By Simon Vetter
Do you want to become an inspiring leader, or a better presenter? Learn a new language? Deal more effectively with adversity or conflict? Lead your team better? Sell more?
Training is a necessary and effective way to accomplish your goals.
When I sit down with companies who are interested in training, one of the most frequent questions I face is: “How to you measure the impact of training?” This is indeed a critical question – one that every training professional should be able to answer. Why? Because measurement leads to improvement.
When it comes to training, one of the most commonly used standards of measurement is attendee satisfaction. Participants evaluate the program, speaker, event organization, logistics and even food. As program manager for a management training company in Zurich, I organized, coordinated and promoted over 50 two- to three-day programs per year. At the end of each seminar, participants checked smiley faces (or not) on how satisfied they were with the training. We targeted a goal of 85% satisfaction. This was an important goal, as it helped us improve the program quality so we could sell more programs in the future.
From an event organization’s point of view, attendee satisfaction was a significant measure because it correlated to future revenue. Happy clients meant continuous business.
However, from a participant’s perspective, it is far more important to track the impact of training – how much the participant learned and what he or she did differently because of that learning.
Let’s take Jeff for example, a marketing manager with a team of 25 people. His company sends him to a two-day leadership program. He wants to improve in two areas:
1) setting clear performance expectations, and
2) holding his people accountable for results.
Jeff really enjoys the training program and gives very high ratings on his satisfaction survey. That satisfies the organizer of the program, usually the HR department or the company organizing the seminar.
But what about his performance? Did the training lead to improvement? What system of measurement tells us if Jeff actually developed as a leader? Is Jeff held accountable to apply what he learned and improve? Unless we can measure Jeff’s progress, we really don’t know if the training had any impact at all.
The Alexcel Group (which I am a member of) established a simple yet powerful process to measure improvement: the Mini Survey, a brief 360° assessment that evaluates behavioral changes and progress from the co-workers’ point of view.
Six months after Jeff’s training, his co-workers answer a few questions about his progress:
- On a scale from 0 (no change) to 3 (significant positive change), how much change have you seen in Jeff’s leadership effectiveness?
- To what degree have you seen Jeff improve in the area “setting clear performance expectations”?
- To what degree have you seen Jeff improve in the area “holding others accountable for results”?
The answers are aggregated, revealing how much Jeff has improved.
The fact that Jeff is assessed for behavioral improvement makes him more accountable and motivates him to make progress.
Remember, what gets measured gets improved. If you want to improve your presentation, keep track of how your audience perceives you. If you want to improve sales, measure revenue. If you want to become a better leader, ask your followers how much they want to follow you.
Sometimes the mere effort of focusing on a goal helps us to achieve it. We tend to create what we pay attention to.
Establishing a measure of behavioral progress for the training participant shifts the responsibility to the learner. Next time you attend a training program, ask yourself:
- What is your training goal?
- What do you want achieve, and by when?
- How will you know you have accomplished it? What is the measure for success?
- How do you ensure that you will achieve your goal? Who can hold you accountable?
Satisfaction surveys are important, but not sufficient for measuring the impact of training. In the end, satisfaction doesn’t drive change, but accountability does.
I highly recommend setting up a system of measurement that holds the learner accountable for making progress. After all, that’s the ultimate goal of training.
About the author:
Simon Vetter works with managers who want to create positive changes and professionals who want to build a STAND OUT brand. He is a member of Alexcel Group, an international alliance of executive coaches, and leadership and change consultants. He has coached hundreds of managers and trained executive teams from Agilent Technologies, CalPERS, Callaway Golf, Daimler, Gallo Winery, Johnson & Johnson, RE/MAX, Siemens, Toyota, US Steel, UBS and others. Combined with 20 years of experience in marketing, sales, and leadership development, Simon has an MBA-equivalent degree in business and marketing from University of Berne, Switzerland.
