The article explores the reasons why training may not be as effective as it should be and suggests ways to improve training effectiveness.

1. Making Training more Effective in Organizations
Author: G Ramu
Ramu is an expert in HR heading TrainingOrbit – a global portal on training & development. He has
written a book on career development – ―Reflections on Career Planning‖. Ramu conceived 3D
Capabilities profile which is an exhaustive yet simple online profiling of capabilities of individuals of any
function or industry. Building on this profiler TrainingOrbit provides 3D Talent Development System
which is a complete cycle online SAAS based employee development system covering skills profiling,
training needs assessment and training management.
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Many companies invest quite a bit on the training and development of their employees. On the other
hand, there are companies which refrain from investing in training. This is partly because they doubt
whether such investments would pay back anything to the organization.
However, today, most managers in companies appreciate the importance of training and want to invest in
their employees’ training and development.
Human Resources (HR) departments in companies could play an important role in capitalizing this
opportunity and put in place systems and processes to make training more effective. Here are a few
actions that HR could take:
1. Link training to other systems:
Training is part of the development process. However, development would mean understanding the
capabilities of individual employees, identifying gaps and focusing on the right training for the right
person. We can see that this leads to linkage of training with recruitment and performance appraisals.
Recruitment, i.e., the entry point of an employee in the company, is the best starting point for tracking
capabilities of employees. Capturing the profile of an employee’s capabilities at this stage helps the
company build on his strengths and develop them further. Similarly, performance appraisals which are a
periodic exercise, give adequate opportunity for organizations to take stock of the capabilities of
employees and identify the gaps or the desired capabilities that need to be developed, and which emerge
either from the career aspirations of the individual or business plans of the company.
2. Make training a systematic activity:
An employee receives a call from a Manager out of the blue one day, who asks her to attend a training
program on communication to be held two days later. The employee is unprepared. There are other
priorities lined up for the week. Suddenly, the employee is having to do her bit to either re-prioritize, or
re-schedule activities, or, worse still, stretch herself for the next two days to complete some of the high
priority assignments in a hurry so that she can attend the training program. All this only leads to the
employee going to the training program in a totally unprepared frame of mind. A positive and receptive
mood, that is necessary for learning, is absent. The time and the money spent on the program turns out to
be a waste. This is a common scenario in many companies - treating training programs as one off events
to which employees need to be "sent." HR can do a lot to take control and make training a lot more of a
systematic activity. Planning for programs adequately beforehand, preparing the employee with reading
material or exercises, sending alerts and other communication related to the training at different stages
before the program—all these would help. In all, planning well in advance, preparing the employee, laying
the foundation for an eagerness to optimise the benefit derived from the program—all these will help.
3. Tracking of training activities:
. Many companies have metrices such as number of mandays of training. Some track them periodically,
but most do not. It is necessary to compare the tracking of training to that for compensation.

2. Compensation is tracked meticulously, analysed in depth - across departments, levels, functions and so
on. The same level of meticulousness, however, is missing in the case of training. Maybe the tracking and
analysis of training should be done as seriously as in the case of compensation. Metrices help. Metrices,
however, need to be carefully analysed and presented to the stakeholders periodically, to help them focus
their efforts and plan for the training in a systematic manner.
4. Feedback loop:
Measuring training effectiveness has always been a challenge, given the fact that the direct correlation
between the training effort and results on the job cannot be clearly established. However, no one can
deny that training contributes in a very significant manner to both improvement in the knowledge, skills
and performance of a company’s employees, as well as the overall business performance of the company..
Such training- performance correlation has been well established, and thus, the best employers worldwide
invest significantly and systematically in training their personnel. Notwithstanding the fact that the direct
correlation between a training program and improvement in the performance of an employee who has
undergone such a training program, is by now indisputable, collecting feedback on the impact will help in
fine tuning the efforts made towards training.
In this context, I recommend a three stage process for collecting feedback on training. Timing is very
important here. The first stage is immediately after the completion of the program. The main objective of
this feedback is to get to know how well the trainer delivered the program, the usefulness of the content
and effectiveness of the methodology. The second stage would be the collection of feedback thirty days
from the completion of the program. The objective here would be effectiveness in retention, and the
question to be asked is this: are the learnings from the program still retained by the employee? Correlation
between the objectives of the programs and what the employee actually seems to retain would be a good
indicator to find out how useful the program really has been. Finally, in the third stage we should focus
on the application of the training on the job, which is more or less an ongoing process. Here it is
recommended that the feedback be collected from the employee himself, as well as his supervisor. And
the focus of the feedback would be on the attributes or areas that were covered in the training and on
how it was applied by the individual on the job. A three stage process would, apart from giving feedback
for improvement of the training effort, also contribute to the establishment of a culture of learning.
5. Blend of methodologies:
Learning styles differ from one individual to another.. To elaborate, the manner of teaching and learning
different subjects can vary. What works for a training program on a technical subject may not necessarily
work well for a behavioral area, and vice versa. With the leveraging of technology and proliferation of the
net learning culture, learning is no longer confined to the traditional manner of training. Each of the
methodologies have their respective advantages and disadvantages. A particular methodology may work
well in a specific context and not so well in another. The cost would also vary from one methodology to
another. It becomes the responsibility of the training personnel to choose the most appropriate
methodology for the appropriate organizational context, for a particular subject and for the appropriate
audience. Instead of trying to choose what works best, one may choose to provide two or three options
with the same objectives, i.e., learning and improvement in the capabilities of the employees.
What would help in effective implementation of all the factors mentioned above:
1. A good and comprehensive training management system. Such a system covers all the areas
mentioned above and involves all the stakeholders - employees, managers, HR/training function and the
leadership
2. Trained and dedicated personnel to manage the training. It is desirable to have a dedicated team
to oversee the training process in a company. However, given the size of companies today, some small
ones may not be able to dedicate full time personnel. In such cases, the responsibilities need to be clearly
built into that of the HR system of these companies.

3. TrainingOrbit (www.trainingorbit.com) provides employers a simple, inexpensive, intelligent
online system - 3D Talent Development System, which would enable employers to make training
in organizations a lot more effective.