Companies today, spend a lot for employee training programs. They need to rent training rooms, invite professional trainers, set up the required infrastructure and so on. Besides, they also need to adjust the loss of man-hours towards training attendance! Naturally, there would be a keen interest towards measuring the effect of these training programs on employees just to show how successful the program was.

Measuring the Effectiveness of Training Programs

The most common means of evaluating the impact of training programs is through the Kirkpatrick Evaluation Model, which adopts a 4 step approach.

• Step 1: Checking on reactions – This is done by enquiring about the relevance and level of difficulty of the course content, asking questions about takeaways and learning. You can discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the program and try to understand if the training accommodated the learners pace and style.

• Step 2: Measure learning – Learning can be measured with the help of test scores, evaluating the projects for applied learning, influencing formal KPIs, certifications post course completion and through the supervisor feedback and report.

• Step 3: Assess the impact on work – Assessors need to ask questions like how the learning has been implemented at work and understand how confident the learners are in sharing new knowledge and skills. Common tools include self-assessment questionnaires, informal feedback from seniors and peer groups, focus groups, checking KPIs, comments, complaints, customer surveys and so on.

• Step 4: Measure the outcomes – Tangible results of the training program should be measured by reduced costs, prompter project completion, enhanced quality, enhanced productivity, improved employee retention rates, more marketing leads, elevated morale and so on.

An assessment of the entire training program can be made with the help of these steps and required changes can be brought it when planning the next program. So, right from the time you are planning to rent classroom or a space for conducting a training program, make sure you also chalk out a complete evaluation program.