Over half (60%) of HR professionals surveyed at the Chartered Institute of Professional Development’s (CIPD) recent HRD 2005 conference admitted to having no specific budget in place for the measurement and evaluation of training initiatives.
These are the findings by research authors, MaST International.
Key analysis:
- Although measurement and evaluation of training do not appear to be at the top of the budgeting agenda internally, when companies pay for external training they make it their priority to evaluate effectiveness. In fact, over half (57%) said they always ask for it as part of the pitch process and a quarter (25%) said they sometimes do.
- Over a third of organisations stated that their main reason for measurement and evaluation is to demonstrate the positive impact of training on the business. Just over a quarter (25%) aimed to allocate training spend more wisely in the future by evaluating and measuring training.
- In spite of this, most organisations only consistently use staff evaluation forms (26%) and anecdotal feedback (21%) to gauge the effectiveness of training on employees, rather than more substantial methods.
James Sena, Head of Client Development at MaST told TrainingZONE: “Our survey shows that despite the acknowledgement that training should be properly evaluated, very little evaluation actually occurs on how training positively impacts people's ability to do their job.
"This is something that is anticipated to change over the coming year. We are finding that an increasing number of organisations are looking for pragmatic evaluation solutions that fit with particular company and employee development needs.”
*For the full report see: www.mast.co.uk
