Will impact measurement shrink the training industry?

Everyone who is a professional trainer has asked themselves how much impact they really made. Although the feedback form might give an indication for the short-term, there is a chronic lack of data for impact measurement beyond the first few days.

What and who

Training impact is defined as ‘the benefits an individual and the organisation achieves from a training intervention’ and practitioners such as Kirkpatrick with the four levels of training evaluation and Will Thalheimer with his Learning Transfer Evaluation Model (LTEM) have contributed immensely to this topic.

Organisations like the Learning & Performance Institute (LPI) in the UK and Training Industry in the USA, are contributing by encouraging Learning & Development professionals to learn more about data analysis and measuring learning transfer.

The reality for Learning & Development

When interviewing L&D professionals over the last few years, the picture emerging shows a number of issues.

• Training Needs Analysis (TNA) mostly happens as an interview. That enables a thorough approach. However, it lacks scalability
• In the cases where an online survey is used, the examples we saw, showed that it takes a long time to create the survey because of the scheduling with subject matter experts.
• Training Needs Analysis and post training impact measurement are not consistently planned and executed.
• The available budget is spent on training design, creation and delivery. No money is left for impact measurement
• L&D professionals are dependent on colleagues from other departments to calculate the ROI from their activities

Experience from Training Providers

While interviewing training providers, they mentioned that

• The same skill issue on data analytics plays with many training companies. Most training providers are small businesses themselves and might not employ data analysts.
• The full Training Needs Analysis is rarely available
• The learners in the cohort often do not have the level required and that means the instructor needs to adjust elements of delivery in the course.
• The happy sheet is the most used post-training measurement.
• Impact measurement is sometimes offered as a service when the customer asks for it. Unfortunately, they never do…

Measuring impact tomorrow

As with most big shifts, it’s not just one event but a number of root causes coming together. The change in impact measurement has long been in the making.

• Digital transformation,
• Data gathering for decision making,
• Evolving insights in what makes people learn,
• COVID 19
• AI tools coming onto the market, changing our way of working
• Focus on skills-based competency models

These combined causes finally brought us closer to impact measurement.

The new business model

The most profound shift for training companies in the medium term is a changed business model. Measuring impact means that you can charge for results.

Today, a trainer might charge ￡500 for a training. My prediction is that it will become common to charge ￡300 beforehand and another ￡300 when impact is measured.

The threat for the training industry is that providers who fail to show enough impact will fail. On the other hand, those training companies measuring up, will have an opportunity to create more value and revenue.

I have already seen that some end customers demand this and some training providers now offering this. It will not take long for this to become mainstream.

For this business model to work, a partnership attitude is required. Training companies need to adopt new ways of working and customers need to work more closely with their training supply chain.

Training providers have a collective opportunity to add more value to their customers.