Two Inexpensive Strategies to Improve Corporate Training
J. Bruce Tracey, Michael J. Tews
Cornell Center for Hospitality Research, March 2007
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Researchers at the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research have discovered that two relatively inexpensive strategies – self-coaching and anonymous feedback from subordinates – can strengthen the lessons of classroom management training.
In their study, titled "Enhancing Formal Interpersonal Skills Training through Post-Training Supplements," J. Bruce Tracey and Michael J. Tews describe the self-coaching method as involving new managers filling out workbooks weekly for five weeks about their on-the-job behavior. The anonymous feedback involves open-ended suggestions from subordinates on how managers could be stronger on the job. Both techniques improved manager-trainees' retention of what they learned in classroom training and enhanced their post-training job performance, the authors say.
Tracey, who conducted the study with Tews, compared the effectiveness of various training approaches among 87 manager trainees in the hospitality industry. Tracey has said that although the participants were restaurant managers, the findings are likely applicable to other industries.
The report, which was published by the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research, gives samples of the workbook questionnaires and the upward-feedback assessments.