The form of evaluation that we undertake is determined by the criteria that we choose or are told to use to measure success:

Direct cost

Direct costs are those costs that are incurred directly as a result of a training programme – external design and development, consultancy fees, travel expenses and so on. If the programme did not take place, these costs would not be incurred. Many organisations only ever take direct costs into consideration when measuring training costs.

Indirect cost

Indirect costs are costs that may or may not be directly associated with a training event, but which would have been incurred anyway, whether or not the training took place. Examples are salaries of the Directors or Managers and the costs of rooms and equipment. Any analysis of the true costs of training will include both direct and indirect costs.

Efficiency

Efficiency is a measure of the amount of learning achieved relative to the amount of effort put in. In practical terms this means the amount of time it takes to complete a piece of training. Efficiency has a direct relation to cost – the more efficient a training method is, the less it will cost.

Performance to schedule

Sometimes with a training programme, ‘time is of the essence’ – the training needs to be completed by a given date if a particular business objective is to be achieved. In these situations, the extent to which a training programme performs to schedule is a critical measure of success.

The extent to which participants mix

A justification often made for training, particularly group events, is that it provides an opportunity for the participants who work in different organizations or departments to meet with each other, share experiences and make contacts. Because this is a valued outcome of training, it needs to be considered when comparing training methods.

Reactions

Reactions are important because, if Managers and Directors react negatively to training courses, they are less likely to transfer what they learned to their work and more likely to give bad reports to their peers.

Learning

Learning, in terms of new or improved skills, knowledge and attitudes, is the primary aim of a training event.The most important aspect of learning is the degree of retention – how much of the learning has stuck after the course is over, this is what you will get with LMI’s Space Repetition Process.

Behavior change

By learning from our leadership management courses this will be reflected in your behavior at work. To assess behavior change requires that the measurements are taken before and after the training.

Performance change

If as a result of our Leadership Management Training Courses you are applying appropriate behaviors at work this will have a positive impact on performance. A wide variety of indicators can be employed to measure the impact of training on performance – business turnover, employee retention levels, numbers of complaints, sales made, and output per hour and so on. It is hard to be sure that it is training that has made the difference without making comparisons to a controlled group – a group of employees who have not been through one of our leadership management programmes.

Return on Investment as a Measure

Return on investment (ROI) is a measure of the monetary benefits obtained by an organisation over a specified time period in return for a given investment in a training programme. Or, looking at it another way, ROI is the extent to which the benefits (outputs) of training exceed the costs (inputs).

ROI can be used both to justify a planned investment and to evaluate the extent to which the desired return was achieved. Normally it will be sufficient to conduct a single ROI analysis for a programme. Sometimes, however, you may wish to conduct a series of analyses in order to evaluate the potential returns from different training methods, or to measure the degree to which results vary across regions, departments or other organisational divisions.

Useful as it is, ROI is not the only evaluation tool you will require. It can not help you to determine:
 

• whether the directors and managers liked the training or not
• how many directors and managers went through the programme
• whether the programme met its timing deadlines
• the extent to which the directors and managers personal objectives were achieved

The process of calculating ROI

To calculate ROI you must first make estimates or obtain measurements of the costs and benefits associated with a training programme.