I've just been looking through some of the headline findings of the CIPD's annual Learning and Development Survey 2011 (Training Zone covered the key findings in the article In-house training: Still the way forward).

The following points on evaluation looked interesting:

• One in six organisations report that they do not fully evaluate learning.
• Post-course evaluations or ‘happy sheets’ are by far the most commonly used method of evaluating learning and development (93%), followed by the use of stories and testimonies of individuals to evaluate learning (56%).
• Half of organisations (49%) frequently assess the likelihood that individuals or teams will benefit from learning interventions before embarking on them.
• Half of organisations (50%) frequently discuss the progress of individual learning interventions at appraisal and performance reviews.

 
In particular I thought the fact that only 49% of organistions assess the likelihood individuals and teams will benefit from the training they are due to participate in alarming. And by way of follow-up only 50% of organisations talk to particpants about progress.

Clearly this is not news, as studies show there are real problems around which methodologies to use to measure the value of training. But should that stop organisations from assessing whether training will be of benefit to individuals and marking progess post-training?