Decades ago, an employee was trained by the person to whom he or she was expected to report. In most cases, a manager or senior representative would train newer staff members. As new tools grew in complexity and flexibility, companies identified a need to organize departments that would train employees.

One of the challenges of these departments is to evaluate the effectiveness of their programs. It is not a simple task. While a conventional approach might warrant evaluating a staffer's retention and comprehension, the objectives of the company's senior management may be far different. Indeed, in their eyes, the success of the program might be better measured by the trainee's ability to apply what he or she has learned in a way that improves the bottom line.

In this article, we'll explain how to use surveys to assess the practical usefulness of a company's training curriculum. We'll explore the factors used to measure effectiveness as well as the levels of evaluation typically applied.

Measuring Program Effectiveness

As we suggested above, the objectives of an organization's senior management may differ than those of the training department. It's important to realize that a curriculum designed to train a staffer requires an allocation of resources. Understandably, the benefits of putting an organization's staff through the curriculum must outweigh the value of those resources.

Trainers - and the managers who are responsible for the program - will normally focus upon how well the material is learned. By contrast, executives are primarily interested in whether teaching the material leads to revenue growth or an improvement in workplace efficiency (ideally, both). Defining the measurements to be used in assessing effectiveness in that context is the preliminary step. It must be completed before your evaluation questionnaire can be designed.

Levels Of Evaluation

Let's suppose you have identified the criteria by which you'll measure the success of the training curriculum. The next step is to design your evaluation survey. Most questionnaires that are used to assess whether a given program yields positive results adhere to four common evaluation levels.

The first level is to assess how the learner feels about the program. Obviously, this assessment won't provide empirical data regarding the results from applying the material. However, including it on your survey is vital; if a staff member feels positively about the curriculum, it can be argued that the results from learning it will also be positive.

The second level measures content retention. By addressing retention in your evaluation survey, you can identify problems in the material or the instructor. In other words, if a large portion of employees exhibit poor retention on the questionnaire, the problem may not be with them.

The third level focuses upon how well a trainee is able to apply the material he or she has learned in the classroom. This will require a separate (and often, more than one) survey that is given once a student returns to their normal routine in the workplace. It will assess how well the curriculum translates into a value add for the company.

The fourth, and final, level of evaluation is to measure the results of training from the perspective of a company's return on investment. This is an area that requires robust survey technology. The goal is to establish a connection between the training curriculum and how that material improves the bottom line. For example, it might focus upon salespeople who learn to use a sales-related application. By feeding their sales numbers into a database, a company can evaluate the success of the training.

Using surveys to evaluate the effectiveness of training programs is not simple. But, with a little effort and planning, it can yield enormous value.