Training Measurement Does Not Equal Smile Sheets

We have all filled them out…the satisfaction surveys that follow a seminar or training program.

Typically, attendees are asked to indicate if the class was fun, instructive and held their attention. Companies even ask about the food and if the materials looked nice – a sure sign for poorly placed priorities.

Typically, participants will indicate satisfaction with the program because it passed the time away from work, the facilitator was pleasant and they learned a few things. But is this the way you want to measure the value of the training you provide your employees? Does any other business process get away with such little scrutiny?

The training metric you should really care about is the impact the training has had on the business. You can do this by:

1. Metric(s) to Move: First identifying the specific business outcome you want to achieve. Do you want to increase revenue, improve productivity, reduce turnover, improve engagement, or boost performance?
   
   
2. Value of Moving it: Once you know the outcome that you want to achieve and the metric that you want to move, the next step is to determine how far you want to move it and the business value for making it happen.
   
   For example, a recent professional services client wanted to improve their new hire on-boarding process. The metric that they wanted to move was speed to productivity. Their current new hires took 6 months to have the skills and confidence to be placed on a client project. They wanted to cut it to 3 months. This 50% reduction equated to a $120,000 gain per employee. With a hiring forecast of 200 new employees in the next quarter, the goal was a $24,000,000 business impact.
   
   
3. Plan to Move it: Once you have an estimated business value, it is time to create a clear business case with your key stakeholders along with a systemic plan (assessment, training, change, culture, performance environment, etc.) to hit your targets. Your plan should be in the same league as the problem you are trying to solve. In the previous example, an executive is going to expect and demand a plan that has the gravitas to fix a $24m problem, not a one-half-day on-boarding program about employee benefits, cultures, and values.

The smile sheets tell you that the training was a success in the short term. We use them to measure our facilitators at every client.

But it is the business impact that matters for training that is effective in the long term.