Happy New Year to all!
It's my first day back in the office, and I've been reviewing the training budget. One thing that has stood out, is how do we test that training has been useful, has achieved the aim and importantly, hasn't been a waste of money?
I have already put in place a process whereby any staff going away on certain training courses, are then expected to deliver a short session on the subject for our young trainees. Nothing too in-depth, but enough for the trainees to gain an insight into the subject, and for the staff memebr to gain some confidence their newly developed knowledge.
I don't however, capture much in the way of feedback for the more generic type of course, leadership for example. It's probably a simple matter of putting together a short form to be completed when the staff return to work after the course, with a section for how their training can be utilised in the work place - but it may be more than that.
Rather than re-inventing the wheel, I thought it would be useful to throw it out to the forum for some comment/tips. What has worked for you in terms of ensuring you get optimum return for the cost of sending staff on training courses?
Tks
Steve
Replies
Hi Steve
Great post and certainly something to focus on and ensure your organisation is making the most of it's resources, that people are making the most of learning opportunities AND as Joanna says this joins together and translates in to improved performance and/or business benefit.
As you know we're the only approved UK and European provider of Kirkpatrick 4 Levels Evaluation programmes and the model has been updated to reflect the needs of the 21st century workplace and starts again as Joanne puts it with 'Why' (impact & result) instead of Feedback (Reaction).
The focus of any training initiative should be on outcome and tangible behaviour change however it may not be training that is the answer in a lot of cases. Think ineffective processes or not having the right tools for the job etc.
There was a great link posted in this discussion and some good comments that link to this well
Evaluation - Going beyond the Happy Sheet
Take a look see what you think
Mike
Hi Steve,
here are some thoughts:
when booking an external course what process do staff go through?- do they have to identify/justify a business benefit they feel this training will cover- e.g leadership programme to reduce labour turnover or absence (as an example)
its hard to demonstrate the ROI/ROE if the "why" question isnt identified as par tof the process to scope what courses are viable. Once you implement this- then it become easier to articulate the benefits and outcomes of the programme to the business.
in termsof post course a free resource you could use to get some post training MI is: Survey monkey- any delegate could answer some qualitative and quantitative questions using this- it automates the MI (or you can export to excel) giving you some MI on the outcomes...
hope this helps!