Why Training Gets No Respect
The Rodney Dangerfield of budget cutting time, training can’t get no respect. If you’re a training professional, you know exactly what I’m talking about. When times get tough, you wonder how long it’ll take before your budget hits the chopping block.
But why does that happen? The answer is simple: lack of measurement.
Training professionals find it hard to prove the value of training to an organization. Why? They do not know how to measure success in concrete, monetary terms.
A History Lesson in Training Impact
Training measurement was introduced in 1959 when Donald Kirkpatrick examined levels of training impact. He introduced four levels of measurement.
- Reaction: What a student thinks and feels about training
- Learning: How much the student increased knowledge and skill
- Behavior Change: Did the student’s behavior change due to the training
- Results: Did the organization change due to the training
Jack Phillips tried to expand on Kirkpatrick’s model by adding a 5th level. He suggested that linking business results to training is the ultimate level of evaluation. In other words—return on investment. He said, “The process isn’t complete until the results have been converted to monetary values and compared with the cost of the program.”
Proving Value With Measurement
eParamus has helped multiple clients get over this hurdle. The Select Group is one example. You can read their case study here. They needed an employee onboarding program to quickly ramp up new employees to a performing standard. Paige Goss, Director of Operations for The Select Group, had this to say, “Many trainers say they can measure training impact, but what they are really measuring is how the training program went. Strategic Training goes far beyond that. We can quantify exactly what was learned by the trainees and if knowledge transfer has occurred on the job. I can point to a test score that is directly tied to a question that is directly related to a job standard. I can actually see if the connection was made.”
Can you say the same about your training programs? How would that make a difference in proving the value of training to your organization? Would that knowledge help you at budget time? Tell us in the comments.
eParamus is the only company that can help you measure ROI on training.
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