Training Effectiveness Monitoring

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

Introduction

How do we measure the effectiveness of the studies done by children? The answer is the results of the examination. How do we measure the effectiveness of our studies in our practical life? When we see the growth in the career. How do we measure the true success of our life? When we see the calmness in our behaviour, healthy mind & body and how do we deal with different situations in life.

Objective

Every year, organizations spend billions of dollars on training their employees. As per the study, the global spending on training and development has increased by 400% in the last 11 years. But it’s not about how much money you spend; what matters is how effective your training is and how well your employees receive it. Therefore, measuring training effectiveness is vital for all companies and organizations of all sizes.

Evaluating training effectiveness shows you how useful your current training is and how you can improve them in the future. Moreover, effective training leads to higher employee performance and satisfaction, boosts team morale, and increases your return on investment (ROI).

Definition:

Competence (ISO 9000: 2015, Cl 3.10.4): Ability to apply knowledge and skills to achieve intended results

Skill (ISO 30401: 2018, Cl 3.30): Learned capacity to perform a task to a specified expectation

Knowledge (ISO 30401: 2018, Cl 3.25): Human or organizational asset enabling effective decisions and actions in the context

Detailed Information

What is Training Effectiveness?

Training effectiveness measures the impact of training on the participant’s knowledge, skills, performance, and the company’s ROI (Return on Investment). The training’s goals and objectives should be determined before training occurs, allowing these to be clearly and accurately measured.

Example:

While identifying the training, the key question that an organization should ask is “In what sense will the training program be considered successful?”
Based on the above question, the requirements can be identified as improvement in productivity, reduction in rejection, enhancement in customer satisfaction etc.
Once identified, it should be communicated to the concerned participants
After completion of the training, the effectiveness can be measured against the defined parameters like productivity, rejection, satisfaction level etc.
Based on the results, the organization can either continue with the similar approach or can look for alternate options

Why Training Effectiveness Monitoring is Important?

There are numerous reasons to monitor the training effectiveness. The 3 key reasons for monitoring the effectiveness include

Impact of training on the participants
- Whether the participants have been able to implement the new learnings or not?
- Whether the knowledge and performance of the participant have improved?
- Whether the participant has been able to demonstrate the new learnings, where needed (knowledge transfer)?
Improvement in business performance
- The key purpose for any training in an organization is/should be an improvement in their business performance (Profitability, COPQ-Cost of Poor Quality)
- The training program (6 Sigma) should lead to tangible and sustainable improvement
- The training (behavioural, communication etc.) should result in enhancement of the customer experience and their satisfaction
Gaps in the training process and improvement
- Providing training is an expensive process and it needs monitoring whether it is meeting the short- and long-term goals of the organization or not
- The monitoring should help the organization to understand the correctness of the participant selection process
- The monitoring should help to understand the competency of the faculty too
- The monitoring should help the organization to improve the training process like mode of training (online/offline), location, seating arrangement, faculty selection, language etc. where needed

How to Measure Training Effectiveness?

Measuring the training effectiveness is a routine event. There are different methodologies followed by organizations. It could be filling out a questionnaire (before and after the training), one-to-one interaction, survey, feedback from relevant stakeholders etc. The important thing is whether the organization has decided what needs to be achieved before planning the training.

There are different techniques to measure the training effectiveness. The five most popular techniques are

Kirkpatrick’s Four-level Training Evaluation Model
The Phillips ROI Model
Kaufman’s Five Levels of Evaluation
Anderson’s Model of Learning Evaluation
Summative vs. Formative Evaluation

The most important thing during the training effectiveness for the organization is to identify the model which is most appropriate for them and can deliver the desired results

Kirkpatrick’s Four-level Training Evaluation Model: Developed and designed by Don Kirkpatrick, as per the Kirkpatrick model, the 4 levels for the training evaluation include

Level 1: Reaction
Level 2: Learning
Level 3: Behaviour
Level 4: Impact

The Philips ROI Model: Very similar to the Kirkpatrick model in approach, the Phillips ROI model has an extra step, which is to evaluate the program’s return on investment (ROI) by measuring the difference between training cost and training results. The step-by-step procedure to calculate ROI as per this method includes

Collect the pre-training data
Collect the post-training data
Isolate the effects of a training program
Convert the data to monetary gains
Calculate the return

Kaufman’s Five Levels of Evaluation: It is one of the popular types of training evaluation method that build on or reacts to Kirkpatrick’s model. The levels and considerations of this method are as below
- Level 1: Satisfaction
- Level 2: Changes in knowledge
- Level 3: Transfer/changes in practice
- Level 4: Results/changes in the organization
- Level 5: Return on investment
- Level 6: Impact on society
Anderson’s Model of Learning Evaluation: This model helps businesses to keep their business strategy a priority. There are three stages to the Anderson Model

Stage 1: Evaluate your current training programs against the business’s strategic priorities.
Stage 2: The stage of measuring the contribution of training to strategic business results.
Stage 3: At this stage, you find the most relevant approaches for your company and decide whether the ROI is worthwhile.

If you’re not satisfied with the results of ROI measurement in stage 3, it’s time to make improvements to your training programs.

Summative vs. Formative Evaluation: A thorough evaluation can give you the best insight into the drawbacks of your training. So, it is also important to know how to assess a training program both while it’s being developed (Formative evaluation), and after it has been delivered. (Summative evaluation)

Benefits of Evaluating Training Effectiveness

Accountability
Transparency in feedback
Cost efficiency

Summary:

Training evaluation helps organizations with the identification of training gaps and opportunities in training their employees. The systematic process of training evaluation boosts employee morale, helps improve overall work quality, and is essential to overall training effectiveness.

Industry Challenges:

How often training is identified as per the competency mapping?
How often the selection of participants is done as per their competency gap?
How often the organization is interested to know, whether the training has improved the competence of the participant
How often the training effectiveness records are genuine and are prepared by a competent person!

Read More: https://bit.ly/SWOTAnalysisEV

References:

ISO 9001: 2015

IATF 16949: 2016

IATF 16949: 2016, Sanctioned Interpretation & FAQ

ISO 10015: 2019, Quality Management-Guidelines for competence management and people development

Industry Experts

This is the 162^nd article of this Quality Management series. Every weekend, you will find useful information that will make your Management System journey Productive. Please share it with your colleagues too.

In the words of Albert Einstein, “The important thing is never to stop questioning.” I invite you to ask anything about the above subject. Questions and answers are the lifeblood of learning, and we are all learning. I will answer all questions to the best of my ability and promise to keep personal information confidential.

Your genuine feedback and response are extremely valuable. Please suggest topics for the coming weeks.

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