Measure training success to ensure promotion and progression

Every person needs to present a case for upskilling themselves or their team, says Neil Lewin, senior consultant at Festo Training & Consulting.

Even if it’s an informal presentation, it’s vital to identify the problems that your business is facing and demonstrate how training and development of staff can help meet those challenges. 

Equally, you need to set clear goals for training and then make sure you measure the results against these targets once the training is complete. 

If you are able to prove that training has been successful, you will be far more likely to get sign-off for additional time and budget in the future. And showing the measurable results of training will strengthen your opportunities for future promotion and progression. 

Here are three ways to prove that training has been a success:

Break it down into manageable regular targets

If you’ve set your goals and targets for the year (and you really should have done), break them down into quarterly and monthly targets. 

It makes the numbers feel a lot more real, relevant and easy to understand. At Festo, we have boards on display that clearly illustrate our targets, and how we are tracking against them. 

These are visible to the entire team. It’s a great way to share successes, spot an issue early when improvement is needed, and demonstrate that performance is being monitored and will be recorded regularly. 

Plan for shortfalls in training performance

It’s understandable that you want your business case for training to be flawless, but it should also show what you’ll do if there is a shortfall in performance. 

If you’ve broken down your goals and targets, you’ll get early warning signals that might indicate where performance is not as strong as it should be. 

Show how you’ll identify and redress any shortfalls, should they occur. A recap of the training, peer-to-peer mentoring or skill sharing are all good solutions that have proved effective for us at Festo.

Provide forecast financials to make the business case 

You need figures to prove that training has been effective. But don’t worry if training doesn’t show immediate results, it can take time. Forecast financials show how training will impact key performance metrics into the future. Measure the outputs that show what has improved, increased, decreased or changed and calculate the return on investment of the investment in training. 

This might be downtime, productivity, quantities or products. By following these three simple steps, when you apply for additional training, a promotion or a transfer, you’ll be able to clearly show that the training you received has had a measurable impact.