The Various Level Of Training Evaluation

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, with regards to the rapid changes in the markets and the healthy growth of the Malaysia economy, human resource managers need to be more sensitive in a ways to be parallel with what is happening in the market todays. Moreover, companies is surrounded with the gradually changes of macro environment that consist of seven principal components which is demographics, societal values and lifestyle, political, legal and regulatory, technological forces, global forces and general economic condition. Also, this also is supported by the micro environment which is the competition within the industry such as the suppliers, rivals firm, new entrant, buyers and substitute products. These two components is commonly must be considered by the company in order to remain competitive in the market regardless what industry that they been venture.

Thus, with the intensity among the rivals competition, company should create themselves to be different and unique from their competitor. Instead of the advance technology that organization has, brilliant strategy that makes the company gain sustainable competitive advantage compared to their competitors and others criteria, employees also has been considered as the most valuable asset and strategic weapon in competing among others industry players. A strategy for radically improving workforce productivity to drive higher value for the organization has become an important focus. Organizations seek to enhance employees’ morale and productivity, limit job turnover, and help organizations increase performance and improve business results (Hooi, 2009).

Somehow, it can be said that the role of human managers is sometime quite challenging as their work nature itself which have to manage the people in the organizations. Furthermore, with all the grown up of Generation Y since their first made appearance about five years ago in the workplace, the company need to be creative in providing the training that efficient and effective to them. Generation Y could be say as the people who born between the year 1981 to the year 2000. All of these people have grown up along with the advance technological and have been exposed for many new updating things that happen in the market todays. In some way, this millennial generation will likely change the traditional workplace in a better way even their bosses are still from the Baby Boomers era.

TRAINING AT A GLANCE

According to Dahiya and Jha (2011), training is vital for any and every organization. With the changing socio-economic and technological relevance of training, the definitions, scope, methods and evaluation of training programs have also changed. The goal of training is for employees to master the knowledge, skill and behavior emphasized in training program and to apply them to their day-to-day activities (Noe, 1998). In fact, Griffin (2012) stated that training in itself has no intrinsic value. It is not an inherently good or bad thing. Its value lies in the extent to which trainees are able to acquire, apply (transfer) and retain enhanced or new knowledge, skills and attitudes in the workplace. Besides that, Pineda (2010) stated training is a key strategy for generating skills in people, since it enables them to both learn and unlearn skills – in other words, to acquire new skills and change inappropriate skills. In short, what can be say that training is the learning process that needs everyone must do in order to sharpen their knowledge, skill, abilities and attitudes that they have previously. Obviously, training should be continuously doing by the company in order to make their employees been more productive in the workplace from time to time despite of achieving the company’s vision and mission.

Continuously training will motivate workers to be independence in learning new information, re-learn and emphasize the existing knowledge and skills. Besides that, when company decided to embark the training for their employees, definitely it will cost amount of money that need to be invest. Hence, the trainer and trainer manager have to think and consider what new option that can help them improve their effectiveness at work. To accomplish organizational tasks and improve employee performance, training programs should be designed in such a way that they create a win-win situation for both organizations and employees (Bhatti and Kaur, 2010). So that, what the organization invest previously will be worthwhile especially for the company’ sake with regards for the improving organization performance also the employees’ productivity. Failing to provide the useful training will give into a distraction and a waste of company resources which impact for a long term period.

However, the training program could be say as not complete if the human resource manager did not conducting the ‘post mortem’ of the methods that they have choose to exert and the outcomes of the training whether the training provided is effective accordingly to the company’s objective or vice versa.

To make it more concrete, according to Chimote (2010) the training programs are conducted to enhance and increase the performance level of an employee, to develop human resources to meet the current as well as future needs of the organization, to ensure effective utilization of human resources and to integrate individual goals with the organizational goals, which results in productivity improvement, greater workforce flexibility, savings on materials and capital costs, more motivated workforce and improved quality of the final product or service.

TRAINING EVALUATION

Training evaluation (TE) refers to the process of collecting the outcomes needed to determine if training is effective or not. Again, companies are investing a huge amount of money in training program by means of to gain a competitive advantage through the employees. This money that companies invest is not solely for the developing and managing training programs but also be used to evaluate training programs.

Basically, TE consists of both formative and summative evaluation. The literature maintains that the TE consists of two techniques i.e. formative and summative (Rajeev et al., 2009). Formative evaluation is intended to improve the training process. This usually provides information about how to make the program better in a ways by collecting qualitative data such as opinions, beliefs, and feelings by using the questionnaires or interviews with trainees or managers about the program. Meanwhile summative evaluation is to look how far the participants have changed from the training program that they undergo. This assessment is aimed to know whether the trainees have acquired knowledge, skills, attitudes or other outcomes that have been identified in the training objectives or not.

Evaluation can serve a number of purposes within the organization. According to Noe (1998), p. 131), there are six reasons why a training program should be evaluated which are:

To identify the program’s strength and weakness. This includes determining if the program is meeting the learning objectives, the quality of the learning environment, and if transfer of training to the job is occurring.

To assess whether the content, organization, and administration of the program including the schedule, accommodations, trainers, and materials contribute to learning and the use of training content on the job.

To identify which trainees benefited most or least from the program.

To gather data to assist in marketing programs through collecting information from participants about whether they would recommend the program to others, why they attended the program, and their level of satisfaction with the program. To determine the financial benefits and cost of the program.

To compare the costs and benefits of training versus non training investments (such as work redesign or a better employee selection system).

To compare the costs and benefits of different training programs to choose the best program.

Evaluation is important as it can add value to the training itself (Hui Lien et al., 2007). Furthermore, evaluating training is the last stage but it is very important part of training cycle. It is a process of gathering information after the implementation of training program which helps to make decision to design effective training program (Karim et al., 2012). Griffin (2012) list out the potentially list that might interest in training program below:

• the apprentices

• employees who support apprentice learning and development within the workplace

• the team members with whom the apprentices work

• the apprentices' supervisor and manager

• the firm's HR and learning and development staff

• the board and other senior managers.

ISSUES IN TRAINING EVALUATION

Several authors have developed models for the evaluation of training. There are several methods of training evaluation that have been cited by Ahmed et al., (2010) for example Reeves (2003) and Phillips (2006) have talked about CIRO (Context, Input, Reaction and Outcome) model which was developed by Warr et al. in (1976). Kirkpatrick s (2004, pp.133-142) has talked about that the training should be evaluated on four criterion levels (Reaction, Learning, behavior, and outcome). Santos & Stuart, (2003) suggests that the training is evaluated in three fold layers of immediate, intermediate and final evaluation. Meanwhile, Phillips (2006) tells that organizations will select the method according to the requirement of what they intend to measure, he has given a more comprehensive model which is basically extension of the Kirkpatrick s four level model, he has added a fifth level naming as ROI. This additional variables has been widely accepted and is extended in the four level model of Kirkpatrick.

On the other hand, it cannot be denied that the most frequently used models that many researchers employed to evaluate training are the four level model of Kirkpatrick. According to Karim et al., (2012) Donald Kirkpatrick introduced the idea of evaluating training in a series of articles in the US Training and Development journal in 1959-1960. The articles were subsequently included in Kirkpatrick's book Evaluating Training Programs (1975), published by the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD). Kirkpatrick introduced that training program can be evaluated successfully at four different levels. Every level is very important and has an impact on the next level. Besides that, Bhatti and Kaur, (2010) also emphasized this concept again in their research. Based on the various kinds of trans disciplinary researches, the evaluation model will likely to be re-developed more by new researchers as to close the gap of outcomes especially in what the trainers teach is equivalent on what the trainees need. Nevertheless, for selecting any of these methods in measuring training effectiveness is depend in what circumstances that the trainers encountered.

The four levels framework for categorizing training outcomes is:

Level 1 Reaction: How well did the participants reacts or like the program?

Level 2 Learning: What knowledge (principles, facts and techniques) did participants learn from the program?

Level 3 Behavior: What positive changes in participants’ job behavior stemmed from the training

/ performance program?

Level 4 Results : Is the application of learning achieving results?

/ impact

Both level 1 and level 2 criteria (reactions and learning) are collected before trainees return to their job. Meanwhile, for the level 3 and level 4 criteria (behavior and results) measure the degree to which trainees are using training content on the job. Apart from the level 1and level 2, these two levels are used to determine transfer of training. This is supported by Chimote (2010) , Giangreco et al., (2008) and Pineda (2010) which explain more detail about the reaction measures how the trainees react to the training program (satisfaction). Learning is defined as the extent to which the trainees change attitudes, improve knowledge and increase skill as a result of attending the training program. Behavior is the extent to which change in behavior has occurred because the trainee attended the training program and result is the final outcome that occurred because the participants attended the program, which can include increased production, improved quality, decreased costs, reduced frequency, increased sales, reduced turnover, and higher profits.

However, Alan Bellinger (2011) argues that Kirkpatrick model still has its place within the training mindset but to truly benefit from the performance mindset requires vision and management support to ensure that talent management metrics become fully accepted as the basis of measuring learning and development within the organization. It is believed that, this model has several weakness hence many following models that have been developed by other researchers tried to overcome it. According to Guerci and Vinante (2011), this model has made valuable contributions to training evaluation theory and practice, because it stresses the importance of thinking about and assessing training within a "business perspective". Nevertheless, the model has at least three limitations which are the model concentrates on a restricted set of variables, causal linkages among training outcomes at different levels and the hierarchical model of evaluation is that it lacks a multi-actor perspective

Apart of that, the last of level in the Kirkpatrick model is focusing on detecting changes that take place in the workplace as a result of training. Previously, in the Level 2 the learning achieved by the participants is identified, but what really matters to the organization is not the learning itself, but rather the transfer of learning to the workplace, that is, how it translates into changes in the working behavior of people. Thus, evaluating transfer means detecting whether the skills acquired through training are applied in the workplace and whether this is sustained over time. Even though transfer is knowingly with what all training activities should pursue, attaining this goal is not always been guaranteed and is sometimes not easy.

On the other hand, it has to be remembered that in the evaluation process, there are several parties that have an interest in what benefits they can get in return on the investment that they have spent especially in the point of view of the top management. This several parties are referring to the stakeholders. In order to optimize the return on the training investment, there should be the balance between of the contributions the training process received from stakeholders and the incentives that they receive in return. These party means not only the recipients of the evaluation results, but also involving others bodies that responsible to properly conduct the evaluation research. In Griffin (2012) and Rossi et al.,(2004) have described the types of stakeholder below :

Target participant those being trained

Programe staff those involved in the administration, organization and delivery of the training

Decision makers those able to determine funding and support for training programs

Contextual stakeholders those with an indirect stake in the programe such as trainee's supervisors and public funding bodies

Service user customers and service users

Somehow, there are reasons why organizations do not perform adequate evaluations of training. These include the management’s training evaluation strategy is not well formed. Sometimes, most organizations do not have a training evaluation strategy. Management does not require it due to the size of company itself or the small number of employees they hired. In this step, they just skip it without thinking too much to consider the consequences in the long term period. Indeed, training is determined and evaluated by managers’ "gut feelings" about what should be trained and how well it worked. Needs analyses are performed rarely and competency models for training and development are not up-to-date that comparable in the current trend in the market or else, it is not exist. Training managers are often unfamiliar with key business measures. There is no strategic goal to training because there is no alignment it with the objectives of the business. One measure of the effectiveness of training is to assess how well it is aligned with critical business needs. If the training offered by an organization is not based upon an up-to-date competency model and pursue against a key business metric then the quality of the training is suspected.

Despite of that, training evaluation is technically complicated with regards to development of measures to evaluate training, the choice of a research design, and the analysis of the data are all part of the research and are technically complex. They require an understanding of psychometrics, experimental design and statistical analysis. Psychometrics is the special application of mathematics to the development and validation of measurement tools, including business measurements. Experimental design requires knowledge of randomization, control groups, longitudinal and cross-sectional studies, and other topics important to successful research method. Statistical analysis is a more general application of mathematics to evaluate the study results quantitatively. This expertise is not usually available in organizations. Those experienced in social science research such as industrial psychologists are available to perform the technical work needed to create a training evaluation program

CONCLUSION

Different approaches to evaluation of training discussed herein indicate that the activities involved in evaluation of training are complex and not always well-structured. Since evaluation activities in training situations involve multiple goals associated with multiple levels, evaluation should perhaps be viewed as a collaborative activity between training designers, training managers, trainers, floor managers, and possibly others.

There is a need for a unifying model for evaluation theory, research, and practice that will account for the collaborative nature of and complexities involved in the evaluation of training. None of the available models for training evaluation seem to account for these two aspects of evaluation. Existing models fall short in comprehensiveness and they fail to provide tools that guide organizations in their evaluation systems and procedures. Not surprisingly, organizations are experiencing problems with respect to developing consistent evaluation approaches. Only a small percentage of organizations succeed in establishing a sound evaluation process that feeds back into the training design process. Evaluation activities are limited to reaction sheets and student testing without proper revision of training materials based on evaluation results. Perhaps lack of experience in evaluation is one of the reasons for not consistently evaluating. In this case, the organization may consider hiring an external evaluator, but that will be costly and time consuming. Considering the need for the use of internal resources and personnel in organizations, expert system technology can be useful in providing expert support and guidance and increase the power and efficiency of evaluation. Such expert systems can be used by external evaluators as well.

Strong, completely automated systems offer apparent advantages, but their development and dissemination lag behind their conceptualization. Future research needs to focus on the barriers to evaluation of training, how training is being evaluated and integrated with the training design, how the collaborative process of evaluation is being managed and how they may be assisted. This will be helpful in guiding the efforts for both the unifying theory of evaluation and in developing automated evaluation systems.