Question
Barbara Maddock, the Director of Information Technology, stopped you on your way to lunch to inquire about ways to evaluate some training. She is planning some training in the area of providing better customer service in the technical support center. You had to rush off to a meeting, so you told her that you would send her a memo outlining some ways to evaluate the training.
Write a brief memo explaining the major concepts of evaluating and validating training to the Barbara Maddock, the Director of Information Technology.
Be sure to explain the concepts in such a way that someone without a comprehensive background in training will understand the ideas and be able to apply them. (If you must use training jargon, be sure to provide an explanation).
Address the 4 levels of evaluation
Answer
Training, Evaluation and Validation
Memo
To: Barbara Maddock, Director of Information Technology
From
Cc: Customer care team, Information Technology Team
Date: September 16, 2016
Ref: Major concepts of evaluating and validating training
As I had earlier agreed to help you out on the concepts of evaluating and validating training, I believe that this memo will be of help. I am going to give you a step by step guideline which when followed and implemented to the latter your team will be able to provide better customer care service in your technical support center. Five levels are used to validate training: reaction, learning, job behavior, organization and ultimate level. These are the key areas which when used one can gauge the effectiveness of training.
Trainee’s reaction will be a good indicator of the success of the training; however, the reactions will vary from trainee to trainee depending on the method of training adopted and the content, the location in which the training took place and the expectation of the trainee. You can use questionnaires to find out what the trainees felt about the whole process, use rating scales or conduct interviews and formal discussions, which are always a good platform since you can learn a lot by the face-to-face interaction.
It would be a great loss if learning has not taken place after the training so it is important to ensure that the employees have acquired the intended skills, which can be evaluated through performance. Communicate the same to the employees prior to the training so that they know what is expected of them after the training ends and incorporate the same to their job to avoid deterioration. After training, it is vital for the skills and knowledge acquisition to be reflected in the organization through appropriate changes in job behavior and that the skills are exhibited in the specific duties of the trainees in their job. (Hamblin .A., 1970)
The effectiveness of the training will be translated to the benefits that the organization will acquire at the end, and measured through the overall profit of the organization. Some of the immediate effects that can be indicators of effectiveness of the training are:
Job satisfaction- If your trainees end up being satisfied with their job then it will be translated to happy customers since they will be treated with utmost care.
Quality and quantity of product – This will also improve since the trainees will understand what exactly the customers want and translate that to the products that are satisfactory to their demand.
Absenteeism- The rate at which employees will be missing to come to work will tremendously reduce, as they will have a clear view of what is expected of them in ensuring that the customers’ needs are meet.
The ultimate level is judged through financial improvement such as improved turnover. However, it is always difficult to measure this as it requires a lot of data collection and analysis. As the director of information technology it is your duty to ensure that the training skills are maintained and if need be request for a refresher training which will remind the trainees on what they had previously been thought and to also seek clarification on the areas that they have found difficulty during the implementation process.
Reference
Hamblin A. C. (1970). Evaluation of Training. Industrial Training International, 5(3): 12-33.
