How L+D professionals handle training cancellations and absences

This report treats the subject of how different organisations face up to trainee cancellations
and absences. On the 12th May 2010, I asked 34 Learning Managers and HR professionals
from around Belgium the question:

“How do you deal with trainee cancellations and absences in your organisation?”

Of the responses received by email and telephone, answers were divided across 3 camps:

• Those who control cancellations and absences with policy

• Those who focus on presence by creating support for value-added learning
• Those who simply suffer the phenomenon, taking no further action

If you have further questions regarding the following content, contact me via email
mail@dansteer.com or by telephone +32 (0)472-346.226

Cancellations and absence from training impact budget, quality and organisational relationships. Not
all Learning Managers have a clear strategy for dealing with this issue.

This report is an Infinite Learning © initiative, designed to stimulate understanding of and reflection
upon different possibilities for dealing with the issue. Each idea presented has been offered by one of
the 34 learning managers questioned. All direct quotes are coloured and placed in italics and inverted
commas.

In the following pages, we will look at:

1. REASONS FOR CANCELLATION, ABSENCE AND PRESENCE

2. CONTROLLING CANCELLATIONS AND ABSENCES VIA POLICY

3. FOCUSING ON PRESENCE BY CREATING SUPPORT FOR VALUE-ADDED LEARNING

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Contents

Reasons for cancellation, absence and presence.................................................................. 3

Cancellation and absence vs. lack of subscriptions ............................................................................. 3
Why people don’t show up .................................................................................................................. 4
Why do people show up? .................................................................................................................... 4

Controlling cancellations and absences via policy ................................................................ 5

Most common cancellation policy ....................................................................................................... 6
To whom should charges be made? .................................................................................................... 6
Problems dealing with sickness ........................................................................................................... 7
Linking policy to important measurables and consequences .............................................................. 7
What about internal trainings that have “no cost”? ........................................................................... 8
Pay now, refund when you show up .................................................................................................... 8
Have a back-up plan for cancellations ................................................................................................ 9
Strict vs. flexible policy......................................................................................................................... 9
Communicating policy ....................................................................................................................... 10
The importance of reporting ............................................................................................................. 11

Focusing on presence by creating support for value-added learning ............................ 12

Make learning a priority .................................................................................................................... 12
Reward people for training rather than absence .............................................................................. 13
Seek agreement and buy-in from the trainees’ manager ................................................................. 14
Show the ROI of training activities .................................................................................................... 15
Build the reputation of the learning people ...................................................................................... 15
Create real motivation by letting people choose for themselves ...................................................... 16
Alternatives to the classroom: Blended learning solutions ............................................................... 17
The importance of timing and time-spending ................................................................................... 17

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Reasons for cancellation, absence and presence

In this section, we look at the reasons why people are not showing up for training.

Contents this section:

Cancellation and absence vs. lack of subscriptions ............................................................................. 3

Why people don’t show up .................................................................................................................. 4
Why do people show up? .................................................................................................................... 4

Cancellation and absence vs. lack of subscriptions

This report deals fundamentally with the question of what to do about cancellations and absence
from training by participants who were previously subscribed. This is different from lack of
subscriptions to a course organised in advance by the learning team. This will lead to cancellation of
the vendor by the organisation, but is not the type of cancellation we are dealing with here.

The main reasons noted for lack of subscriptions are:

• Lack of perceived value of learning initiatives

• Other business priorities
• Changing structure: “Because of restructuring, teams don’t know where they’ll sit in the
organisation, therefore they haven’t determined the objectives yet and therefore not
development objectives yet, hence no clarity on what (training) to do.”
• Wish to save costs. Training is organised in advance by learning/HR and placed in a calendar
of “possible training” in the hope people will subscribe. The department or business unit is
required upon subscription to fund the final purchase of the training initiative. One
respondent said that “entire teams are afraid to register because they assume the budget will
not be approved”.

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Why people don’t show up

Volcanic ash and cancelled flights aside, the most commonly noted reason for cancellation is “other
business priorities”. This is also the most accepted and excused reason for absence.

“In our business, lots of cancellations are dictated by operational constraints… so nothing is done to
prevent them.”

Other reasons for cancellation and absence include:

• Sickness and unexpected leave

• Participants “are more rewarded for the alternative they chose for at that moment”

Why do people show up?

The most obvious answer to this question is that they want to. A second possibility is that they feel
obliged.

In one IT consultancy firms, a difference in presence was noted in training for technical skills vs.
soft/non-technical skills. This was explained as due to the perceived worth of training. Consultants
were more likely to attend training that they felt would serve them better in future careers. Being
able to add a training for a specific module of SAP to one’s CV was perceived as more a valuable
outcome than, for example, being able to talk more assertively …and rightly so, say the consultants:
The addition of this technical skill to their CVs meant the sales team could demand a higher bill-rate.
This is an example of immediate return on training investment.

Another firm from the same industry suggested that nothing beats management support to help get
people in training. “In another company... ...they had a high cancellation rates except when there was
a clear message from management on the importance and investment in the training.” An email
invitation from the management team for training followed by a “gentle reminder” just prior to the
training was seen to be very effective in avoiding late cancellations.

Concepts concerning return on investment, showing the value of training and getting support will be
discussed in section 3 of this report.

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Controlling cancellations and absences via policy

One of the most common methods for dealing with cancellation and absence is to create a policy
outlining the rules and outcomes regarding such actions. Using clear communication prior to training
and fair follow-up on the rules, trainees are discouraged from absenting from training.

This section outlines different methods for dealing with cancellations and absences via policy, rules
and “punishment”.

Contents this section:

Most common cancellation policy ....................................................................................................... 6

To whom should charges be made? .................................................................................................... 6
Problems dealing with sickness ........................................................................................................... 7
Linking policy to important measurables and consequences .............................................................. 7
What about internal trainings that have “no cost”? ........................................................................... 8
Pay now, refund when you show up .................................................................................................... 8
Have a back-up plan for cancellations ................................................................................................ 9
Strict vs. flexible policy......................................................................................................................... 9
Communicating policy ....................................................................................................................... 10
The importance of reporting ............................................................................................................. 11

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Most common cancellation policy

“We charge the late withdrawal penalty fee to the business unit of an employee in question if he/she
withdraws less than 7 business days in advance. No-show penalty fee is twice larger.”

Most organisations working with no-show policies apply a simple rule of scaled “punishment” based
on the type of cancellation or absence behaviour, as seen in the example quoted above.

A simple policy includes the following elements:

• You can cancel up to XX days before the course with no financial (or other) consequence
• XX euros for late cancellation within a defined short period prior to training *
• XX+XX euros for no-show with no cancellation
• Exceptions allowed for include sick leave with certificate presented, family leave and “klein
verlet” for attendance of funerals of close family members

* One respondent has set this to 200euros for any training, charged to the relevant cost centre of the
participant. The respondent noted that some people take this seriously; others just accept the fine
and don’t seem bothered. Other organisations have said that they charge 250euros per day. Still
others charge a % fee related to the price of training.

To whom should charges be made?

“It’s a shame, because time is money. But the problem is that it’s not the money of the person who
cancelled it, it’s the money of the company.”

Most organisations charge cancellation and absence fees to the department or business unit/cost-
centre of the employee concerned.

• Some organisations note that although the department takes this fee seriously, participants do
not. One explanation for this might be that there is no follow-up or reporting on the fee from
department to employee.

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• When the budget for training is managed centrally by Learning/HR, some organisations report
the charge to a specific business unit, but pay for it themselves out of a “pot” reserved for such
issues.
• Some organisations that attain government funding towards the cost of training (e.g. via
Cef/vora) do not seem to worry at all about cancellation fees provided costs are not larger than
the money they have recuperated in that period. The reason for this phenomenon is that the
government funding received is considered as “bonus” money - no target or objective is set by
the organisation for how much funding to recuperate. In those companies with funding targets,
the cancellation cost is considered as more negative.

Problems dealing with sickness

Many organisations ask staff that are absent due to illness to justify this with a medical certificate. In
this case, it is important that the request matches the company working regulations concerning
absence due to illness. If the working regulations say that a certificate is only required as of the 2nd
day of absence, it is difficult for HR/Learning to request a certificate for only 1 day of sickness (when
absence from training was incurred).

Companies in the comité paritaire 218 working with Cefora/Cevora are in principle required to
deliver a medical certificate for any and all absence from training due to sickness, even if it’s only 1
day. If your company does not require a certificate until later in the sickness period and the person
was only sick 1 day, what can you do? One respondent replied that “we have a good working
relationship with Cefora and they know we are serious about using their offer. When people are sick, I
think it’s best to pick up the phone and talk to them [Cefora]. They are quite understanding.”

Linking policy to important measurables and consequences

Employees must (A) understand the logic behind the policy and (B) the organisation itself must be
careful not to make costly mistakes by being too generous with policy deadlines. In both cases, it is
important to clearly state the rule when communicating with the organisation.

A Clearly link cancellation and absence costs to the real cost of training

• For externally purchased training, consider charging the amount that must be paid to
the vendor in the case of cancellation or absence
• For internal training, consider a % of the overall cost to the company of running the
training

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B Align the time to cancel to vendor requirements

If you have agreed to pay your training vendor for any cancellations made with 2 weeks of training
date, it is not good practice to offer a cancellation window of only 1 week to your trainees

What about internal trainings that have “no cost”?

The author would like to know where to get some of this training!

All training has a cost attached. Consider the full cost of training and then adapt cancellation policy
accordingly. In the case of learning delivered by internal resources, although it is may be true that no
pure capital has been spent in setting up the training, there is still a cost. For example:

• Time
• Effort
• Salary costs for the trainer
• Other resources

In this study, only one person explicitly said that cancellation fees were applied also applied for
internal training. Such a “no-nonsense policy” has 2 potential benefits:

• It will send a clear signal to the organisation

• Learning overhead costs can be better managed

Pay now, refund when you show up

One innovative suggestion came out of a recent meeting held between learning professionals
working in Flemish Universities: When the training is free to the participant (or paid from a central
budget, therefore free to the department or business unit), charge the participant, department or
business unit upfront and refund on attendance.

At the time of writing, it was not clear how such a process could be easily administered.

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Have a back-up plan for cancellations

“Cancellations are only a problem for the administrators: usually we have long waiting lists, so we
can find another participant, but it takes us some time…”

The above respondent from a Belgian university is regularly working hard to replace late
cancellations with other people.

Another solution of the same variety is to overbook training, knowing that people will cancel at the
last minute or not show up. Although this can ensure a satisfactory number of participants in a
training group, 2 main disadvantages are underlined here:

• Additional administration time to account for potential cancellation/absence

• Risk of having too many participants if no-one cancels and everyone shows up

Of this second solution, the respondent added: “This is a bit an unusual way of dealing with the
problem, and of course it doesn’t work for all courses nor with all trainers.”

Strict vs. flexible policy

A strict cancellation policy is one that does not waiver in its adherence to the rules. Many of the
Learning Managers answering the question admit to being flexible on certain occasions. It does
however seem that those being strict have the least trouble justifying their actions as they “paint
everyone with the same brush”.

Flexible cancellation policies are able to deal with ad-hoc exceptions that make sense to accept. It is
considered good practice to formalise as many of the “exceptions” as possible into the policy itself.
The positive impact of doing this is that all rulings are justifiable. The negative impact is that policy
becomes quite complicated, “heavy” and potentially difficult for employees to understand. This can
further decrease the perception of learning departments already fighting to “prove their worth” or
“connect with the people” from within HR.

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Reasons to be “flexible” with policy:

• “Good clients should not be “punished” like others.” One Belgian training organisation that
itself sells training onto the market noted that as they depend on their clients for income,
they do not want to be seen as unnecessarily strict towards their good clients in the case of
unjustified absence.
• Turning a blind-eye to friends of the learning department: Not a good strategy for creating
fairness and perception!

One learning professional contributing to this report clearly noted that “business reasons do not
count” as exceptions to the policy. As already noted, the most common reason given for absence is
“other business priorities” and according to that particular Learning Manager, that just isn’t
“correct”.

Communicating policy

It is normal practice for training vendors to communicate their cancellation and absence policy prior
to and at the moment of subscription. This practice is also found back in some organisations with a
clear communication to the trainee, manager and overall organisation.

Although the communication must clearly outline the process and consequences of cancellation and
no-show, the “soft-focus” of communication should be on helping people understand the impact of
cancellation and absence, both in financial and performance terms. “We keep on explaining what the
impact is of annulations for us, the company, the trainer, the colleagues...”

Best practices include:

• Statement of policy published on company intranet pages

• Small print included in email communication at the time of confirmed subscription
• Reminder communication a short time prior to the training itself – considered especially
important when commitment has been made to an external training vendor who will himself
charge cancellation fees at a late stage
• Inclusion in company working regulations

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The importance of reporting

“We keep statistics on cancellations by department and send it to the direction.”

It is important to have a clear reporting toward the organisation on cancellation and absence, just as
it is important to report on successfully run learning initiatives. This report can be sent to
management, published on the intranet or in a training newsletter and communicated to different
departments.

The content of reporting on cancellations and absences varies. The following list of best practices can
be considered:

• Blacklist of repeat offenders (individuals, departments or business units) to whom training

will no longer be offered
• Number of cancellations vs. subscriptions
• Number of no-shows vs. subscriptions
• Actual cost of cancellation or no-show to the organisation (real euros)
• Relative cost of cancellation or no-show to the organisation (relative increase in euros cost
per trainee present, where cost of training purchase is divided by number of people finally
present)

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Focusing on presence by creating support for value-added

learning

If controlling cancellation and absence via policy is the “stick” that discourages cancellation and
absence, this section is all about the “carrot” that encourages presence.

Contents this section:

Make learning a priority .................................................................................................................... 12

Reward people for training rather than absence .............................................................................. 13
Seek agreement and buy-in from the trainees’ manager ................................................................. 14
Show the ROI of training activities .................................................................................................... 15
Build the reputation of the learning people ...................................................................................... 15
Create real motivation by letting people choose for themselves ...................................................... 16
Alternatives to the classroom: Blended learning solutions ............................................................... 17
The importance of timing and time-spending ................................................................................... 17

Make learning a priority

“It depends on the company culture.”

The culture of the organisation itself has an impact on its perception of learning as a priority.
American president Dwight D Eisenhower is said to have applied a priority setting method which
assessed all actions in terms of importance and urgency. The importance the organisation gives to
learning as well as the way it deals with urgencies will impact on perceived priority and adherence to
learning plans.

2 cases where learning is not priority and can be easily pushed aside for something else:

• Organisations that live in “fire-fighting” mode find it difficult to stick to long-term plans. As
such, training is either hurried at the last minute or regularly cancelled due to other
priorities.
• Organisations do not hold in high esteem the importance of developing people via training.

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In both cases, it is important to work on “upping the priority” of training. How can you show urgency
or importance to justify the immediate need for training over other activities?

In one IT consultancy firm, training is sometimes needed to help win contracts. A consultant is
“bought” by the client on the understanding that training will be followed prior to start-up. In this
situation, there is rarely a problem with cancellation or absence. Presence in training has an
immediate bottom-line impact on revenue for the company.

Reward people for training rather than absence

One respondent kindly supplied the following link to an online article by Michael Crawford of Corex
Consulting: http://www.strategicdevelopment.com/articles_details.php?articles_id=8

In this article, Crawford underlines the importance of sending out the right signals to people to
encourage the results you want to see. He notes that paradoxically, this is often not the case in
business organisations. Examples:

• Hoping for teamwork, yet rewarding the best team members

• Hoping for development of people skills, yet rewarding technical achievements and
accomplishments

The key to encouraging training presence as opposed to operational working time must lie therefore
in showing the real value and reward of that training time to the participant … and his entourage.

In the following sub-sections, we will see different ways to encourage people to take part in training.
Other items not discussed here include:

• Give points to employees that follow training and consider a prize for the person with the
most points at the end of a period. This method can also be effective to encourage presence
in online learning.
• Set up a “learning passport” where participants get a stamp or “visa” on the basis of training
followed. This would allow them access to another training program, certain projects or
workgroups etc...
• Publically praise the “best presence performance” for a business unit or department

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Seek agreement and buy-in from the trainees’ manager

“I will not launch any more training without the full support of their manager/leadership.”

One respondent noted that the most important factor in transfer of learning to the workplace is the
role of the manager. With the same philosophy in mind, managers must be committed to getting
their people into training.

Most organisations have a process for subscription that requires a manager to sign-off or agree that
his employee can attend training. Learning people should work with those same managers to help
create understanding of the importance of the specific learning solution and expected outcomes.

“We are going to work with the n+1s of the trainees to make sure that they understand the
importance of the training. That way they will sign a contract to let the trainees follow the training.”

This may help to “up the priority” accorded to training at the moment when the manager and
employee start to consider cancellation or absence.

Best practices for seeking agreement and buy-in include:

• Creating a “golden-triangle contract” between learning department/HR and manager and

employee
• Intake meetings between all parties at the moment of subscription to discuss training
content, deliverables and get support for follow-up from the manager
• Inviting managers to attend the training itself and/or info-sessions concerning upcoming
learning initiatives

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Show the ROI of training activities

“People need to experience the added value of training”

To show ROI for training, you need first to create it …and if you can’t show it, it doesn’t exist!
Learning professionals must create a maximum return for the organisation and minimise the
investment required by the learner and his environment.

The principle of creating ROI in learning activities will be discussed in a future Infinite Learning ©
initiative. The following are initial ideas for increasing return:

• Learning must show “a close link to people’s everyday reality and problems” - expected
outcomes must be practical and relevant, and a pragmatic training method must be used
• “Involve colleagues of all levels in developing the training content”
• Use pre and post-learning evaluations to show impact of learning (post-result minus pre-
result = improvement)
• Involve (internal) experts in the delivery of training

Build the reputation of the learning people

The reputation of those organising and delivering learning solutions plays a large part in success of
training. If needs assessments are carried out by competent learning consultants who are able to
understand the reality of the organisation and translate that into learning solutions, it is far more
likely that people will attend.

The following complaints are sometimes heard about learning staff:

• “They don’t know what we really need”

• “They have no experience in our job”
• “Trainers can read the script, but additional questions cannot be answered”

Another “reputation solution” to cancellation and absence concerns the choice of training provider
and the way it is communicated. People are easily seduced by brand names and proud to be trained
by the best (no names mentioned here ☺).

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In his book “How to Influence”, Jo Owen suggests that to create a good reputation and ultimately
exert influence, you either need a good place to stand, a quality product or claim to fame or a good
sponsor.

Food for thought:

• Who is talking to your internal customers and what impression do they give?
• What is your position in relationship to your internal customers?
• Who do you know who can spread the good word on your behalf? “Work on the buzz of
training so people internally promote the sessions.”
• What is the perceived value of your learning product?

Create real motivation by letting people choose for themselves

There is a tendency in large organisations to create tightly controlled competence development

frameworks. In this way, the company is seen to proactively develop to promote talent and sustain
growth, recruit people with a clear training path… On the other hand, what starts out as a helping
hand can lead to people feeling pushed into training.

One learning manager suggested making all training mandatory, in conjunction with strict rules for
cancellation and absence. What do adult learners think of this directive approach?

In an interesting study by Chicago pediatrician Clara M Davis in the late 1930s, it was shown that
infants given an entirely free choice of food for the first 4½ years of their life would instinctively
choose a healthy diet, provided that the food supplied was “more-or-less OK”. Those same children
remained constantly motivated to eat, no-one spitting out their food or refusing a spoon. Could adult
learners choose from a free learning menu in the same way?

One respondent suggested giving people an open learning calendar and letting them choose what
they want. With a set budget per person (time or money) for training activities in a given period,
learners choose what is best for them ...and this self-choice may help to motivate them enough to
even turn up for their training.

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Alternatives to the classroom: Blended learning solutions

Blended learning solutions help participants to learn without the “trouble” of attendance in a
training room. Maybe training classes are simply not the preferred method for learning of your
people.

If you are having trouble getting people in training rooms, consider other possibilities:

• Create opportunities for employees to share their learning with other employees, even
“teaching-up” to management
• Create free-to-attend function-based sharing moments where professional people can
discuss real cases with other people within the organisation who have the same issues
• Set up buddying, coaching and mentoring systems
• Invite people from other companies into your organisation to meet and discuss new ideas
with your people
• Set up a learning library
• Set up an organisational body of knowledge
• Use Web-ex training
• Share PPTs and other written communications on a given topic
• Run testing, surveys and questionnaires
• Ask experts on a topic to share their ideas with a central point of contact who will then invest
time in assimilating all information and sending it back to the participants, as done with this
report

The importance of timing and time-spending

It might be important to pay attention to timing and time-spending when offering learning initiatives
to the organisation. For example:

1. Some organisations offer training during non-paid time – no data is available to understand
the impact of this choice on cancellations or absence
a. Do trainees not turn up when they think there is something better to do?
b. Is it the case that only really motivated staff will sign-up for training in their own
time, hence minimising the likelihood and impact of cancellations and absence?
2. It is important to offer training when it is really needed, not years before or after. To achieve
this, stay on top of the organisational needs by conducting regular needs analyses or running
regularly meetings with your internal customers. Don’t wait for yearly evaluations moments.

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3. “If possible, offer multiple dates so that the participant can chose the most convenient”
4. Make training “productive time”. In a call-centre training that is considered as “non-
productive” (not directly linked to customer activities and therefore not chargeable to the
client) may be more difficult to organise. When the training can be brought in to the scope of
chargeable productive time, the cost is immediately reduced or removed and people are
more likely to attend.

Please let me know what you think of this report.

If you have any questions you would like to throw out to your colleagues for similar feedback,
tell me what is the topic and we’ll take it from there.

For more information on my training and consultancy activities or Infinite Learning © vision
and initiatives, see www.dansteer.com.

Otherwise, feel free to contact me via one of the following means:

• Email : mail@dansteer.com
• Telephone: 0032 (0)472-346.226
• Stalk me : Rue de Sart 30, 1490 Court Saint Etienne
• Linked-In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/dansteer
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/dan_steer

Thanks for reading and good luck!

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