The Training Foundation

"MACRO" Model to Address Learning-Transfer Problem

London (UK), May 2016 - Following extensive research into the problem of failed learning transfer, The Training Foundation has developed the unique "MACRO" model, which gives L&D managers and business "line" managers practical tools, techniques, and templates to solve this age-old problem. They have also developed a programme called "Assessing Learning Transfer" for L&D professionals who have first grasped the MACRO model concept.

It's widely acknowledged that less than twenty percent of corporate learning is actually applied in the workplace and improves performance, wasting eighty percent of training budgets.

A key reason is the lack of a coherent and systematic approach to ensuring that transfer takes place. Even training that is designed and delivered to best-practice TAP standards is less effective than it should be if not supported by a systematic transfer process. It's analogous to buying a Rolls-Royce and then leaving it on the drive - it goes nowhere and is a complete waste of money!

Ensuring learning transfer is difficult, often because nobody takes responsibility for it, and there is a significant lack of genuine collaboration between L&D and senior business leaders. Many TAP clients told us they knew they had a problem, but were unclear what to do about it and how to go about resolving it.

At The Training Foundation, we believe that learning transfer is so important that a senior project team carried out an eighteen-month R&D project to develop a generic, best-practice (but pragmatic) solution.

This is the MACRO® Learning Transfer System, which is Step 3  in TAP's 3 Step L&D Quality Assurance Programme.

MACRO focuses on five drivers of learning transfer, each of which is vital for transfer excellence. If any one or more of these drivers is given inadequate focus and attention, the value chain is broken and sub-optimal transfer will inevitably occur.