How to Measure Training Results

This book helps you quantify the results of training - and calculate its ROI. In today's environment of tighter budgets and accountability, stakeholders increasingly want to know the end results of training in organizations. What did a training program add to the organizations performance and the bottom line? Did it work? If so, why? And if not, what could have been done differently? "How to Measure Training Results" gives you the tools to answer these questions and many others. Built around the authors' ROI Process - a proven, systematic methodology for measuring and assessing the organizational impact of training programs - this hands-on resource will help you: develop evaluation and measurement processes for specific training programs; isolate the effects of training from other performance-improvement factors; analyze results and identify changes in behavior and business impact; identify the costs of a training program, and calculate its return on investment; use data-based feedback to improve effective training programs - and discontinue or improve ineffective programs; and, validate training programs by linking them to business performance measures. While training has too often been viewed as trivial by both employers and employees, today's stakeholders are demanding better linkage to business needs. Let "How to Measure Training Results" detail how you can specifically and accurately measure the results of any training program, then use that knowledge to construct a training program that provides proven value to concerned stakeholders - and long-term value to your organization. 'This book is written for training practitioners and for anyone who is interested in using practical evaluation techniques to assess, improve, and report on training programs and results. It provides techniques, tools, worksheets, and examples that you can use to follow a systematic process to plan and conduct credible evaluations of your training programs' - From the Introduction. Corporate training and performance improvement programs have become standard corporate fare in today's ultra-competitive business arena. But decision-makers who try to determine which programs are effective, and how to increase their overall effectiveness, generally find that methods for credible evaluation and improvement are a little tougher to come by. "How to Measure Training Results" addresses this problem head-on. Well-documented and timely, it outlines a five-level framework for scrutinizing the efficacy and success or your training programs from every angle, in the process determining which portions of the program should be enhanced, which should be downplayed or scrapped, and why. Written by two of today's most recognized and accomplished authorities on training performance measurement and improvement, "How to Measure Training Results" shows you how to precisely measure and review programs to arrive at concrete, bottom-line results. Its ROI Process helps you create a balanced evaluation by collecting, measuring, and reporting key indicators on a six-level continuum: Did participants feel that the program was valuable, and that they learned new skills? What did they actually learn? How were these lessons applied and implemented on the job? What was the business impact of the program? What was the tangible, measurable return on investment? And, did the program provide intangible benefits and, if so, what were they? Training today is too costly - and the results of ineffective training too far-reaching - to be left to chance. Use the real-world-proven tools, worksheets, and processes in "How to Measure Training Results" to take a dramatic leap forward in measuring the success of your training programs, and move to a new level of accountability, effectiveness, and measurable impact on your organization's ROI.

Jack Phillips, Ph.D., is the founder of Performance Resources Organization, now the world's leading consulting firm specializing in accountability issues. The author or editor of more than 200 books and 100 articles, including The Handbook of Training Evaluation and Measurement, he has served as a bank president, Fortune 500 training and development manager, and professor of management at a major state university. His clients in 20 countries include such internationally respected companies as AT&T, Federal Express, Lockheed Martin, Motorola, and Xerox.

Co-author Ron Stone is Vice President and Chief Consulting Officer of Performance Resources Organization, and consults directly on evaluation projects with a broad range of international clients. Stone also conducts public and in-house workshops on the ROI Process.