Measurement

What is the best way to measure improvement? How can we ensure new techniques learned through training programs will enhance employee behavior? In order to evaluate the return on our training investment we must first consider the “great training misconception” - that knowledge learned in one context will be automatically applies, or generalizes, to other situations sharing a similar characteristic. For example, if a salesperson learns to sell one kind of camera in the classroom setting, he should therefore be able to sell that camera in the store. A further form of generalization would predict that from learning to sell one kind of camera, the employee can now sell all kinds of cameras. While classroom training offers the essential ingredients for learning, we cannot assume employees will apply this new knowledge to their regular work settings.

One of the greatest challenges presented to corporate trainers, is to accurately measure the result of their efforts - in and outside of the classroom. Without confirmation of learning in the classroom, it will be unlikely that such learning will generalize to the work setting. When your company provides training, do you require your employees to demonstrate their learning prior to receiving credit for completing that training module? Most often, employees receive credit for the training session simply for sitting attentively through the training session. Rarely is there a valid, individualized demonstration that learning has occurred.

What is the goal of training? For example, in retail sales settings, is normally assumed that sales training will increase sales productivity. If front line managers were asked about the benefits of sales training they might convey that something was accomplished. Rarely, however, is the employee ever challenged to specifically demonstrate their new skills in the classroom and in the actual work environment. Thus, the correspondence between training and increases in employee performance remains at best, weak and tenuous.

It might seem overly harsh to require each employee to demonstrate and validate training. Conventional testing, such as multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank post-tests imply that something was learned, and is a reasonable way to validate training for policy and procedure changes, or federally mandated updates on programs such as “reducing sexual harassment” or “improving worker safety.” While educating employees on what they can and cannot do is an important function of training. However, training programs designed to increase employee performance are not reliably validated by multiple choice tests. Even the most detailed “pencil and paper” assessment of classroom training cannot adequately measure the effect of training on improving employee performance in the normal work setting.

Training effectiveness must be measured by changes in work performance. In the retail setting, sales skill training can only be evaluated by sales increases. In manufacturing settings, quality control training must result in decreased errors. If your company’s Performance Scorecards are not sensitive to the effects of training, it will be difficult to properly justify training program expenditures. Perhaps your company has a good assemblage of performance measures. Can they be focused on a small enough slice of sales or production? Will normal variation in sales or production obscure these improvements, leading to dissatisfaction with the rate of return on training investments?

It is not uncommon for companies that are experiencing financial difficulties to eliminate their training departments as part of general expense reduction. Such decisions are relatively easy to make, given typically poor cost/benefit measures and the difficulty of finding real evidence of employee improvement. Training program directors must be willing to sustain their jobs using real criteria - just like everyone else in the company must do. This way, when the time comes to evaluate and eliminate non-essential departments, the training department can prove their effectiveness and importance to company performance.

Make your training program a significant contributor your company’s success. Validate training by connecting it to real measures of employee improvement. Revise or eliminate ineffective training programs. Most employees do not want to waste their time attending boring, insignificant or otherwise irrelevant training. Invest in training, but demand ROI - as you would for other capital expenditures. This will ensure meaningful, cost-effective training and continued performance improvement.