PRESS

PRESS RELEASE - August 06           

Measuring return on investment in training: fight the fear and do it anyway

Measuring the value of learning & development can itself actually create value yet many senior Learning & Development professionals confess to not grasping the nettle of rigorous valuation for fear of what it might reveal. These are some of the findings of the extraordinarily candid new research report ‘Be valued or be outsourced' by return on investment in training specialists 3C Associates.

The research found that at one end of the scale measurement was very basic: quality control measures such as training days or cost/head and the ubiquitous Happy Sheets. One respondent said they know how successful a programme has been by the atmosphere in the training room. Other respondents were frustrated by the futility of current measurement techniques- one organisation admitted, “we have dropped the quality control measures as they were expensive and always showed a positive outcome”. Some respondents still find themselves ‘order takers' for functional team heads with little part to play in setting L&D objectives linked to business performance.

Taking a defensive position, some HR Directors felt that if they got better at measuring ROI in training there would be unwelcome pressure to measure the benefit of other HR activities. Others believed strongly that measurement of value added is simply ‘not possible'.

At the other end of the scale the research found some very positive, honest and sophisticated practice. Some participants are visibly linking L & D objectives to business objectives and, in valuing effectiveness actually become more effective. “If you know what works you can do more of it and less of something else,” said one respondent.”

Another explained “I want the L & D budget to be set on the value we add – not a % of revenue” and “I know we add as much value as other teams and I want to prove it.”

“Senior management must accept some of the blame for a lack of rigour in measurement as L & D is often not even discussed at Board level. Perversely, if the CEO has a strong commitment to ‘people' or ‘development', the L &D team feels exempt from scrutiny,” explains Hedda Bird, Managing Director of 3C Associates who conducted the research. “It appears from the research that the key skill for L&D professionals in the future will be to make visible the links between L&D programmes and business performance. This needs people to have the analytical and financial skills to link L & D outcomes to the way their business makes money and its sources of competitive advantage..”

This qualitative research was conducted in April and May 2006 by in-depth interviews with 12 senior L & D professionals in major UK blue-chip employers. The full research report is available only to participants but an Executive Summary with a list of tools participants already use and those ‘magic bullets' they would like to improve their valuation technique is available from 3C Associates.

For a copy of the Executive Summary, to interview Hedda Bird or for more information about 3C please contact Helen Eades on 01491 411544 or email her