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CTDO Magazine

The Challenge of Meaningful Program Evaluation

Thursday, September 15, 2016

StateofTD2
With the average organization spending almost 8 percent of profit on employee learning programs in 2014 (according to the Association for Talent Development's 2015 State of the Industry report), today's talent development leaders are all too aware of the need to measure the business impact of this hefty investment in training. Ideally, evaluation efforts help inform improvements in the effectiveness of learning programs and the success of the business as a whole.

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However, launching evaluation programs that accomplish these objectives often proves to be a daunting challenge for organizations. In fact, 44 percent of the 199 talent development professionals surveyed by ATD in its new research report Evaluating Learning: Getting to Measurements That Matter thought their evaluation efforts were helping greatly with reaching organizational learning goals. An even smaller 36 percent thought their efforts were helping to a large extent with meeting their employer's business goals.

Not surprising, ATD found that the 35 percent of organizations that evaluated the business impact of any learning programs saw considerably higher evaluation effectiveness than those that did not. Indeed, moving beyond just participant smile sheets or quizzes and taking a look at actual business outcomes, such as customer satisfaction, sales, or profitability, pays off for organizations.

So what's preventing organizations from conducting rigorous, results-focused evaluations? Among the major roadblocks identified by participants were an inability to isolate the impact of training on results, the talent development function's lack of access to the necessary data (for example, financial and sales data), and the cost of tools and staff time. One way to get around these barriers may be for talent development leaders to identify a critical business metric needing improvement first, design a learning program around improving it, and then measure again. Such a strategy also may encourage other departments to partner with the talent development function before the program is launched and share data and evaluation resources.

Another reason to carefully plan ahead when designing evaluation programs is the shortage of talent development professionals with the skills needed to conduct rigorous evaluation efforts in today's job market. The majority of those surveyed found it difficult to attract qualified staff. Thus, talent development leaders should consider investing in the evaluation skills, knowledge, and capabilities of themselves and their teams.

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Read more from CTDO magazine: Essential talent development content for C-suite leaders.

About the Author

The Association for Talent Development (ATD) is a professional membership organization supporting those who develop the knowledge and skills of employees in organizations around the world. The ATD Staff, along with a worldwide network of volunteers work to empower professionals to develop talent in the workplace.

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