Sink or Swim? Empowering Trainees for Informal Learning to Improve Transfer and Distal Outcomes

Abstract

When employees begin a new job in a competitive sales environment, they have a lot to learn in a short period of time. Most organizations incorporate an employee orientation and formal training, but newcomers also learn informally while on the job. We examine the impact of informal field-based learning (IFBL) on individual outcomes of 242 newcomer sales employees. We investigate how supervisor empowerment interacts with employees' goal orientation to impact IFBL, which serves as a conduit to further influence training transfer and employee outcomes (i.e., supervisor-rated performance, promotion, and turnover). Results demonstrate that IFBL promotes formal training transfer, which influences newcomers subsequent job performance, promotion, and turnover. We also found that supervisor empowerment has an indirect effect on employee promotion and turnover sequentially through IFBL, training transfer, and performance, and this indirect effect is moderated by employee goal orientation. Practical implications for leveraging supervisor empowerment and tailoring support based on employee goal orientation are discussed.