James Barret

Majority of the business organisations spend a large amount of time and their resources in framing talent acquisition strategies. But the more essential factor is retaining talent. In current era of business dynamics, millennials are ready to seize the army of workers, and to grow and survive, employers not just require the most appropriate for the role, but they also require persons who remain involved, loyal and pleased to the enterprise.

Employees once trained are expected to resign when they get better opportunities. Some reasons due to which employees shift to the opportunity are bad work-life balance, insufficient salary, inadequacy of vocational training. Training cannot stop this rate of attrition, but can certainly monitor and control it to certain degree. There should be presence of technical test teamin every organisation, which can analyse whenever there is need for training the employees in any subject matter.

Training programmes require substantial investment with respect to time and funds. Thus, assessing the return on investment of training and development programmes becomes very significant which is called as Training Effectiveness. The initial step is determining who, why and in which field one requires training.

In this rapid changing world, there is a new invention every single day. The innovation is one of the main causes which results in need for upgradation of skills of employees for which organisations have to conduct and provide training to their employees and it provides employees with a chance to increase their basic understanding. If an organisation thinks that training is costly, then it doesn’t know what ignorance costs. Most of the organisations view training as an expense, not as an investment. Upgrading employees skill helps in meeting the business objectives.

Identifying Trainingneed: The foremost step is to recognise the training need and Who, why and what to train.

• Why training: As all of us are not perfect. Majority of employees lack in knowledge or skills for which they require to be trained. Periodic evaluations reflecting deficiencies can help in finding the need of training.
• Who requires training: Not all of the employees require training, not all of the employees require same level and type of training. The evaluations and appraisals helps in forming a report of employees who require to be trained.
• What to train: An employee having a good knowledge of the product but lacks presentation skills will not be able to satisfy the need of an enterprise. Administrators should have clear understanding about, what training should be all about and which skills are required by the respective employee.

Tools that companies utilize to identify who, why and what to train are:

Assessment and Development Centres: It is an effective way to determine the training requirement through adventure sports for the purpose of judging competency.

Virtual Development Centres: It is an automatic online version of assessment and evaluation centre which provides an overview to select anmethod on the grounds of capabilities anticipated for the role.

The process of assessing the Training Effectiveness is:

• Personal ability
• Personal characteristics
• Demonstrated behaviours
• Functional capability/knowledge

The advantage of this training effectiveness procedure is that it is completely practical, suitable and easy. It does not require any particular setup apart from the computers and internet connection. The evaluation content can be personalised according to the company’s competence. It is very economical and make results on its own.

Business organisations can combine the approach of offline tests with online evaluations.

Theory tests: Many organisations have faith in taking theoretical tests to train their employees. As we can learn more soundly with the help of empirical techniques. The better option to theoretical assessment can have more impact.

Personalized Evaluations: Many organisations think that extremely personalized assessments which are entirely organisation-directed are more feasible to their needs of evaluation. In this digital era, everybody favours online evaluations over the pen and paper.

These extensive evaluations provide an overview of work-oriented characteristics of an employee. These evaluations are arranged and created in accordance with the distinct job roles. Its purpose is to assist the candidates to make use of their strengths and pay attention to their field of development. A study has shown that the organisations which conducts employee training programmes earn 22% more profit margins than the organisations who don’t.

Measuring Training Effectiveness

An organisation will never want to waste its resources, time and money on training if it does not yield good results. The questions to answer are:

• Did training provided a long term and visible impact on employees?
• How strong was the training in assisting candidates to apply the learned skills?
• Can candidates apply the skills that they have learned and can improve their performance in organisation?

1. Preliminary Evaluation: Evaluation is done to make a report and have an overview of skills and expertise of candidates over the crucial capabilities. The reports are essential as the right match among the employees to be trained and the abilities to be worked on are to be developed. The preliminary evaluation helps in anticipating where the employee lacks in the skill in accordance with the organisation’s objectives.
2. Effective Training: After identifying the training requirement and pre-evaluation, the next stage is to provide training. The training can be provided as classroom training, interactional methods like practical cases, panel discussions, or through online seminars or learning programmes.
3. Post-Evaluation: After conducting the training program, it is essential to assess the effectiveness of it. There are some demonstrated approaches to assess the effectiveness of training. The Kirk-Patrick Model can help in assessing the effectiveness of training.

Kirk-Patrick Model

1. Reaction: It helps in assessing how candidates have reacted to the training program through the feedback and questionnaires.
2. Learning: It evaluates about what candidates have learned and gained from the training through the tests conducted after the training.

• Behaviour: It evaluates the behaviour or reaction of employees and how it has influenced their performance at work.

1. Results: It evaluated and records the behaviour of employees before and after the training by assessing the employee retention rate, high morale and improved production.

If training is conducted well with a good feedback system, it assists in achieving the organisation’s objectives with the skilled and well-versed employees.