Does your company provide specialized monthly training, pay for courses in other states for employees, invest in participation in events, buy online courses, but don’t know how to measure the result of these investments? This is a common difficulty in organizations. To support you in this task, we have listed the main examples of training indicators.
Companies around the world invest in training and development (T&D) of their teams over 200 billion dollars each year. This statistic was recently released by Josh Bersin , an HR specialist and founder of Bersin & Associates – a research and consulting services company focused on corporate learning.
In Brazil, according to the report “ Panorama do Treinament no Brasil ”, 51% of investment in training and development is focused on leadership and 77% of companies use EAD / e-learning .
The annual investment per employee in Brazil reached R $ 788.00, in 2017. An amount well below that practiced in the USA, however, it represents a growth of 21% in relation to the previous year.
Also according to the report, “ e-learning has been a highlight with a growth curve in use, which has been constant year on year, maintaining itself as a trend, possibly, to assist companies in the search to expand the scalability of performance of T&D, increased productivity and reduced costs ”.
What will you read in this article?
- Outcome measurement: difficulty versus need
- Training indicators: know the best option
- Examples of training indicators
- 1- Membership fee
- 2- Abandonment rate
- 3- Reaction of the participants
- 4- Average rating
- 5- Individual use
- 6- Internal multipliers
- 7- Behavior
- 8- Cost per capita
- 9- Return on Investment
- Technology in your favor
Outcome measurement: difficulty versus need
As can be seen, the corporate training market is on the rise with growth prospects, motivated by the increasing demand for new skills.
The Panorama do Treinament no Brasil report states that “even in times of cuts, companies continue to invest in the development of their professionals. We see small teams, but with a lot of emphasis on their progress and the quality of their work ”.
The biggest difficulty for companies is in evaluating the results of these trainings. It would be fantastic if everyone could use a magic wand and all the numbers appeared on the table as if by magic.
But, as we are talking about reality, getting this information is not an easy task.
Training indicators: know the best option
Performance indicators or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are metrics for evaluating a particular process.
In training, they are essential to ascertain the quality of work , in addition to being the best tool to correct deviations and perfect projects.
Check out, below, 9 examples of training indicators that can be applied both in face-to-face and distance learning. Write it down:
Examples of training indicators
1- Membership fee
The adherence rate is useful to assess the target audience’s interest in the subject and also the efficiency or not of the dissemination of a training.
In this case, the formula is very simple: if a total of 30 people were expected for training, but only 15 attended, the adherence rate was 50%.
But the adherence rate is not a good indicator when it comes to assessing whether participants have assimilated the information or not. After all, presence in the classroom does not mean learning.
2- Abandonment rate
If 30 people started training and less than half stayed on until the end, that’s not a good thing. The number indicates that a problem certainly occurred at some stage in the process.
But what happened?
- the content may have been too easy or extremely difficult for the participants;
- the methodology may have been wrong;
- people noticed an inconsistency between promise and delivery …
We need to investigate.
3- Reaction of the participants
The report “ Panorama of Training in Brazil – 2016/2017, showed that 79% of training actions have a reaction evaluation. Here, the student assesses the quality and applicability of the course.
This is an interesting indication, as long as there is sincerity on the part of the participants, when evaluating the training.
Why are we talking about this? Because many employees feel embarrassed or even intimidated in pointing out flaws in training organized and made available by the company.
Thus, it is important to make it clear that they are all free to give their opinion and that this will not cause them any inconvenience or retaliation. Another tip is to apply the assessment a few days after training, to avoid the emotions of the moment and get a result closer to the real thing.
This type of assessment takes place through a satisfaction survey and participants rate it on a predetermined scale, such as the Likert Scale , for example.
And here comes another point of attention: a positive reaction to training is not directly associated with learning and the potential for changing people’s attitudes.
It is because of this that this is one of the most appropriate examples of training indicators to support the planning of future training (content, language, resources, etc.) and not to measure efficiency.
If applied in isolation, the evaluation through the reaction of the participants is not one of the best HR indicators.
4- Average rating
This is an assessment to measure whether the student has learned anything. It is the second most applied training indicator in Brazilian companies (in 28% of training).
The evaluation average is carried out through a test or a test and, in some cases, the company requires a minimum average to be approved and receive the certificate.
Some experts recommend measuring the evolution of employee knowledge. One way to do this is to apply an assessment before and after the training – something that is easy and measurable.
The company can also use the “control group” strategy. This works like this: the HR sector selects some people who did not participate in the training, applies the same test and then compares the results with those who did the training.
Other ways of assessing learning are through simulation exercises and oral tests.
However, in many situations, the average result is not the most important for the company. She is keeping an eye on the data collected, so that she can have an overview of where her employees are in relation to certain issues and, from there, think about development strategies.
5- Individual use
The logic here is to assess how many employees, after training, developed new skills and abilities and took a career turn – taking up new positions, for example. That is, the company wants to know if the employee applied the knowledge.
This assessment can also be done by comparing the individual productivity index. It was used in 2017 by 12% of the projects.
6- Internal multipliers
Among the examples of training indicators, this method stands out, which measures the evolution in the rate of multipliers in the company. These are the professionals who feel encouraged to share knowledge with colleagues within the company
This is an interesting result for some organizations, since the diffusion of knowledge internally reduces training costs.
In addition, when an employee is able to pass on their knowledge, they expand the training and development capacity of the teams, without being tied to the area’s budget.
Understand more about how to optimize your corporate training with internal multipliers .
7- Behavior
This is one of the examples of training indicators that focus on employee behavior. This is the case of a group of leaders who participate in a course on people management and, some time later, the company compares the employee evaluations on them (in the Climate Survey, for example), before and after the training.
The objective is to check if there has been any evolution in the individual behavior of the leaders.
8- Cost per capita
Usually the company wants to know how much it is investing in training and development for each employee.
In this case, you can choose to add only the direct costs (speakers, equipment, etc.) or also include all indirect expenses (employee downtime, for example).
The formula for calculating the per capita cost of training is as follows: total amount invested in training / total number of participating professionals x 100.
9- Return on Investment
This is the metric most desired by CEOs, however, it is the least used. In 2017, only 2% of trainings used this resource, mainly due to its measurement complexity.
When calculating the Return on Investment (ROI) on the amount invested in training, the company is evaluating whether its actions have brought good financial results. ROI is calculated by dividing the results obtained with the training (such as a cost reduction that the company obtained or an increase in sales) by the cost of the training.
To measure the ROI of a training, you must include all expenses (speakers, hours of work stopped by employees, costs for renting room / food, equipment, etc.) and observe the variation of the company’s results before and after the application of the training.
There are several methodologies for generating a training ROI. This task is a little less difficult in companies that have a well-defined job and job description, thus being able to accurately track the results of each professional or team.
See more information about what it is and how to calculate ROI in training and development .
Technology in your favor
Great that you invest in the training and development of your employees. This is the right way. And even better because, now, you have the examples of training indicators at hand to assess what works and what doesn’t within your goals.How about using technology to make the T&D process more agile and easy for the company and employees? Here, technology has a significant weight. There are apps that can be your allies and Eadbox is among the best.
