ROI - what we want is proof!

Return on investment in training isn't as easy to measure as, say, an advertising campaign. A well managed ad campaign can show you how many enquiries, conversion to sales, and resulting revenue versus investment. But how do you do that with training?

We know, almost instinctively, that training has a payoff: we see improved motivation, productivity, higher retention rates and skills improvement, but how can you nail it down to what the folks at the very top really want to hear, how much money is it making/saving?

The guru of training evaluation is Donald Kirkpatrick, and there's a great interview with him on Training Zone this month. Kirkpatrick's model for evaluation is a five stage approach - and what struck me particularly about what he said was his comment:

"If your jury (those who hold the budget) is not asking for more evidence now, they will be and you better be ready with some evidence from levels three and four."

In other words, the good old 'happy sheets' are not enough - and nor should they be in times when training budgets are severely pressed! We have a couple of books on our site about evaluation - the Evaluation Pocketbook, a brief but thorough guide to basic evaluation, and the Return on Investment in Training and Performance Improvement Programs. That's quite a detailed look at HR and training evaluation - not just about what you do after the course, but also techniques for converting both hard and soft data to monetary values. And of course Donald has his own book too.

Now is probably a good time to really investigate how you can show Return on Investment in training - as Donald says, if they aren't asking the questions now - then the budget holders very soon will be. And, if like many, they are cutting the training budget, it's a great way of showing that it really does affect the bottom line.