Firms fail to measure the impact of training

Citation

(2004), "Firms fail to measure the impact of training", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 36 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/ict.2004.03736eab.004

Firms fail to measure the impact of training

Firms fail to measure the impact of training

Some 70 per cent of organizations have no formal measurement practices to assess the impact of training employees on the performance of their business, according to a survey entitled “Learning Analytics Best Practices 2004”.

The survey also reveals that only half of organizations evaluate the impact of training on job performance, and 62 per cent compare their learning with external benchmarks. Most companies are only using end-of-course surveys that measure delegate satisfaction. Human resources dedicated to learning analytics spend only 20 per cent of their time actually performing data analysis, with the remainder spent on collecting, storing and processing data.

Rob Clarke, Global Learning Alliance marketing director, commented: “In the past 12 months, a tidal wave of information has been generated on the need for, and power of, learning analytics, yet today as few as 30 per cent of organizations actually have a system in place to assess the impact of training on their business results. Fewer still are considering the financial payback on training investments, despite the demands of stakeholders for their training teams to provide measurements that show something about the actual value being delivered”.

The survey of training managers also identifies best practices, found across the world, within organizations that have successfully implemented learning-analytics processes.

Rob Clarke continued: “The report shows that, still today, too little is being done by training managers to deliver the kind of information needed to make decisions about the most effective ways to develop their organization's human capital”.

The complete survey is available from Global Learning Alliance, price: 295+VAT.