It’s budget time and again this year, you’re expected to do more with less. But instead of looking at last year’’s budget to figure out what you can cut, why not take time to review what you delivered last year and the resulting impact?
You should be setting learning goals and objectives at the beginning and monitoring how your training is affecting the goals. However, stepping back now, you can probably still find some anecdotal information that will be useful. Armed with past history and a plan to evaluate more effectively, you will be in a much better position to work on your budget and deliver more measurable results in the future.
Here are some key steps to get you started:
Review the corporate strategic plan to see what skills and competencies will be needed to deliver on the key goals. Meet with the various managers to hear how they plan to deliver on these goals and what skills and competencies their people need to execute on their goals. Jointly discuss and identify the gaps they see in their staff in being able to perform and meet these goals. This should give you a sound list of what training and coaching you need to roll out to the business.
Next identify with the managers how the training can and will be applied back on the job. What involvement will the managers commit to in an effort to see the new skills applied and how they will coach, support and hold their staff accountable for the implementation of these new skills?
Construct a plan to involve the trainees before and after training to encourage and support the use of the material. Prior to attending, they should receive a copy of the course outline, have a meeting with their managers and set a minimum of three goals to be attained at the training session.
Arrange for commitment from the managers to schedule these “before” goal setting meetings and to subsequently meet after the training to provide opportunities for the learner to use the new skills and integrate them into their job. Help the managers to find ways to reward (verbal or otherwise) the trainee for using the new skills.
Deliver engaging, relevant material (whether face-to-face or online) to the trainees. Evaluate the session with pertinent questions, not just a “did you like it?” type of evaluation. Help the trainees to execute plans of using the new material, and/or setting new goals around their performance.
Set up meetings after the training to identify how the material is being used, and what if anything is preventing the trainee from using the new skills. If there are internal obstacles to the implementation or use of the new skills, record them and discuss with the appropriate managers how to eliminate or work around them.
Provide material to the managers to help them review or refresh the learning with staff. Ie: give them exercises, case studies to use at staff meetings, content for a lunch and learn, or coaching questions relevant to the training session.
Interview the managers to identify how the training generated impact and delivered higher performance, less conflict, better communication and/or higher revenues. Find as many ways as possible to provide examples of this that are measurable or able to be tracked. Pull all this information together as a report indicating the return on the investment.