Evaluation of workplace training programmes rarely goes beyond measuring participant satisfaction. According to the CIPD’s 2020 Learning and Skills at Work report, most organisations ask training participants ‘how was it for you?’. However, only 16 per cent go on to measure training impact by assessing the transfer of learning into the workplace itself.
So why would so few organisations seek to discover what difference training actually makes? The CIPD highlights time and other priorities as the key barriers, however in my experience it’s really more to do with perceived difficulty. While it is quite easy to ask people what they thought of their training, uncovering its impact seems way more complicated.
But it isn’t. Take health and safety training, for example. The key here is to align the content of the training to the organisational goals right from the very outset. This makes it far easier to identify one, two or perhaps three simple measures at most to highlight the performance improvement the learning delivers.
So, those measures could be linked to organisational goals around reducing lost time incidents and improving employee engagement with safety. Measure positive change around these organisational goals post training and the impact can be seen and return on investment (ROI) better understood.
This entire approach lies at the heart of our new NEBOSH Endorsed service, where we endorse quality assured in-company learning that contributes to a healthier and safer workplace. Integral to this is the measurement of improvement in learner capability and progress in organisational performance.
Discover how measuring learning impact doesn’t have to be complicated by visiting our website today.