Learning and development professionals are responsible for implementing training programmes that teach the relevant skills employees need to be successful in their jobs. However, even when training appears to be relevant, gaps in skills application may occur, which can lead to persistent performance problems. The problems may not be related to the training itself; something may have gotten “lost in translation.” Training assessments can help evaluate these skills application gaps and performance problems to support effective decision making about how to enhance training and development programmes to improve performance.
This blog posting is to help you get the most out of your training assessments. Training should be part of a comprehensive performance improvement solution. However, it is up to learning and development professionals to periodically evaluate the effectiveness of training programmes and training delivery format to ensure employees continually build their skills, feel more empowered to act and can easily translate training into improved performance in the workplace.
Applying the five principles outlined in the first blog posting in this series will help learning and development professionals conduct an effective training assessment and foster the level of stakeholder support and participation necessary to ensure the training assessment provides the actionable results needed to enhance training and development programmes.
1. Align Purpose with Situation – Training Application Involves More Than Just Training Delivery.
Training programs won’t improve performance if employees cannot easily apply the training in the workplace. The problem is not usually with the training itself, but with challenges in the organisation that may not support efficient skills application. Therefore, training assessments should be designed to examine more than just training satisfaction, relevance and skills application levels; they should explore the interrelationships between other components that support training application, such as empowerment, management support and expectations, systems and processes, and performance management systems. It is essential to include performance metrics that are important to management, which will highlight linkages between training, skills application and work performance.
Training assessments should be conducted as either confidential or anonymous assessments to foster candid participant responses, and employees should be informed of this, as well as the disposition of the data and the format in which the assessment results will be presented. The assessment should include quantitative ranking questions and a limited number of open-ended questions to explore the issues and challenges employees face in applying their skills. However, keep in mind with large participant groups, open-ended questions may generate a considerable amount of information that will increase the effort required for analysis and reporting.
2. Context Is Key – Something Happened on the Way to the Job.
Most employees leave training with great intentions and attempt to apply their new skills immediately upon returning to work. However, they may face challenges with many of the other components described in #1 and, after a period of unsuccessful application, may eventually return to pre-training work behaviour. Without understanding the challenges employees face in applying new skills or making changes to create a more supportive organisational environment, continuing to deliver the same training will minimally improve performance.
Example: Two years post-training, an information technology organisation conducted a follow-up project management (PM) training assessment. Results indicated the skills application levels for most PM activities were lower than the initial pre-training baseline assessment; however, the baseline assessment did not examine the other components important for training application. Training was relevant, but employees were having difficulty applying their new skills because of inconsistent tools and processes, lack of resource control, conflicting project priorities and inconsistent management expectations. The organisation developed a plan to enhance its training programme and address the challenges. Without assessing these additional components, the organisation could have concluded that the training had been ineffective.
Stay tuned for Part 2 where I will cover the next 3 principles!