Assessing the effectiveness of training at a manufacturing enterprise
In order for the qualifications of employees of manufacturing companies to meet modern requirements, their training and development must be built into the overall personnel management system. Each employee must continually participate in training programs.
Timely, regular training of personnel is especially important for those enterprises where high-risk work is carried out. Employees performing this type of work must comply with legal requirements: be competent in matters of labor protection, fire safety, technical operation of machines, mechanisms, etc. This means that they need to be provided with special training and the development of the necessary skills.
At our enterprise, everyone who performs work with increased danger undergoes special training. First, an interview is conducted to determine the current level of knowledge; Based on the results of the initial assessment, aindividual vocational training program . Before starting to perform work independently, the employee must undergo:
Admission to independent work is issued only after all necessary training activities have been completed (this period can take up to nine months). In addition, employees are provided with periodic (every three to five years)advanced training in licensed special educational institutions. All requirements for qualifications and training programs for performing high-risk work are described in detail in government regulations.
To work successfully, people need additional knowledge and new professional competencies. The requirements for the level of knowledge of the personnel of a developing enterprise are constantly increasing, so HR must be able to promptly identify training needs.
There are many methods for identifying training needs; the choice of one or the other depends on the characteristics of the company and its capabilities. We use the following:
The data obtained using various methods helps to analyze the quality of human resources of the enterprise (the so-calledHR audit).
When determining the need for employee training, you should first of all proceed from:
Personnel development programs should be focused on achieving long-term business development goals, and specialized training should be aimed at solving specific production, technological or organizational problems and improving the quality of employees’ performance of the functional tasks assigned to them. At the same time, the most important role in increasing the effectiveness of training is played by the desire of employees themselves for professional excellence.
The tasks of the personnel service at the stage of determining the need for training are:
1. Information analysis.
2. Methodological assistance to managers and employees of departments.
3. Organization of training events (rice. 1).
At our enterprise, training is planned based on the resultsannual staff evaluation : for each employee of the engineering and technical staff and managers, an individual development plan (IDP) is developed, which indicates the necessary competencies - the “corporate minimum”. Employees of the HR department are responsible for drawing up the IPR and implementing the measures provided for in it.
Based on the experience of past years, we see that important conditions for the effectiveness of training programs are:
To optimize the learning and development process over the planned period, we have developed procedures that 1) ensure the successful implementation of employees’ IPR, 2) increase the level of organization of educational programs and 3) allow us to evaluate the effectiveness of training programs.
What are these procedures? First of all, the new regulations forcareful selection of providers educational services. In the process of searching for training companies, we analyze the experience and reputation of their specialists, evaluate the quality of the services offered (including reviews from their clients). The key selection criterion (other things being equal) is the possibilityprogram adaptation to the needs of our enterprise. Moreover, each program (course, training) must be agreed upon with the head of the structural unit, and, if necessary, adjusted taking into account his wishes.
Before training begins, we assess each employee's need for it. Department heads evaluate the qualifications of their subordinates according to the following indicators:
Appendix 1
rice. 2
Based on these assessments, the need to develop certain competencies in a particular employee is determined. Employees also rate their need for training (Appendix 1): answers to the questionnaire help to specify the objectives and areas of training, assess the prospects for further “translation” of new knowledge in a particular department, and clarify expectations regarding the results of training programs.
After processing the questionnaires, the HR department specialist meets with employees so that people can justify their wishes and clarify the conditions and terms of training. Based on the results of the interview, adjustments are made to the IPR, and a decision is made on what kind of training program the employee needs in a given period of time. The training specialist presents his recommendations for organizing training to the line manager of the department or top manager.
Upon completion of the training course, the stage followstraining effectiveness assessments . We took Kirkpatrick’s technique as a basis* (rice. 2), which was adapted to the needs of our enterprise.
_______________
* Donald Kirkpatrick is an American researcher who in 1959 developed a four-level system for assessing the effectiveness of personnel training. For more details, see the article by G. Bazarova “Assessing the effectiveness of training.”
For any organization, employee training cannot be an end in itself. Personnel training, like other parts of the team management system (recruitment, motivation, incentives, control), should be aimed at achieving a common goal, i.e. ensuring effective work and active development of the organization.
Even at the personnel selection stage, the organization receives information that allows it to outline actions to train and improve the skills of employees. The attitude of organizational leaders to employee training is associated with an understanding of what benefits the organization will receive as a result and what costs it will incur for personnel training.
Benefits to the organization from staff training:
- The ability to successfully cope with problems associated with new areas of activity and increase competitiveness.
- Reducing staff turnover, increasing the prestige of the organization.
- Acquisition by staff of skills to adapt to constantly changing socio-economic conditions and, accordingly, strengthening the position of the organization.
Benefits of training for employees:
- Increased satisfaction in your work.
- Improving qualifications, competence, self-esteem.
- Increased career prospects within your organization and beyond.
Costs for advanced training of personnel at the enterprise
Employee training not only brings benefits, but also comes with certain costs. Costs associated with personnel training can be direct and indirect.
- Direct: payment for teachers, educational materials; payment for rent of premises.
- Indirect: payment of salaries to training employees released from work; payment of bonuses to employees performing the work of absent colleagues.
Effectiveness of staff training
Analysis of the effectiveness of training of company employees is an important stage in the operation of the management system of an enterprise or institution. Evaluating the effectiveness of training is necessary to determine whether the organization is getting any benefit from it, and whether the forms of training used in the organization are effective.
Monitoring the effectiveness of staff training allows you to take timely measures to improve the quality of training, correcting forms and methods of training. Assessing the effectiveness of personnel training in each specific organization requires choosing the most appropriate assessment methods. Calculating financial indicators of the effectiveness of employee training is quite difficult, especially where people are engaged in mental work.
Traditional methods for assessing the effectiveness of employee training are testing, observation, self-report, statistical analysis, etc. Among the non-traditional methods, the following techniques have proven themselves:
— D. Kirkpatrick (assessment on 4 levels: reaction, learning, behavior, result);
— J. Phillips (assessment using formulas to measure the return on capital invested in personnel);
— M. Guy (biparametric assessment), etc.
Training and retraining of personnel will be effective if the costs for them in the future are lower than the organization's costs of improving labor productivity using other factors and costs associated with errors in personnel selection.
The effectiveness of training - how to evaluate it correctly?
The question of the need for performance assessment training personnel is actively discussed in professional circles of trainers, consultants and HR managers. However, assessment models are different in many respects: some of them are aimed only at qualitative assessment of effectiveness training, part also includes quantitative assessment.
Many companies limit themselves to distributing so-called “happiness sheets” - questionnaires that include questions such as: did you like the training, did you like the trainer, how do you evaluate the effectiveness of the program? training, what else trainings would you like to pass? It is clear that the answers to these questions in no way improve the situation of HR managers, from whom management is increasingly demanding a report on the effectiveness of the training activities carried out. But this is ours. Several performance assessment models have been successfully used abroad for a long time. training. Some of them are known in our country, some are for our market training only exotic. Our company itself has more than once been faced with the need to evaluate the effectiveness of conducted business trainings and seminars, both with clients and in internal programs training.
Our goal was to show different performance assessment models training programs.
Let's start by looking at Donald Kirkpatrick's most famous model.
In 1959, American researcher Donald Kirkpatrick proposed a four-level performance assessment model training, which became widespread and is a classic today.
Let's look at the levels of D. Kirkpatrick's model in more detail.
First level - "Reaction of participants"
Aimed at identifying whether participants enjoyed the training. To assess this level, standard questionnaires are used. The main topics of questions in the questionnaires:
The usefulness of the acquired knowledge and skills for real work;
Interestingness of the program;
Complexity, accessibility of material delivery.
This is the level that is measured most often. Many Russian companies have already implemented this practice today. For example, in our company we use a questionnaire consisting of the following parts.
1. Which part training will be most useful for your work?
2. Which part training will be the least useful for your work?
3. Are there any topics that you would like to include in the training program?
4. What part of the training would you sacrifice to include topics that interest you?
5. How would you rate the training program overall?
6. How do you assess the balance between the individual parts? training program(video fragments, exercises, games, cases, lectures, discussions)?
7. How do you rate duration? training programs?
8. Was enough time allocated for games and discussions?
2. Assessment of the quality of the conduct training, pre- and post-training work (duration of the program, number of breaks, effectiveness of post-training assessment, quality of assessment of training needs, effectiveness of goal setting, etc.). The corresponding section of the questionnaire includes questions of the following type:
1. To what extent have your personal goals been achieved in training program?
2. Which of your personal goals were not achieved and why?
3. How do you evaluate the quality of post-training work?
4. Do you think there are enough breaks taken during training, for relaxation in the process training?
5. To what extent do you think the goals training have been achieved?
6. How do you evaluate the quality of the post-training work performed?
3. Assessments of the trainer and his skills (presentation skills, communication, feedback, leadership style, etc.):
- knowledge of the subject;
- organization of training;
- preparation for training;
- style;
- responsiveness, feedback;
- creating a favorable climate.
4. Assessing the quality of the organization training(accommodation, delivery, training premises, quality of handouts and presentation materials):
1. How do you estimate the number of handouts issued?
2. How do you estimate the number of presentation materials (video, audio, slides, flipchart)?
3. How do you evaluate the quality of presentation materials (video, audio, slides, flipchart)?
4. How do you rate the placement of participants?
5. How do you rate the training space?
6. How do you evaluate the quality of service (food, coffee breaks)?
For each question, a specific rating scale is given, for example, from 1 to 6 points, where each point is accompanied by a verbal description.
Second level - "Training"
Determines how participants' knowledge has changed as a result of training and whether they have changed at all. To assess this level, specially designed tests, questionnaires and tasks are used that allow quantitative measurement of progress in the competence or motivation of participants.
It is also possible to conduct observation during the process training , in particular during control exercises or role-playing games, or after training events during the work process.
For example, we organize an assessment center, which includes business games that require the demonstration of certain skills, cases, and so-called “in-basket” exercises. Thus, secretaries are given an exercise in sorting out documents and correspondence, preparing materials for a meeting within a certain time, and answering calls from “difficult” clients.
Let's give an example of an "in-basket" exercise for employees who have completed training in personnel management. The exercise is based on a simulation test on personnel management.
Your task:
1. Consider the person depicted in the photograph.
2. Get acquainted with the description of the current problem that has arisen in relation to this person.
3. Select from the list the actions that you consider most appropriate in this case. If you do not find a sufficient number of necessary actions on the list, then at least you need to exclude actions that are completely inappropriate to use in this situation. For each case, you should not select the answer “YES” more than five times (and less than three).
Third level - "Application"
Identifies whether participants are applying what they learned during training knowledge and skills in the workplace? Are there any real changes in their work? Assessment at this level is usually carried out using tools developed according to the 360-degree principle. Another way is to use the organization's existing key performance indicator (KPI) system or balanced scorecard (BSC). In the case of sales training, you can, for example, compare the number of complaints or the number of transactions concluded before and after training . To assess changes in personnel behavior in the workplace, a special questionnaire is used. It was designed to study changes in work behavior as a result of training events. The topics presented in the questionnaire were discussed during training and therefore have a direct bearing on its effectiveness.
Fourth level - "Results"
Aimed at identifying changes in the company’s business performance as a result of training. This level is usually the most difficult to measure, especially considering the fact that other factors also influence business performance, and it is almost impossible to isolate their influence.
Thus, D. Kirkpatrick’s model, despite its simplicity and ease of use, suffers from a large degree of subjectivity and does not provide quantitative indicators of effectiveness training.
In 1991, another American, J. Phillips, added a fifth level of assessment to the Kirkpatrick model - ROI (return on investment in training). His model is now recognized by the American Association of Training and Development (ASTD) and is used throughout the world.
ROI calculation allows you to:
Quantify the improvement in productivity and quality of work as a result training employees;
Express in monetary terms the value of the work carried out training;
Determine return on investment in educational events;
Make informed decisions on the choice of training programs, comparing their effectiveness.
However, the procedure for calculating ROI is quite labor-intensive. Due to the difficulty of calculating ROI, it is recommended to measure this indicator only if the following indicators are met:
Long program duration training;
Importance of the program training to achieve corporate goals;
Visibility of the program (stages) training;
Large target audience;
High degree of interest among decision makers.
The formula for calculating ROI is as follows:
Let us give an example of calculating ROI for personnel management training, which we conducted for shop managers and section foremen of a manufacturing enterprise. A total of 15 people took part in the training.
Income from training, expressed in improving the quality of performance of duties, we calculated as the product of the average percentage of skills used in work and the salary of the corresponding employee. They amounted to a total of 21,900 USD. per month. Taking into account the adjustment procedure, this amount was:
21900 x (1-0.35)=14,235 USD
Moreover, as a result training staff turnover decreased by 14% to 13%, which corresponds to a reduction in the costs of recruiting, training and adaptation of approximately 23 people. Therefore, it is possible to calculate the income from the reduction in turnover:
13% of the company's workforce is approximately 23 people;
Average selection costs education and adaptation of workers amount to 928 USD.
Accordingly, the income from the reduction in turnover is equal to 21,804 c.u.
Total income from the event training, thus amounted to 36,039 USD.
Training costs for 15 employees:
Payment for the services of third-party trainers: 1700 USD. x 2 = 3400 USD
Premises rental: 1000 USD
Payment for food: 1800 USD
Payment for delivery of employees: 400 USD
Participants' wages (for 2 days): 3000 USD
Coordinator's salary (during the preparation and conduct of the training): 120 USD.
Total: 9720 USD
The ROI indicator for the conducted personnel management training is equal to:
An interesting question is which R0I indicator is considered acceptable. Phillips himself claims that this figure can exceed 800%. Moreover, Tennessee Valley Authority, an ASTD-awarded company, has calculated an average ROI of 1000%. One way out in this situation may be to compare the obtained ROI value with a similar indicator for financial projects, as well as compare the dynamics of ROI training for different time periods. Thus, the R0I indicator we calculated significantly exceeded the similar indicator for other investment projects of the enterprise, which once again proves the effectiveness of investments in personnel.
In addition to calculating ROI, the payback period indicator is often calculated, reflecting the period during which the investment made in training pays off. The payback period is the inverse of ROI.
There is another assessment model training, practically unknown in Russia, is Bloom's Taxonomy. It consists of three parts - overlapping spheres, which are often called ZUN (knowledge, attitudes, skills).
Cognitive sphere (knowledge)
1. Recalling information
2. Understanding
3. Use in practice
4. Analysis of information (structure/elements)
5. Synthesis (creation/construction)
6. Evaluation (comparison)
Emotional sphere (attitudes)
1. Perception (awareness)
2. Answer (reaction)
3. Value assessment (understanding and action)
4. Articulation (combination, integration of similar skills)
5. Assimilation of a value system (adaptation of behavior)
Psychomotor sphere (skills)
1. Imitation (copying)
2. Management (following instructions)
3. Development of accuracy, clarity
4. Organization of a personal value system
5. Naturalization (bringing to automation, expert knowledge)
Each of the three spheres is based on the premise that all categories within each sphere are arranged in a strictly specific order of increasing complexity. These categories are successive levels of employee development in the process training. In general, in a practical sense, the model is similar to the D. Kirkpatrick model. It also requires the preparation of specific questions, tests or exercises for each of the components, but does not provide a financial assessment of effectiveness training.
Thus, to evaluate the effectiveness training You can use different models, each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages. The choice of one model or another depends entirely on the goals set by the specialist involved in the assessment. D. Kirkpatrick's model allows you to quickly get a visual representation of the effectiveness of training activities. The Bloom's Taxonomy model allows for more detailed assessment of effectiveness, as well as the choice of a specific strategy training employees. J. Phillips' model is aimed at assessing the financial side training, namely, the effectiveness of investments in personnel. Therefore, today, it seems to us, the problem is not the need to evaluate effectiveness training or its absence, but in the choice of its specific algorithm.
Any HR understands that there is no point in conducting training without further evaluating its effectiveness. From a business point of view, measuring the effectiveness of development methods gives financial meaning to these activities, allowing the company to measure return on investment. But there are other reasons.
Assessing the effectiveness of training strengthens employees' belief in the need to apply knowledge, because provides an understanding of the importance of change for management (akin to the control effect). And from the point of view of a personnel training (development) manager, the assessment procedure identifies additional training needs, checks the training methodology and allows progress to be assessed.
Thanks to the analysis of the effectiveness of development, it is possible to identify outdated teaching methods and eradicate work of the “process for the sake of process” type.
Methods for assessing the effectiveness of development methods
Personnel are assessed in two directions: quantitative and qualitative indicators.
It cannot be said that any of the indicators is less important, especially when the goal of personnel development is to increase work performance, and therefore the company’s profit. If both parameters are not assessed, as a rule, investments in training become nothing more than charity. Honestly, in this case it would be more effective to transfer this money, for example, to an animal rescue fund, as it would be more useful.
The process of analyzing the result gives meaning to the training procedure, because it was precisely to achieve results that it was started.
Methods for assessing quality indicators
Post-training assessment questionnaire
This is one of the simplest and most popular methods. It is usually based on a series of questions asked of students.
For example: what they think about the instructor, the material, the presentation style, and anything else related to the curriculum. The questionnaire is easy to use and gives immediate results.
Comparison before and after
This method involves assessing employees' knowledge before applying the development method, and then performing a similar test after training.
When developing such assessment tests, there are a number of rules to keep in mind:
1. Questions should be short.
2. The test should not take more than 10-20 minutes.
3. Questions should be focused on the main objectives of the course. This will allow you to clearly see what information was perceived by the participants. But here it is important to be careful in your judgments, because the material may not be perceived either due to the employee (for example, he listened) or due to the fault of the coach (he did not place the emphasis properly).
4. The test must be formulated in simple and understandable language.
5. It is more productive to mix true, false and choice questions.
Current rating
The method combines pre- and post-class assessments. Typically, this type of assessment is easier for a trainer or training manager to carry out. At the end of the information block, participants are asked several open-ended questions.
For example:
Such a survey allows the training manager to adjust the program based on its perceptibility: replacing topics or returning to the material covered. This approach allows you to get maximum benefit from both the training manager (in the form of results) and the students (in the form of knowledge and skills). In multi-day training, assessments are made at the end of the day to make necessary changes to the group's work for the next day.
Kirkpatrick Model Analysis
The Karpatrick assessment methodology has long been successfully used by many HR people to study the effectiveness of personnel development. There are a lot of modifications and ways to apply the technique, but sequential measurement is taken as the basis:
1. Reactions to learning.
It is assessed how satisfied the students are with the course program, how they react to the training and how they plan to use the knowledge in their work.
Practice shows that the greater the motivation for training, the stronger the reaction to it and the higher its evaluation by employees. Maximum motivation can be achieved by providing a transparent explanation of the importance of the block being studied for the implementation of the main functionality. If an employee poorly understands the power of influence of a particular process on work, then you should not expect a positive reaction.
2. Mastering the material.
This stage involves studying opinions about the accessibility and specificity of the completed course of study.
3. Changes in behavior.
It is important to understand how people’s activities change after training, whether new techniques are applied, whether they are used correctly, at the right time.
4. Improved results.
During the assessment, it is necessary to understand how training has improved business performance: whether employees understand and take the actions necessary to achieve the result, whether they have all the knowledge, skills and abilities to implement these actions and whether they understand the importance of their use, and whether they want to perform these actions.
Based on Kirkpatrick's theory, you can create a matrix for assessing the effectiveness of any personnel development method.
| Topic of discussion/analysis with employees | What to evaluate | Comments |
| Company goals | Understanding and awareness of goals. | Any training is organized to achieve the goals of the enterprise. If an employee does not understand why he is being taught, then the information will pass by. |
| What should they do to reach their goal? | A clear, structured description of the procedure. With answers to the questions: how, why, why and when. | If the team does not have a transparent and detailed understanding of what needs to be done to influence the result, they simply will not be able to implement it. |
| How did the training help to perform the above actions? | Do employees understand the new material and see the feasibility of using it in their work? | The information will provide an understanding of the value of the program for employees and the quality of the material presented. |
| What opportunities do they see for themselves in using the material? | Is the level of motivation to apply knowledge sufficient? | People perform their work with full dedication only when they are warmed by its results and the opportunities it opens up. |
Methods for assessing quantitative indicators
Training is quite expensive; it consumes resources of time, equipment and personnel. This is why ROI assessment should be an integral part of any training program. The Kirkpatrick model will also help in this matter. It was finalized and one more stage was added - return on training (ROI).
ROI is calculated as follows: (benefits – costs)/costs * 100%
Calculation example^
Let's say a trainer was hired to train employees. The cost of his work is 30,000 rubles. For training, equipment worth 3,000 rubles was required. Renting an auditorium for the training cost another 5,000 rubles. The total cost was 38,000 rubles. In the first month after training, specialists learned to sell additional services and instead of the usual 50,000 rubles. received payment of bills in the amount of 100,000 rubles. Thus, the profit from training amounted to 50,000 rubles.
In this case, calculate the payback ratio as follows: (50,000 – 38,000)/38000 = 0.315. In order to understand the percentage, let’s multiply by 100. Thus, the payback rate for the training, starting from the first month, was 31%. It turns out that if the amount of payments for additional services by clients does not decrease in subsequent months, then the training will pay for itself in about 3 months, and then it will generate profit.
Interpreting ROI indicators is quite simple; if the result is more than 100%, then the investment pays off.
Each manager determines for himself what payback and over what period of time he considers acceptable. For more accurate calculations, you can add the cost of lost profits during training and wages for the same period to expenses.
After all, during training, employees do not make a profit, but receive their usual salary. Thus, you can compare the effectiveness of different training programs and choose the one that has the highest return rate.
Additional criteria for assessing the effectiveness of staff training
Not only the financial component can be subject to quantitative assessment. Evaluating efficiency is appropriate in various indicators; let’s look at some of them.
Analysis of the percentage of product defects, number of personnel and staff turnover. Ultimately, these indicators lead to an analysis of cost reduction for these processes.
The duration of application of knowledge is an important parameter for assessing the effectiveness of personnel development. The longer the team uses new products in their work, the longer the positive effect lasts. Therefore, after evaluation, one can make a choice in favor of the program that leaves behind a longer tail.
Changing the speed of completing tasks or reacting to unplanned situations. Statistics show that many companies are accustomed to working in force majeure situations, but not all cope with them properly: such situations unsettle some for a long time. It is important to evaluate the reduction in consequences costs due to errors.
If an organization actively uses equipment in the course of its activities, it periodically becomes unusable. Increased equipment life as a result of effective personnel development practices should also be assessed.
Training without analyzing its results is as meaningless as assessing ROI without further action to improve. And assessing quality indicators will help you understand which methods need to be adjusted, and possibly completely replaced.
Assessing the effectiveness of training is an important stage in the staff training process. Its purpose is to determine how the organization benefits from employee training, or to determine whether one form of training is more effective than another. Assessing the effectiveness of training for enterprise employees allows us to constantly work to improve the quality of training, getting rid of such training programs and forms of training that did not live up to the expectations placed on them. Russian managers often do not pay due attention to the effectiveness of staff training. The main reason why an enterprise should evaluate the effectiveness of training programs is to determine the extent to which the training objectives were ultimately achieved. The second reason training programs are evaluated is to ensure that changes in trainees' performance results as a result of the training. The procedure for assessing the effectiveness of training usually consists of four stages:
- 1. Determination of learning goals. The process of assessing the effectiveness of training begins already at the stage of planning training, when determining its goals. Learning objectives set the standards and criteria for assessing the effectiveness of training programs.
- 2. Data collection before training. This information reflects the level of knowledge, skills and work attitudes that employees had before training. These indicators can be of three types: indicators characterizing the professional knowledge, attitudes and working skills of workers; quantitative indicators of the work of individual employees, departments or the organization as a whole (productivity level, financial indicators, number of complaints received or customer claims, etc.); quality indicators of the work of individual employees, departments or the organization as a whole (quality of goods and services, customer satisfaction, satisfaction of company employees, level of work morale, etc.).
- 3. Data collection during the training process and after training (using the same indicators and using the same tools as before the start of training).
- 4. Comparison of data obtained before, during and after training. For example, if the main goal of a training program was to increase labor productivity, and after completion of the training, labor productivity remained at the same level as before the training, then the organization faces the need to either make significant changes to this program or completely abandon it. If possible, the performance of workers who received training is also compared with the performance of workers who did not receive training (control group).
Assessing the effectiveness of training requires a lot of time and fairly highly qualified specialists conducting this assessment, so many organizations refuse such an assessment and simply rely on the fact that any employee training brings some benefit to the organization and ultimately pays off. The effectiveness of the training cannot always be assessed accurately enough. Firstly, a delayed effect is possible, that is, training will not give results immediately after its completion, but only after a certain time. A cumulative effect is also possible, when fairly high results can be expected after a series of trainings. And, in addition, the performance of individual employees, departments, or the entire company may improve for reasons that have nothing to do with training.
Evaluations of the effectiveness of professional training are divided into post-training and long-term. The former measure the effect of the training program immediately after its completion, the latter - after a certain period of time has elapsed - for example, IBM has adopted the practice of testing employees who have completed training 6 and 9 months after its completion.
To obtain a comprehensive picture of the effectiveness of the training provided, it is advisable to use both post-training and long-term assessment. The latter makes it possible to evaluate the long-term effect of the training program.
If training is aimed at developing a certain type of thinking and behavior of employees, and not at developing specific professional skills, then assessing its effectiveness seems to be an even more difficult task, since the results of such programs are designed for a long period and are associated with the behavior and consciousness of people that cannot be accurately measured. assessment. In such cases, the following methods can be used:
professional and psychological tests conducted before and after the implementation of the training program and showing how the knowledge and way of thinking of students have changed;
monitoring the reactions of employees during the training process;
assessment of the effectiveness of the program by the students themselves using questionnaires, surveys, discussions, and conversations.
The results of assessing the effectiveness of the training must be brought to the attention of both the trained themselves and their immediate supervisors and senior management of the company. Evaluating the effectiveness of professional learning completes the organization's learning cycle and returns it to the original stage.
Ideally, the evaluation should confirm the feasibility of professional learning and demonstrate what it achieves for the organization. This information should be further analyzed and used in the preparation and conduct of similar training programs in the future. This practice allows you to constantly work to improve the effectiveness of training and eliminate the causes of its ineffectiveness.
