Organizations devote considerable attention to the learner experience.
They define objectives, develop content, select facilitators, build materials, and plan the launch. Yet one of the most consequential influences on whether learning is ultimately applied is often addressed late in the process—or not at all:
The learner’s manager.
Managers shape what employees prioritize, what they practice, what receives feedback, and what is allowed to fade. They help employees interpret organizational expectations and determine whether a new behavior becomes part of the work or remains something discussed during a training session.
Research supports the importance of this role. A systematic review by Natalie Govaerts and Filip Dochy examined 99 articles addressing supervisor support and training transfer. The researchers identified 24 distinct supervisor behaviors and attitudes associated with supporting the application of learning in the workplace.[1] Their findings reinforce an important principle: manager support is not a single action. It is a collection of behaviors that occur throughout the learning process.
Despite this influence, managers are frequently treated as a communication audience rather than as active partners in a training initiative.
They may be informed shortly before launch. They may receive a summary of the program or be asked to encourage attendance. In some cases, they are given reinforcement materials after the training has already occurred.
By then, the most important opportunity may have been missed.
The strongest manager engagement begins before the learning solution is finalized. It begins when the business need, desired behaviors, design choices, and conditions for application are still being shaped.
The central question is not:
How do we gain manager support for the training?
It is:
How do we involve managers in creating the conditions that allow the training to succeed?
That distinction matters.
Support requested at the end often produces compliance. Involvement from the beginning is more likely to create ownership.
1. Engage Managers While the Initiative Is Still Being Shaped
The earlier managers are involved, the more valuable their contribution can be.
Managers have direct visibility into how work is actually performed. They understand where performance breaks down, which expectations are unclear, what competing priorities exist, and what barriers employees are likely to encounter when they attempt to apply a new skill.
Their perspective can help the design team test several assumptions:
- Is the identified performance gap accurate?
- Is training the right response?
- Which behaviors matter most?
- What does effective performance look like in practice?
- What environmental barriers may prevent application?
- What support will managers realistically be able to provide?
This input can improve both the relevance and practicality of the learning solution.
Early involvement also changes the manager’s relationship to the initiative. A manager who is consulted during design is less likely to view the program as something created and imposed by Learning and Development. The initiative becomes connected to operating realities and shared business priorities.
This does not mean every manager should participate in every design decision. It means representative managers should have a meaningful voice before the solution is complete. They might participate in interviews, focus groups, advisory sessions, pilot reviews, or structured discussions about the performance need and desired behaviors.
There is a significant difference between asking managers to react to a finished product and inviting them to help define the problem the initiative is intended to solve.
The first asks for endorsement.
The second creates partnership.
2. Position the Initiative as a Business Intervention
Managers do not support training merely because the content is well designed.
They support initiatives they believe will help improve performance.
For that reason, the case for manager involvement should begin with the business problem, not the course description.
A learning agenda may explain what participants will cover. Learning objectives may explain what participants should know or be able to do. Neither automatically answers the manager’s most important question:
Why does this matter to the business and to my team?
The initiative should be framed in terms of the outcome it is intended to influence. That might include stronger customer interactions, better decision-making, improved coaching, more consistent execution, faster adoption of change, reduced errors, or greater leadership effectiveness.
Managers should understand:
- The business need driving the initiative
- The performance gap the organization is trying to close
- The behaviors that need to change
- The consequences of maintaining the status quo
- The role training will play
- The role managerial reinforcement will play
This framing also prevents training from being positioned as the entire solution.
Training can introduce concepts, provide practice, and build confidence. It cannot, by itself, control priorities, remove operational barriers, provide ongoing feedback, or reinforce expectations over time.
Those conditions are shaped largely in the work environment—and managers have substantial influence over that environment.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s Learning at Work 2023 report illustrates the continuing challenge. Only 36% of respondents reported that line managers support employees in transferring what they have learned back into the workplace. Just 29% reported that line managers are involved in assessing the impact of learning and development.[2]
These figures do not prove that managers are unwilling to support development. They suggest that many organizations have not fully integrated managers into the learning strategy or made their role sufficiently clear.
3. Replace General Requests With Explicit Expectations
Organizations often ask managers to “support the training.”
That language is positive but operationally weak.
It does not tell managers what they are expected to do, when they should do it, or what effective support looks like. As a result, each manager interprets the request differently.
One manager may send a reminder. Another may ask whether the session was useful. A third may assume that attendance is the full extent of the expectation.
Meaningful engagement requires a clearly defined managerial role across the learning journey.
Before training, managers may be expected to:
- Explain why the initiative matters
- Connect the learning to current team priorities
- Help the learner identify a specific development goal
- Set expectations for participation and application
- Surface relevant challenges the learner should bring into the session
During the learning period, managers may need to:
- Protect time for participation
- Minimize competing demands
- Reinforce the importance of the initiative
- Ask about emerging insights or challenges
After training, managers may be expected to:
- Conduct a structured debrief
- Discuss where and how the learner will apply the skill
- Observe performance
- Provide feedback and coaching
- Recognize progress
- Revisit commitments over time
The objective is not to create additional administrative work. It is to make the manager’s role visible and actionable.
Recent work by Brian Blume, J. Kevin Ford, and Jason Huang organizes manager support around three broad dimensions: direct assistance, guidance, and emotional support.[3] This framework is helpful because it shows that effective manager involvement extends beyond providing resources or approving attendance.
Managers may offer direct assistance by removing barriers and creating opportunities to practice. They provide guidance through feedback, coaching, and clarification. They offer emotional support by communicating confidence, encouraging persistence, and treating development as worthwhile.
The specific actions will vary by initiative, but the underlying principle remains consistent: managers are more likely to contribute when expectations are practical, reasonable, and connected to recognizable management behaviors.
4. Design the Manager Experience With the Same Discipline as the Learner Experience
Many learning initiatives are designed almost entirely from the participant’s perspective.
What should the learner know? What should the learner practice? What materials should the learner receive?
Those are necessary questions. They are not sufficient.
A complete learning strategy should also consider the manager experience:
- What does the manager need to understand?
- When should the manager become involved?
- What conversations should the manager have?
- What behaviors should the manager observe?
- What tools will help the manager coach effectively?
- What barriers might prevent the manager from following through?
- How can reinforcement fit into existing routines?
Managers should not be expected to translate a complex training program into a reinforcement strategy on their own.
They need focused tools that help them act.
Useful resources may include:
- A concise manager briefing
- A pre-training conversation guide
- Post-training debrief questions
- Behavior observation criteria
- Coaching prompts
- Team-meeting reinforcement activities
- A short follow-up checklist
- Examples of effective application
These tools should be brief, practical, and closely aligned with real management conversations.
A lengthy manager guide may demonstrate thoroughness, but it does not guarantee use. The better test is whether a manager can quickly understand what is expected and apply the resource within the flow of work.
Timing also matters. A manager toolkit introduced after the training has been delivered is unlikely to produce the same level of engagement as a manager strategy built into the initiative from its beginning.
The manager experience should not be an appendix to the learning strategy. It should be one of its core design components.
5. Measure Application, Not Just Participation
What an organization measures signals what it values.
When the primary measures are attendance, completion, and satisfaction, the implied message is that the learning event is the outcome.
It is not.
The outcome is improved performance.
Manager engagement becomes more credible when the organization creates visibility around application. This might include learner commitments, follow-up discussions, observed behavior, coaching activity, progress reviews, or examples of business impact.
The goal is not to create an elaborate measurement system for every initiative. It is to ensure that the organization looks beyond whether the training occurred.
Relevant questions may include:
- Are learners using the new behavior?
- Are managers discussing application?
- Are employees receiving feedback?
- Are opportunities to practice available?
- Are barriers being identified and addressed?
- Is performance becoming more consistent?
- Are relevant business outcomes beginning to move?
Managers can also contribute valuable evidence that traditional training measures cannot provide. They can observe whether employees are using a skill appropriately, adapting it to different situations, and sustaining it once the initial attention surrounding the initiative has diminished.
The CIPD findings are especially relevant here. When fewer than one-third of respondents report manager involvement in assessing learning impact, organizations may be overlooking one of their most direct sources of information about whether workplace behavior has actually changed.[2]
Accountability should therefore extend to the environment surrounding the learner, not only to the learner.
An employee cannot be expected to sustain a new behavior when priorities, incentives, management practices, and operating conditions consistently reinforce the old one.
Manager involvement is not merely a reinforcement tactic. It is part of the organization’s responsibility for creating alignment between learning and work.
Manager Engagement Is a Design Decision
The learner’s manager is not a peripheral stakeholder.
The manager is part of the system through which learning either becomes performance or disappears.
Organizations that wait until launch to involve managers are attempting to secure support after many of the most consequential decisions have already been made. At that stage, managers may endorse the initiative, but they have had little opportunity to improve its relevance, anticipate barriers, or shape the conditions for success.
A stronger approach begins earlier.
It invites managers to contribute to the definition of the need, the identification of critical behaviors, the design of practical application, and the creation of reinforcement expectations.
Research offers useful evidence about the importance and complexity of manager support. But the practical implication is straightforward:
Behavior change does not occur simply because a training event was well designed or well received. It occurs when the work environment consistently supports, expects, and reinforces a new way of performing.
Managers have an essential role in creating that environment.
The objective should not be to persuade them to support a completed training program.
It should be to make them partners in building the capability the organization needs.
Lasting performance begins with learning strategies designed for real-world application. Connect with Romar Learning Solutions to learn how intentional manager engagement can help your organization achieve stronger learning outcomes.
References
- Govaerts, N., & Dochy, F. (2014). “Disentangling the role of the supervisor in transfer of training.” Educational Research Review, 12, 77–93. The systematic literature review examined 99 articles and identified 24 specific categories of supervisor behaviors and attitudes related to training transfer.
- Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. (2023). Learning at Work 2023 Survey Report. The report presents survey findings about learning priorities, organizational practices, manager involvement, learning transfer, and impact assessment.
- Blume, B. D., Ford, J. K., & Huang, J. L. (2024). “Transfer of informal learning: The role of manager support in linking learning to performance.” Business Horizons, 67(2), 125–136. The authors describe manager support through direct assistance, guidance, and emotional support and offer a research-informed framework for supporting formal and informal learning transfer.
