How to implement training evaluation form  

Are your employee training programs effective? How can you even tell? You need to know what is working (and what isn’t) so that you can design and develop training and development programs that meet the needs of your employees and the organization. Training evaluation form helps businesses do just that.

Training evaluation is a structural process to analyze the effects of a training program and to assess its effectiveness. It is also used to gain feedback on how to improve a training program. It measures whether a training program meets the objectives as to why it was created. And in that helps a training evaluation form. In order to ensure that all your employees understand the training program, you deploy a training evaluation form. A training evaluation form would look at this program holistically, and evaluate it based on the business needs, performance, learning needs, impact of training, and finally, the return on investment.

Follow these steps:

Let’s discuss this in detail.

As an L&D professional, you aim to align your training and development programs with the business’s goals, but to do that, you need to identify them first. You need to join stakeholders, upper management, and even the employees and brainstorm ideas about where the organization is headed, where is the knowledge gap and what they want to achieve through the learning program.

From workforce needs to budget, L&D professionals need to be aware of every detail to craft the ideal training evaluation form for the organization. This process will also help stakeholders understand their business better, knowing its dreams, strengths, and weaknesses as they move forward. Defining goals leads to more purposeful courses that actively contribute to business success.

This involves breaking down the above goals into the steps needed to achieve them. These steps should be practical and easy to follow, indicating actions rather than just pieces of knowledge. Additionally, these performance objectives should be reasonable and achievable, allowing your team to track their progress and stay motivated throughout the process. As an L&D professional, while creating training evaluation forms your aim should be aligning these performance objectives with your training outcomes.

Depending on your purpose and objectives, you may want to evaluate your training at different levels and use different types of evaluation. The most common way to go for training evaluation is the Kirkpatrick model. The Kirkpatrick training evaluation model is a structural method for evaluating the effectiveness of training and development programs. It has four levels of training evaluation: reaction, learning, behavior, and results.

Each hierarchal level of this model represents a more particular measure of the effectiveness of a training and learning program. Like, you may use a survey or a quiz to measure the reaction and learning levels, respectively, but you may need to observe or interview the learners to measure the behavior and results levels. What’s more? You may want to use formative or summative evaluation, or both, to assess the training quality and impact at different stages of the learning process.

The format and layout of your training evaluation form should be user-friendly, attractive, and consistent. You need to use a logical and coherent structure. Your training evaluation form should follow a clear sequence and hierarchy of questions and indicators. You should also use headings, subheadings, labels, and instructions as needed to guide the respondents and facilitate their comprehension. You should also see the length, design, and accessibility of your training evaluation form, and ensure that it is easy to read, complete, and submit.

In this stage, you need to understand what employees truly need to perform better. The questions and indicators that you include in your training evaluation form should be aligned with your purpose, objectives, and levels of evaluation. You can avoid vague, ambiguous, or leading questions that may confuse or bias the respondents. You need to also use appropriate scales, formats, and options to elicit meaningful and accurate responses. Like you can add scales, open-ended questions, multiple-choice questions, or rating scales, depending on the type and level of data you want to collect. One great tip is to only provide the information that is necessary to complete each activity.

Previously, training programs were designed in a one-size-fits-all format, but the trend has changed over the years. Now, there are various tools available that can be used to create more customized and effective training experiences. One of the most effective ways to use technology for training and learning evaluation is to use platforms that offer a variety of techniques in regards to developing surveys to track the progress of the training program, deliver feedback and measure its usefulness. Many platforms also offer gamification features that make training more fun and engaging.

Now, as already mentioned, you can use Kirkpatrick’s model. Let’s see how!

The first stage is the reaction. It shows how favorably the learners have responded to the training. It examines the degree to which employees enjoyed and engaged with the content of training. During this level, L&D professionals can glean how the intended employees received the program. By evaluating in this level you can determine whether content delivery needs to be adjusted. One can send a survey immediately following the training program to learn what the employees think about the training program. Consider asking questions like the following:

• Was the module engaging?
• Did you feel the training was worthy of your time?
• Can you use the skills you learned in your job?
• Did you enjoy the training’s approach or style?
• What aspects of upcoming training would you wish to alter or enhance?

You can also track participation and completion rates as form of feedback at this stage.

At the evaluating level, the focus moves to the new knowledge that results from the training. Here you evaluate exactly what the employees learned (or didn’t learn) in the training program. To do this, you should test your employees before and after the training to measure the training progress. You can use skills-based training evaluations or interviews to record your findings. Unlike simple or subjective reactions to the training, during this stage, you will want to measure specific outcomes.

At this level, the focus is now on the transfer of knowledge. It gauges whether your training has impacted behavior. In other words, are your employees applying what they learned? Evaluation at this level takes place after 3-6 months training through observation of change in job behavior. The primary tool for evaluation at this level is mostly observation. To measure behavior, you can conduct interviews, record the observations, and provide opportunities in the form of projects to use the skills they just learned. Apart from the observation, you can also use short questionnaires, open ended question 360 feedback. Also, remember, if you find there hasn’t been a change in employee behavior doesn’t indicate the training wasn’t successful.

At this stage, you need to evaluate how the behavioral changes impacted the organization and whether the investment in employee training resulted in a good return on investment (ROI). The outcomes depend on the training and learning program’s goal. L&D professionals appraise the targeted outcomes as a result of the training. This level of evaluation therefore determines whether the program achieved its intended goals during training.

However, when you identify the training outcomes and metrics of success you’re aiming for in your training program, you can design more effective programs with measurable results.