Struggling to Measure Training ROI: How Can We Make Soft Skills Stick and Show Results?

Challenges in Measuring Training Effectiveness

I am failing again and again in the pursuit of measuring the effectiveness of trainings, especially soft skill trainings. The organization annually spends a great amount of money on trainings, but when it comes to measuring Training ROI, I have not received a proper, useful response from anyone in my circle.

Difficulties in Tracking Training Effectiveness

I am facing great difficulties in tracking the training's effectiveness myself. It seems possible theoretically, but practically, it looks impossible. What I am trying to do is to include the elements of soft skill training in the daily or weekly tasks of the employees so that they could remember it for a long time. After a few weeks, it will become a part of their life.

Example: Incorporating Positivity in Daily Routine

For example, if I am conducting training on the Power of Positivity, I would recommend the managers to ask their team to sit down together on a tea break for 15 minutes every day or every week. Each day, one team member would tell a real-time story of their own where remaining positive helped them tackle a difficult situation, and the cycle would keep on moving.

Kindly tell me what's your opinion on this or if there is a better way to make training effective, measurable, and long-lasting.

I appreciate your concern about measuring training effectiveness. However, we need a little more information.

Understanding Your Industry

What is the nature of your industry? What is your finished product? What is your designation? Do you work in the training department, and if yes, do you conduct training or get it done by someone else?

Types of Training Programmes

What types of training programmes do you conduct? What is the breakdown of those programmes? You have expressed your concern because you could not measure the training effectiveness of the soft skills training. Were you able to measure the effectiveness of the other training? If yes, what are those, how did you measure it, and what were the parameters of the measurement?

The outcome of the training programme, whether soft skills or otherwise, should result in:

a) Increase in customer satisfaction (internal or external)
b) Increase or decrease of some ratio
c) Reduction in consumption of resources
d) Reduction of the process turnaround time of some process

What target did you set for yourself to achieve any of the above goals? For how many training programmes did you achieve this goal, and for how many did you not?

Measuring Productivity

By the way, how do you measure the productivity of the organisation or operations department? Do you measure the following:

e) Cost of Quality (COQ) and Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ)
f) Measurement of product yield and productivity
g) Measurement of the product cost
h) Quality – Productivity Ratio

When you start conducting training on the above, you do not have to bother about soft skills training.

About Positive Thinking

Positive thinking is good, but beyond a point, it does not work. It is a very basic thing. If the company’s culture is result-oriented, then whether employees think positively or negatively does not matter as they will be forced to think positively; otherwise, results cannot be achieved.

Earlier, I have given a comprehensive reply on employee training. You may click the following link to refer to it:

https://www.citehr.com/523786-traini...ml#post2222367

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar
[Phone Number Removed For Privacy-Reasons]

Measuring Training Effectiveness

Two data points are required to measure effectiveness. Once you have identified the target participants, take pre-training 360-degree feedback from their Line Manager, Peers, and Customers (people with whom they are continuously interacting). This is not a simple task, and many trainers or training role-holders skip this step. However, this exercise will help you prepare your initial data point, i.e., where the training participants stand before attending the program.

Upon completion of the training program, and after a considerable time gap, say after 3-6 months (the minimum time required to exhibit applications of learning), take 360-degree feedback again from the same people from whom you took the initial feedback. This will give you the second data point, i.e., changes in their behavior or improved ways of doing things. The difference between these two data points will show the effectiveness of your training programs.

As you mentioned, it is indeed challenging to measure training effectiveness, and it is not necessary to measure effectiveness for all training programs.

Dear Ningthoujam I,

You have provided your insights on measuring the effectiveness of training. Have you implemented what you wrote, and if so, could you please provide an example? An example would resonate better with the readers of this post.

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

Hi, I would like to design a learning effectiveness feedback form to evaluate the training effectiveness on employees. Additionally, I would like to design a feedback or observation form for managers to gather feedback from both parties.

For example, if someone has completed training on quality, we want to evaluate their productivity after 6 months by capturing learning effectiveness—how many skills were useful or used that the employee learned in training.

Can anyone help me with this?

Regards,
Jitesh Siddhu