It costs money for businesses to run training sessions for their employees.
As well as the cost of hiring facilities, paying for specialist instructors and provisioning the required training materials, there are also the lost man-hours to contend with. If employees are in training rather than getting on with their jobs, this can have an impact on productivity in the short term.
So all the more reason to measure the effectiveness of training, to ensure it delivers the desired return on investment.
If businesses are to use valuable financial resources on learning and development sessions, they need to know there is a long-term benefit to their people and the organisation as a whole.
Unless organisations can call on measurable results to gauge the effectiveness of training, it is difficult to view these sessions as being anything other than a business expense.
So first and foremost, employers should seek feedback from their employees, to see whether they found particular training sessions to be useful. Did they understand the content as it was presented? Was there anything they were unclear about? And did they leave the training feeling better-able to do their jobs?
Employers should also consider quantitative testing to measure the impact of training, by monitoring employee performance in related areas and even quizzing participants on their knowledge further along the line.
If, three weeks after a training session, employees cannot remember any of the detail and have failed to change the way they work, the session has not been a success.
But if workers have adapted processes and techniques to take their recently-acquired information and knowledge onboard, than the training was worthwhile.
When organising a training session, you should have a clear idea of the desired outcomes, and what level of return you can expect. Providing you come close to achieving the intended returns, the session can be considered a success.
