Member Article

Evaluate your training

With Business LinkDebbie Robinson from Business Link looks at how evaluating training can benefit your business. When your business has invested in some training, how do you know if it was a success? Skills and practice may have improved but in what ways and by how much have they improved, and did you get value for money?Why evaluate training?Most employers are prepared to incur training costs because they expect their business to benefit from employees’ development and progress. Understanding precisely how a particular piece of training measures up will help you to identify future training needs more effectively, select the best type of training and get the maximum benefit from it.By evaluating your training you can track the development of staff knowledge and skills, find out how learning is applied in the workplace, identify training gaps and future training needs and ensure training continually improves. The problem for many businesses is not so much why training should be evaluated, but how. Evaluation is often overlooked, perhaps because benefits can be hard to describe in concrete terms. It is generally possible to pin down the benefits, by choosing what you wish to measure or compare before and after training, enabling you to make a sound business case for training. You need to form expectations from training, e.g. increase in skills, reduction in errors or accidents, increase in workloads and decide how you will check that they have been met.It may be a good idea to devise a simple training evaluation. Before the training set your objectives, decide how you’ll measure these and identify the improvements you’re aiming for and your reasons for choosing the methods. During the training, ask the trainee to reflect on their training and understanding throughout. Then, after the training measure your objectives at agreed time intervals, get detailed feedback from your staff, review the performance of the training method, observe the trainee’s new knowledge and skills in context and review your return on investment.If you are looking for details on training options, Business Link can provide access to up-to-date information and answers to your questions, as well as working with you to identify the right training specialists who can provide the right training services for your business. For Business Link services in your local area, call 0845 600 9 006 or visit – www.businesslink.gov.uk. Business Link services in the North East are supported by the European Regional Development Fund, through the Government Office for the North East, and One NorthEast.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .