Training and Development - Evaluation Across It Organizations

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Literature review

Before we go on to the details of the training activities of various IT organizations, we shall define the basics.

Training: Effort initiated by an organization to foster learning among its members. It tends to be narrowly focused and oriented toward short-term performance concerns.

Development: Effort that is oriented more toward broadening an individual’s skills for the future responsibilities.

The Systems Approach to Training and Development

Phase 1: Needs assessment for training. It consists of three parts- organizational, task and person analysis.

• Organizational analysis: An examination of the environment, strategies, and resources of the organization to determine where training emphasis should be placed.

• Task Analysis: The process of determining what the content of a training program should be on the basis of a study of the tasks and duties involved in the job.

• Person Analysis: A determination of the specific individuals who need training.

Phase 2: Designing the training program. Instructional Objectives represent the desired outcomes of a training program (Performance-centered objectives). They also provide a basis for choosing methods

and materials and for selecting the means for assessing whether the instruction will be successful. Trainee readiness and motivation can be created by using positive reinforcement, eliminating threats and punishments, being flexible, have participants set personal goals, designing interesting instructions and break down other physical and psychological obstacles to learning. The principles of learning should include goal setting, individual differences, active practice and repetition, whole versus part learning, masses versus distributed learning, feedback and reinforcement, meaningfulness of presentation and modeling.

Phase 3: Implementing the training. This stage involves taking decisions like nature of training, types of training and organizational extent of training. The various types of training that can be given to employees are On-the-Job Training (OJT), Apprenticeship Training, Cooperative Training, Internships, and Governmental Training, Classroom Instruction, Programmed Instruction, Audiovisual Methods, Computer-based Training and E-Learning and Simulation Method. Special methods for management development programs are On-the-Job Experiences, Seminars and Conferences, Case Studies, Management Games, Role Playing and Behavior Modeling.

Phase 4: The last phase is the evaluation. The various criterion used for measuring training effectiveness are trainee reactions, extent of learning, learning transfer to the job and results assessment.

The most well-known and used model for measuring the effectiveness of training programs was developed by Donald Kirkpatrick in the late 1950s called The Kirkpatrick’s Model.

The basic structure of Kirkpatrick’s four-level model is shown here.

Figure - Kirkpatrick Model for Evaluating Effectiveness of Training Programs

An evaluation at each level answers whether a fundamental requirement of the training program was met. It’s not that conducting an evaluation at one level is more important than another. All levels of evaluation are important. In fact, the Kirkpatrick model explains the usefulness of performing training evaluations at each level. Each level provides a diagnostic checkpoint for problems at the succeeding level. So, if participants did not learn (Level 2), participant reactions gathered at Level 1 (Reaction) will reveal the barriers to learning. Now moving up to the next level, if participants did not use the skills once back in the workplace (Level 3), perhaps they did not learn the required skills in the first place (Level 2). A point to be taken into consideration is that the difficulty and cost of conducting an evaluation increases as we move up the levels.

Using the Kirkpatrick Model

Given below is a quick guide on some appropriate information sources for each level.

Level 1 (Reaction)

• completed participant feedback questionnaire

• informal comments from participants

• focus group sessions with participants

Level 2 (Learning)

• pre- and post-test scores

• on-the-job assessments

• supervisor reports

Level 3 (Behavior)

• completed self-assessment questionnaire

• on-the-job observation

• reports from customers, peers and participant’s manager

Level 4 (Results)

• financial reports

• quality inspections

• interview with sales manager

When considering the sources of data used for evaluation, it is important to keep the cost and time considerations in mind.

GlobalLogic

Overview of training: Training policy addresses all technical and non-technical job-related training and development requirements of employees at GlobalLogic India. The purpose of the training and development policy is to develop the skills and knowledge of individuals so they can perform their roles effectively and efficiently.

Types of Training: There are various types of trainings that are available to employees

General Training: Both technical and non-technical training requirements fall under this category. All requirements which help in building and improving task skills of individuals irrespective of which group or department they belong to is categorized as General training. The General trainings will have the following sub-categories:

• Technical

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