4 steps to evaluate corporate training

Is training in your company effective? Find out now!

4 steps to evaluate corporate training

Is training in your company effective? Find out now!

You really want to show everyone in your company that training offers value and significantly improves employee performance. But above all, don’t you want to know from the beginning what’s not effective before someone else points you out?

Learning and performance

The purpose of training is not simply to pour knowledge to learners, but always concerns the improvement (meant as behavioural change) of performance. Effective education means achieving this goal and learning is only a first step.

The intermediate step is to ensure that participants effectively apply what they learn to improve their performance. Good training insists on this: change employee’s behaviour to improve his performance. But in order to do this effectively it is necessary to go through evaluation and testing phases.

Tests are an effective way to assess what participants remember (in the short-term), but are less effective when trying to determine if the learner has become able to apply skills consistently.

4 steps for an effective performance evaluation

Evaluating performance should be something planned during the design phase of training and fully integrated throughout all the learning process:

1. Identify what participants need in their profession

Upstream of the training process, a good trainer must have clear understanding about the training needs of the employees, therefore he must concentrate on the skills, tools or knowledge that will enable them to do their job better.

2. Define learning objectives according to job requirements

After having found a list of the tasks that the participants have to perform on the workplace, it is necessary to align the learning objectives with the needs of the participants. Assessment methods need to be created to determine whether employees have achieved the defined learning objectives.

3. Evaluate performance either ongoing and at the end of the training

One or more assessment tools must be developed for each learning objective. For example, you could evaluate a learning objective by asking participants to perform a certain procedure (following the steps in their order, from the first to the last). Or, if you want to create a more practical assessment, you could ask participants to solve specific problems framed in professional scenarios, applying the skills conveyed by the training.

4. Evaluate learning after a period of time

Evaluating the effectiveness of learning means demonstrating an improvement in employee performance in a ever lasting, sustainable and coherent way over a period of time. In this sense, it is useful to organize updating sessions, monitor work performance and observe in which measure participants reach the performance goals initially set.

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