“If you begin to measure something, people will change the way they behave.”
“If you get what you measure, then measure what you want.”
“You are what you measure.”
“If you can measure it, you can change it.”
“You can’t manage what you don’t measure.”
What Change Do You Need to Measure?
It’s obvious how much measurement matters to business by how many sayings and truisms mention it.
No matter who said these statements first, the point stands: If something needs to change in your organization, you have to measure it to change it. Training is the key to changing behavior, so you must be able to measure training and its impact.
So if we’re talking about training measurement, how do we define training? Simply speaking, training is knowledge + skills acquired to impact a specific job or task. The goal of training is to change a knowledge, skill, or attitude. You must first determine where you—your employees or your organization—currently stand. Next, you have to define, in specific terms, what exact behavior you want to change. Do you need higher sales volumes? Do you need each employee to perform a task a certain way? Do you need everyone to know a new regulation?
Determining the starting point and end point are relatively simple. It’s the middle—the process of change and measurement—that is the tricky part.
If Measurement Matters, Why Aren’t We Doing It?
Part of the problem is that the wrong thing is measured. Most training participants receive an evaluation once a course is over. They are asked if they liked the course, if they liked the course instructor, if they felt like they achieved their training goals. Sometimes the only thing measured is whether or not an employee received training. That information may be helpful up to a certain point, but none of it measures transfer of knowledge or behavior change.
Does your training team have the ability to measure outcomes and ROI? If not, our Business Impact 2.0 is proprietary software that can help. Once training is complete, Business Impact 2.0 measures and analyzes the impact of the training. You receive detailed reports after training is complete that provides specific measurement telling you what was retained, what changes have occurred, and what impact it has on your bottom line.
Do you have changes that need to take place in your company? Do you know how you’re going to measure those changes and show the results to management? How would detailed measurement make change processes easier in your organization? Tell us in the comments.
Contact eParamus if you need to measure the ROI of your training
Call 919.882.2108.
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