Keeping your accountant happy or Return on Investment and How to Measure It.

Keeping your accountant happy or Return on Investment and How to Measure It - Why would you want to measure the return on investment (ROI) from attending a training course?

Why evaluate training? Let's summarise the main arguments for better evaluation of training:

1. To validate training as a business tool Training is one of many actions that an organisation can take to improve its performance and profitability. Only if training is properly evaluated can it be compared to these other methods and expect, therefore, to be selected either in preference to or in combination with other methods.
2. To justify the costs incurred in training We all know that when money is tight, training budgets are amongst the first to be sacrificed. Only by thorough, quantitative analysis can training departments make the case necessary to resist these cuts.
3. To help in selecting training methods These days there are many alternative approaches available to training departments, including a variety of classroom, on-job and self-study methods. Using comparative evaluation techniques, organisations can make rational decisions about the methods to employ.

Validation

Does training work basically. If not why are you spending money doing it? This goes hand in hand with Part 1 of this series on looking at the Outputs AND Outcomes from attending a training event. If you don't really bother then all you are doing is throwing your money down the drain; and speaking as a self-employed person I wish I had money to through down the drain instead of on a new iMac (Or Mac Pro), camera bodies, lenses, lighting kit etc.  For me to spend money on training it HAS to have a return. That's business 101.

Justify the Costs

It's not just the cost of the training you need to think about.  It's about the travel, accommodation, subsistence costs. It's the potential costs lost from paid work etc.  The workshop may only cost £500, but when you add in travel, potential accommodation & subsistence it can quickly add up to over £1k.  Add in flights for WPPI etc and you're looking at £2k - £2.5k total costs.

To help in selecting training methods

This, to me, is really important.  I'm an activist learner.  I learn best by doing.  It's a complete waste of time and money for me to attend a seminar, lecture etc.  I'd get nothing from it but frustrated boredom.  So by attending workshops by different people delivered in different ways you get a feel for what works for you and what doesn't work for you.  Saying that even a lecture can be fun and engaging if the trainer knows how to deliver effectively and professionally!

Keeping your accountant happy or Return on Investment and How to Measure It.

There is a little difference here between delivering a training course and attending one. I'll quickly look at delivering first to give you an idea of what you should look out for when attending! The basic stuff a trainer should do to measure the effectiveness of his or her training is to follow the Kirkpatrick Model of Evaluation: The four levels of Kirkpatrick's evaluation model essentially measure:

1. the reaction of student - what they thought and felt about the training
2. learning - the resulting increase in knowledge or capability
3. behaviour - the extent of behaviour and capability improvement and implementation/application
4. results - the effects on the business or environment resulting from the trainee's performance

All these measures are recommended for full and meaningful evaluation of learning in organisations, although their application broadly increases in complexity, and usually cost, through the levels from level 1-4.

1. Reaction.  Generally, these will be known as "Happy Sheets".  the sheets you complete at the end of the workshop and that give feedback to the trainer about the trainer and the content, material etc.  This is the BASIC stuff that should be done.  Of ALL the photography training I've attended I've never been asked to complete one of these. Ever. That is saying something.
2. Learning.  Pre and Post quizzes and tests as well as ongoing mid-workshop tests to check retention, knowledge transfer etc,  Again I've NEVER had this done in any photography training.
3. Behaviour.  Observation over time on the behaviour change of the individual.  Hard to do, but not impossible, for the self-employed person.  Guess what - yup, never ben asked to even think about this let alone mention it on a training course1
4. Results.  What has really changed from attending the workshop?  What part of my business is better, more streamlined etc?  How has my own behaviour changed?  Again, hard but not impossible to do.  Again I've never been asked to think about this on any photography course.

(Note - when I say "any photography course" I mean as a civilian.  The Military photography course had all of these included!) The above are the real basics of ANY training event, photography or not.  If you are running workshops of any kind - make sure you get trained in how to train people effectively. (And yes, I do run Train the Trainer workshops so if you are really interested drop me a line!)