After every employee training, the crucial question arises: "Was the measure successful?" – Answering this question regularly poses challenges for HR managers. Three key questions will help you measure the success of training sessions in the future.
Whether it's soft skills, digital competencies, or technical expertise: knowledge is the most important resource for successful companies. However, measuring the success of employee training is not an easy task. Often, you cannot simply quantify the results of a training session: How do you measure higher motivation, better communication, or subtle behavioral changes in your employees? I think you know the problem.
Various tools can help you measure the success of your employee training: surveys, tests, and one-on-one meetings are just a few examples. The art is to use these tools strategically – while also asking the right questions for yourself, your employees, and your company.
Three Questions
The following three key questions will help you measure the success of employee training more easily in the future:
Are employees learning the right things?
Is the learning having positive effects in the workplace?
What measurable impacts does this training have?
In the following, I will explain to you why exactly these three questions are so important – and what tools you can use to answer them.
Measure everything that can be measured, and make measurable everything that cannot be measured. (Archimedes)
Question 1: Are employees learning the right things in training?
What should employees actually learn? The answer is often "Everything that is explained in the training." However, this is far too vague and therefore hard to measure.
A classic knowledge test on the last day of training only says something about the short-term memory of your employees. You learn nothing about which content will truly be applied in the long run. At worst, only the nice trainer or the good lunch is remembered – and the valuable tips for more productive work are quickly forgotten.
A Happy Sheet cannot answer this question either. Of course, it's desirable for employees to find the training valuable or motivating. However, this emotional snapshot is still no guarantee of a long-term change.
Suitable Tools:
To measure the content-related success of training, a long-term review of what has been learned is necessary. Particularly, behavioral changes in your employees often only become apparent after weeks or even months. To truly see changes, a three-step approach has proven effective:
1. Assessment of the current state before the employee training:
What? – Current knowledge level of the employees and expectations for the training
How? – Through surveys and questionnaires
2. Assessment of the learning status directly after the employee training:
What? – Important core content and fulfillment of expectations
How? – Through knowledge tests, certificates, and Happy Sheets
3. Assessment of changes in the workplace:
What? – Practical application and internalization of the core content
How? – Through surveys, observations, and employee interviews
Tip: Creating questionnaires is not that easy! In our article series "Asking Right", you will learn how to get the answers you need with the right question types and formulations.
This three-step approach is particularly effective for E-Learnings: You can directly integrate surveys and certificates into the training processes with a good tool and evaluate them online immediately – clearly and without paper chaos.
Question 2: Is learning having positive effects in the workplace?
This question may seem superficial in the context of employee training. After all, employees are primarily supposed to absorb and implement knowledge. And that alone should already have a positive effect on their daily work.
What many HR professionals overlook is that employees often provide much more direct feedback on training through their behavior. The success of training is often not only visible in individual employees. It shows in the entire team, in daily collaboration, and ultimately in the workplace atmosphere. And we all know: A good work atmosphere is important for corporate success!
Some examples of how the effects of training can show up practically in employees' daily lives:
Is the mood in the office better after a communication training?
Are there fewer complaints from subordinate employees after a management training?
Do employees complete certain tasks faster after a time management training?
Are employees less frequently ill after a training on health in the workplace?
Suitable Tools:
Which tools are suitable for you to measure the success of training depends greatly on the topic of the training. For the examples mentioned above, the following tools are recommended:
Observations or regular surveys on workplace atmosphere
One-on-one or team discussions with direct feedback
Measurement of work speed on training-relevant tasks
Analysis of sick days or surveys on individual well-being
This way, you can measure the success of employee training in terms of daily work across various factors. These factors are also essential for the third question:
Question 3: What measurable impacts does the employee training have?
The third question is probably the most important. It concerns the direct Return On Investment (ROI) for the whole company, namely: hard facts.
Many HR professionals tend to avoid metrics regarding continuing education as much as possible – after all, no one likes to hear that their work may have no effect. However, a clear statement based on numbers on whether the investment in this specific training is worthwhile is nonetheless essential. Ultimately, metrics also help you evaluate new employee trainings or improve existing measures.
To avoid misunderstandings: The impacts on individual employees and smaller groups are of course also measurable (see Question 1 and Question 2). These measurements often refer to specially designed questionnaires or self-assessments. Focusing on the entire company, successes are measured based on company-wide metrics.
Suitable Tools for Employee Training:
The success of training is measured by general metrics affecting the success of the entire company. How and where these are gathered varies in every company.
The following metrics may be helpful for you:
Productivity: for example, measured by newly acquired customers or produced goods
Cost savings: for example, measured by employee downtime or error rates
Customer satisfaction: for example, measured by processing times or direct customer surveys
Employee retention: for example, measured by the turnover rate
Hard metrics like these are especially important in the negotiation of training budgets – however, they should not be the only standard used for employee training. Because not always is a connection between training and metric clear.
Conclusion: Measure training success on different levels
All three levels are important for measuring the success of employee training: the individual employee, departments or teams, and the entire company. Therefore, it is crucial to consider all three levels when asking "Was this training successful?" – for example, using the three questions presented above. The task of a good HR developer is ultimately to answer all three key questions with the right tools.
The best tools to measure the success of employee training:
Surveys and Happy Sheets for the employees' subjective perspective.
Questionnaires and tests to verify factual knowledge.
Personal conversations and observation of changes in daily work.
Hard metrics to document all impacts in the corporate context.
We hope this article has helped you and wish you continued success in training your employees!
