Evaluating the impact of training

Lee Rossini

Companies spend a lot of money on training and development, often without getting the desired return. For this reason, any training programs employees attend should be evaluated. The purpose of evaluating whether training has had the desired effect is to determine whether the employees attending the training learned new skills and attitudes or a new body of knowledge. Usually for the employee, once they have attended training, in their minds it is over. However, for the training to have run a full cycle there is one more important question to ask: Was the training effective and did it achieve its intended outcomes?

There are many challenges associated with measuring the effectiveness of training. How do you translate the benefits of training into monetary terms? Are the objectives of training of a high-quality and measurable? How do you evaluate the success of a training program on ethics or communication? To overcome some of these challenges, D L Kirkpatrick developed a method of evaluation which considers the effectiveness of a training program on four levels. The levels are:

Level 1
How did the participants react? Before, during and after training, employees develop attitudes and opinions, either favourable or unfavourable, about various aspects of the training. The employee completes a questionnaire about the adequacy of the facilities, the skill of the trainer, the quality and relevance of the material and the ease of transference into the work environment. After the responses have been tabulated, the training quality is evaluated on the overall responses.

Level 2
What did the participants learn? To measure learning, start by identifying what you want to evaluate (for example, changes in knowledge, attitude and skills.) It is useful to measure these before training and then again after training. Before training commences, test your employees to determine their level of knowledge, skills and attitudes as this will provide you with a benchmark. However, the results are dependent on the quality and availability of the tests.

Level 3
How did the behaviour of the participants change? Is the knowledge, skill or new attitude being applied in the workplace? Has the learning been transferred from the training into the job?

Level 4
What business goals have been affected? At this level, the impact of training is measured on productivity, quality, increased job satisfaction as well as a decrease in errors, complaints from clients or grievances from employees. Again, challenges arise in connecting the outcomes of training to business goals and objectives? If a business goal is to ensure high levels of ethical behaviour from employees, it is difficult to assess whether the training has resulted in this outcome? In this case, the behaviour would need to be evaluated at regular intervals to assess whether the learning is being applied in the workplace.

Although not a perfect science, applying the four levels of evaluation together with a cost-benefit analysis, will certainly improve the return on your training investment. These exercises will also assist in determining the relevance, effectiveness, and impact of training in the light of your business vision, mission, goals and objectives. Training should not be seen in isolation; it is an important element of the overall activities and context of a business and it plays a valuable role in contributing to the success of the business. Most importantly, the process of evaluating training enables you to answer this question: Are we getting our money’s worth?