Success evaluation is an important topic for HR professionals and trainers; after all, your clients expect performance for their money. How can I therefore provide my supervisors with evidence of the success of my training measures? Donald Kirkpatrick developed a 4-level model that helps you with this.

It is important for companies to know that the paid training actually achieves the desired effect. After all, employees should develop relevant professional skills, abilities, and knowledge through these measures that bring long-term benefits to the company. As early as the late 1950s, the economist Donald Kirkpatrick developed a corresponding evaluation model to measure training programs to substantiate the benefits.

This model can be applied to various training measures: Especially with predominantly digital trainings, you as the responsible party must know the value of training and communicate it clearly. We will show you which four levels you should consider in measuring the success of your training measures:

An Overview of the Kirkpatrick Model

The Four Levels of Success Evaluation in the Kirkpatrick Model

According to Kirkpatrick, you start creating your model at the last level - the results. After all, the achieved goals are particularly interesting for companies. From there, you work your way back to the participants. You should ask yourself the following questions based on the new Kirkpatrick model at the respective levels:

4. Results: What benefits does your client or your company have?

At the top of the success measurement is your client's business success. The Results level asks to what extent the intended outcomes of the training have been achieved. And how these contribute to the corporate goals. The benefit for the entire company is the focus here, not the development of an individual participant.

The goal does not always have to be completely fulfilled. Even small developments and nudges from employees towards the company goal are crucial. After all, it can already be a significant success if employee behaviors develop in the right direction, leading to long-term achievement of goals.

3. Behavior: What learnings are your participants applying in their everyday work?

This level examines how your training participants ultimately apply what they've learned in the workplace. The question arises whether the behavior of your participants has changed after the training.

Factors that lead to a change in behavior also play an important role. These should, of course, be reinforced so that the participants can apply what they've learned long-term in their daily work. Ideally, you as the training coordinator should have conversations with participants and supervisors to highlight these factors and the associated changes.

2. Learning: What have your participants learned in the training?

The learning process is examined at the second level. The question arises whether the knowledge, skills, and abilities of your participants have improved.

This involves not only asking about the competencies acquired by your participants; even small progress is crucial. After all, it also counts that your participants integrate the new knowledge into their work life and attempt to implement it. Changes may also manifest through increased commitment to the employer, benefiting the company as well.

1. Reaction: How did your participants like the training?

At the Reaction level, the participants are asked how they liked your training. Not only the content-related topics such as the variety of methods, the completeness of the training, or the relevance of the topic are considered. The framework conditions also play an important role in the satisfaction with your measure.

If participants are dissatisfied, learning motivation decreases, and your training success also declines. You can see how your methods and measures are received by the participants. Ask them directly what they like or dislike and implement this input for the next training session.

The four levels according to Kirkpatrick help you to align the successes and learning progress of the participants with corporate goals. At the same time, you receive direct feedback on the benefits of your measure. Additionally, you can immediately see where there is room for improvement through the feedback from your participants and take your own advantage from it. The model is just one of many ways to measure the success of training and improve it in the long term.