4 Steps For Measuring Employee Training Effectiveness

In today's world, we measure everything! A newborn baby's height, weight, and length. We measure age by weeks and months, time during our commute using GPS, and of course my personal favorite: calories using the MyFitnessPal app. With global spending on training reaching $345 billion in 2022, why would you not measure results or lack thereof given this significant spend?

“When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind...” - Lord Kelvin 1883

What gets measured gets done. Measurement puts the spotlight on where proficiency matters and creates and incentive for employees to learn. As an organization, it is imperative to put equal emphasis on measuring training efficacy as is put on training delivery. This equal treatment of delivery and evaluation must show up in the training budget breakdown - numbers don't lie!

Now that we have made the case for the importance of measuring employee training effectiveness, you may be wondering how best to go about doing this? Well, we would be glad to help!

At Learn Or Teach, we have termed our employee training measurement approach the BRRR method. It is an adaptation of The Kirkpatrick Four-level Training Evaluation model, a staple in the learning industry, looking at reaction, learning, behavior, and results.

Our four tenants include the following:

1. Baseline - This is ground zero. The baseline is unique for each learner and is the starting point from which desired behaviors are measured.
2. Reception - This is administered right after interacting with the training with the intent of finding out if it was relevant and practical to the learner. Instructors can be gauged for feedback on learner observations.
3. Retention - About a quarter (3 months) after the training is delivered, learners should be assessed for how much they actually retained.
4. Response - This is the learners behavioral change in response to the training and is measured 6 months to a year after training - plenty of time for new habits to form and training to be integrated into their sales DNA.

At Learn Or Teach, we provide a learning management system that can be leveraged for evaluating learners at each step of our BRRR training evaluation method. Our knowledge checks can be integrated at the beginning and end of a course to establish a baseline and measure learner progress against the same. Surveys can be leveraged to gauge reception, and more powerful assessments can be deployed to measure retention and response.

If you need help developing custom courses or rolling out a learning management system, reach out to us for a quick demo or consultation at www.learnorteach.com.