Just over half of organisations fail to measure the business impact of their training programmes due to both a lack of resources and personnel qualified to do so.
According to a study among 412 learning and development decision-makers across the world, other key reasons for failing to gauge outcomes included confusion about what actually should be assessed and an insufficient understanding of measurement methodologies.
Of those that did work with metrics, increases in quality, productivity and employee engagement were the top factors to be appraised, although 47.4% failed to use a specific methodology to do so. Nonetheless, a huge 66.3% claimed that they were able to prove the effectiveness of their learning programmes.
Raed Haddad, senior vice president of global delivery services at Informa’s ESI unit, which undertook the survey and provides training in project management and business analysis, said: “What is striking is that, even for those who say that they can prove the effectiveness of their learning engagements, responses reveal that they rely largely on anecdotal ‘evidence’ rather than a specific methodology.”
But without a consistent measurement methodology and dedicated resources, organisations were not in a position to link training programmes with concrete financial and value outcomes, he added.
While 62.7% of respondents indicated that qualitative outcomes such as employee or customer satisfaction were currently the most important evaluations that they undertook, many also understood the value of more quantitative measurement of financial such as return on investment.
5 Responses
Leadership training – results guaranteed
Hi – thanks for the comment.
When we work with individuals in our leadership training sessions, we work out what their vision is for the future, finding out where they want to take their career and their business.
We also work out what needs to be done in order for that to happen, and if the steps that we give them to take within an overall leadership strategy are taken over a 12 month period, that individual will achieve that goal.
So, you can measure the success of the training because the individual will have achieved his or her set objective. Whatever that may be.
Does this help? We have laid it out on our website.
Training
I applaud your willingness to guarantee your leaderhship training. I am curious about how the measure the change in leadership, quantitatively.
Does a money back guarantee work in leadership training?
Hi Alison,
Thanks for the message. First of all, we created the guarantee because we are so confident that the leadership courses that we provide get results – and putting this safety net in place during tough times was one way that we could get the opportunity to prove their value.
Since putting this in place we have won more interest and more business across the board, from development for women to elite coaching, so it has worked for us.
You’re right though, changing behaviour at the start is crucial.
How do we do that?
The same way we win business and get our message across about Muika Leadership, networking and profile building. Email marketing works for us, as does free resources – which we offer via our website.
We have a marketing strategy that offers potential clients real value for free, and then once we have the relationship we build on that.
It would be great to hear from some HR professionals, or business heads, as to whether training is measured effectively though.
I know we are fairly unique in offering a guarantee, but is this something that you would like to see more?
Thanks,
Karen
Great idea but how do we implement it
Karen I think your 12 month guarantee has integrity and is a great demonstration of the value you obviously deliver. I think it will certainly help you win the contracts – I’d be interested if any clients actually see the fact that they could get their money back as an incentive to measure the benefits?
Training must be measured to be understood
This makes no sense to me, why wouldn’t a business want to understand the impact that its investment into training is having?
Our leadership training sessions come with a 12 month guarantee so that companies are forced to test and measure the impact because they have a pretty powerful incentive to do so.
Maybe more training companies should be offering this?
Would be interested to get some more HR professionals’ view on this one.