Friday, February 10, 2017

The Value Add of Training Evaluations


Whether it is formal or informal, all organizations have some form of training.  How does an organization figure out if its training is impactful or even effective?  How does an organization understand if one training method is better than another?  Or measure training transference to on the job performance?  Training evaluations can help an organization examine these factors and allow it to better utilize its training budget.

Training evaluations provide the information needed to understand whether people enjoyed the training, gained knowledge or skills from the training, apply the knowledge from the training to their jobs, etc.  For example, a large retail company may want to roll out a new training program.  If they do not obtain a base line for how employees are performing under the current training program, they will not be able to see whether the new training is effective or even making an impact.

A good training evaluation should look at these things: baseline knowledge/performance before the training, knowledge/behavioral transference after the training, and, occasionally, how entertaining/enjoyable the training is.  Establishing a baseline of knowledge/performance before the training and testing knowledge/behavioral transference after the training allows an organization to make pre-/post-training comparisons.  These comparisons will allow the organization to understand whether the key objectives in the training have been learned and put into practice.

Training can often be a tedious obligation.  Employees tend to just speed through online or computer based trainings without actually reading much of the material.  However, if you make the training more enjoyable or engaging, employees tend to remember more from the training.  Measuring the entertainment/enjoyment value of a training program is not always necessary; however, it allows an organization to understand what adjustments can create a more memorable and effective training program.

For more information about training evaluations and how Sentenium can help you measure your training, visit www.sentenium.com.