The Hindu Business Line : The futility of post-training evaluation sessions

Post-training evaluation, typically at the end of the class-room session, is like choosing to inspect products only at the factory gate before being shipped to customers — too little and too late. If you want a return on your training investment you need to redefine the entire approach to training. This is as relevant to long-term strategic learning and development initiatives as it is to simple knowledge and skill-building programmes. As a result of the rather short-sighted approach to evaluation, the entire onus of learning gets shifted from the participant to the trainer.

The training programme has come to a close. Participants are closing their files and getting ready to leave. Some have flights to catch and others have much postponed calls to take on their mobiles.

Amidst all this rush, the training coordinator distributes a sheet of paper for the participants to complete. Participants grudgingly comply with what they know is a corporate requirement — post-training feedback and evaluation. Depending on who the trainer is and how the day went, he or she is enthusiastic, eager, indifferent or anxious about what comes out of those forms.

The point of this article is simple — undertaking post-training evaluation, typically at the end of the class room session is like choosing to inspect your products only at the factory gate before being shipped to customers — too little and too late.

Redefine the approach

If you want a return on your training investment you need to redefine the entire approach to training.

This is as relevant to long-term strategic learning and development initiatives as it is to simple knowledge and skill-building programmes.

Before defining the new paradigm, let us understand why the practice of post-training evaluation (they are also called smile sheets) exists in the first place:

For many organisations, maintaining training records is part of the quality system requirements.

Therefore, irrespective of the nature of the programme, the same form is distributed, collected, analysed and filed, so that it can be produced as documentary evidence.

Many training administrators and managers do this because they do not know of any better way. Having spent the money, they rely on a good post-training score to satisfy themselves and their managers that the investment was worth the while.

To that end they try and change the trainer, the venue or the course material, hoping that one of these will help improve the scores.

For the new generation of managers obsessed with metrics, a numerical score seems a reliable means of evaluation, never mind the validity of the numbers itself.

For most others who see the conduct of training programmes as a "tick in the box" and a goal to be achieved, the form filling at the end of the programme seems the easiest thing to do, given that they need to move on to the next programme.

As a result of this rather short-sighted approach to evaluation, the entire onus of learning gets shifted from the participant to the trainer. Participants seem to be absolved of their responsibility to learn if the trainer gets a bad score.

The other natural consequence is the excessive focus and emphasis on what happens in the class-room and virtually no focus on what happens before or after that. It also puts an enormous pressure on the trainer to do what is popular and entertaining rather than do things that will lead to change and reflection, especially if the process is painful.

To secure effectiveness, training managers need to:

Understand the science of how adults learning

Learn the science of designing for quality.

The first step to design for quality is to redefine the paradigm. A class-room session in my mind is only one of the several steps in the entire process. As depicted in the diagram, I see two distinct phases:

The discovery and design phase

This phase starts right from the understanding of needs from the business. If the needs are ill-defined, no trainer in the world can help the training manager. It would be useful to involve the trainer or facilitator early in the intervention so that he or she has a role to play in the design of the intervention. Often, the venue and dates are fixed before the facilitator is chosen and the design is finalised.

Most important in this phase is the involvement of the sponsoring manager. By deciding to sponsor his team member to attend a programme, the sponsoring manager is actually making to a commitment to champion his learning.

This commitment is not fulfilled by merely releasing him for the days of training. The manager needs to establish the learning expectations and also agree on the back home application opportunities. The seriousness of the supervising manager determines the seriousness of the participants.

Sometimes, managers view training as motivation, a reward for a job well done. At other times, managers view training as a broad-spectrum antibiotic. They hope that something good will come of it. Similarly, the participant needs to invest in understanding the programme, reading the pre-course materials and get mentally prepared for the journey. They need to be clear about their learning goals.

The learning and application phase

This phase needs to go well beyond the class room and cover actual application on the job, frequent and formal reviews and guidance through this practice process.

Learning a new skill and not having the opportunity to apply it is as frustrating as having a new job and not knowing how to do it. Both are likely to lead to attrition!

All of this obviously means a lot of application of mind and huge effort for the training manager. It has been my personal experience that it pays to do it this way. Of course, if you as the training manager are in a hurry, please continue to rely on the smile sheets. I would however request that you add at least one more item to the sheet — the number of phone calls that the participant took and the mails he responded to during the programme! That way you can measure the participant's communication effectiveness in addition to training effectiveness!

(The author is the founder and CEO of totus consulting, a strategic HR consulting firm that designs and implements HR systems and process for organisations across diverse industries. He can be reached at ganesh@totusconsulting.com)

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