Developing And Training Program

Development Training Paper

Measuring the effectiveness of training programs consumes valuable time and resources. As we know all too well, these things are in short supply in organizations today. Why should we bother?

Many training programs fail to deliver the expected organizational benefits. Having a well-structured measuring system in place can help you determine where the problem lies. On a positive note, being able to demonstrate a real and significant benefit to your organization from the training you provide can help you gain more resources from important decision-makers.

Consider also that the business environment is not standing still. Your competitors, technology, legislation and regulations are constantly changing. What was a successful program yesterday may not be a cost-effective program tomorrow. Being able to measure results will help you adapt to such changing circumstances.

Evaluating training is not just about whether new skills have learnt or performance has improved. To get meaningful information, we need to measure what has improved and in what ways. Set specific objectives for the training. For example, we may want to increase: The efficiency of a particular process, the number of returning customers and staff motivation.

Decide how to measure the objective. Proven objectives are easy to measure such as the number of goods produced or the number of repeat orders.

In this case to evaluate and measure skills, we might try to discuss case scenarios, asking targeted questions and off course observing work in context. Use feedback from trainees, colleagues and managers to get data, we could devise a questionnaire to gather specific information.

We must ensure objectives are achievable. Don’t have unrealistic expectations.

To maintain the evaluation we must re-evaluate at regular intervals.