Strategic alignment of training, transfer‐enhancing behaviors, and training usage: A posttraining study

Abstract This survey explored the alignment of an organization's specific training program with its strategic direction and its practices to support usage of training on the job. The subjects, trainees and their immediate supervisors, were participants in a targeted sales training program of a Fortune 200 pharmaceutical company headquartered in the Midwest. This study found a low to moderate positive correlation between the perceived alignment of training with the strategic direction of the organization and the presence of practices to support usage of training. The group of trainees that self‐reported very high usage of training perceived a significantly higher alignment of the training program with the strategic direction of the organization as compared to the group of trainees that self‐reported low to high usage of training; field managers did not differ significantly in that regard. Trainees who self‐reported very high usage of training also reported a significantly higher presence of practices to support usage of training throughout the program than the group of trainees that self‐reported low to high usage of training; field managers did not differ significantly in that regard either. The study found a positive correlation between awareness of and commitment to the strategic direction of the organization.