Evaluating Training to Achieve Strategic Goals (page 2)
Measuring
Outcomes. You should also measure the outcomes of the training
process. Any training process has both short-term outcomes that show progress
towards strategic goals and long term outcomes that show the impact of
the training on the organization. These outcomes include:
• New employee skills, knowledge, and attitudes.
• Achieving job behavior objectives.
• Achieving job output objectives.
• Achieving business process objectives.
• Accomplishing department/unit goals.
• Accomplishing business strategic goals.
Evaluation
Guidelines
The following suggestions will make the evaluation of training process
and outcomes useful to you and to your organization:
Involve internal customers in deciding what to measure and how to measure it. Ask them what they want to know and why, and what their thoughts are about the data collection methods you are recommending. Solicit the help of internal customers in piloting these methods to see if the methods will produce the necessary information. Often a workshop format that allows these stakeholders to work together as a group is useful. This process of involving key stakeholders in evaluation issues may be more valuable to developing a high performance organization than the actual data that is collected.
Choose the method of measurement only after deciding what to measure. The tendency is to use a survey to measure just about everything that has to do with training. But we have many different methods available to us. The appropriateness of each of these methods depends on what kind of data is needed, the sources of that data, the circumstances for collecting the data, and how the data will be used.
Report data that are credible to the customer. Line managers may accept the accuracy of employee interviews and focus groups, whereas senior executives may only listen to production and financial data. Know your audience so that you can collect measurement data and report findings that the key stakeholders will find convincing.
Report findings so that the customer can hear them. This has to do with how the information is reported. You want all of the various customers to understand your findings and be able to act on the implications. Keep it simple, relate it to the goals that are important to the particular audience, and recommend what should be done about the results.
Measure the process as well as the outcome. Continuous improvement is achieved by regular assessment of where people are in the process of learning the skills, knowledge, and attitudes they need to achieve high performance. Adjustments to the process can be made, especially as you find out more about employee needs and the organization becomes clearer about its goals.
Provide just-in-time and just-enough information. Only give employees what they need, when and where they need it. Performance is maximized when people are not overwhelmed with new information, when they can relate new skills and knowledge to their work, and when they can apply the learning to a problem on the job immediately. Mentoring programs, on-the-job coaching, and job aids are a few of the methods that can be more “just-in-time” than classroom training.
Measure to improve the process, not to blame or punish. Our tendency is to feel threatened by anything that might reveal our personal competency. When we feel threatened we become less cooperative and less willing to improve performance. Do everything that you can to assure participants that the measures are not being used to make judgments about individuals. Follow through on this promise. Use the data only to make changes in the training process and to plan for additional activities that will make a difference in performance.
Training evaluation is a tool for organizational learning. Used to evaluate the link between training and strategic goals, it can help you make your business successful. This requires moving beyond assessing learners’ immediate reactions to a training program to examining the entire process that facilitates individual and group learning, before, during, and after the training event. The payoff comes from using this information to improve the learning process and ensuring that the process has high impact on achieving the strategic goals of the organization.