees to implement learnings in a post-training scenario to justify training costs. Training transfer or learning transfer is thus pivotal to employee development and business growth as it focuses on-ground implementation of knowledge interventions. The post Covid-19 scenario, especially in the context of learning and development is fragile and merely increasing training programs, without complimenting them with effective training transfer strategies is likely to be an unsuccessful venture. This chapter aims to highlight the role of training transfer in driving business growth and influencing behavior change in the aftermath of the pandemic. The key elements of concerning training transfer in the aftermath of Covid-19 pandemic, involve the following:

• 1.

  Impact of the pandemic on the training transfer landscape in organizations

• 2.

  Challenges concerning online training dissemination

• 3.

  Barriers related to transfer of training in a virtual environment

• 4.

  Financial constraints and infrastructural bottlenecks to support transfer

• 5.

  Absence of strategic approach for training transfer during crisis situations