FREE online courses on Building A Winning Team - Appraise - Evaluate
Training And
Development
June 5th, 1944: The largest invasion force ever assembled, awaited
the order of one man: Dwight D. Eisenhower,
Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces. The weather forecasts for the English
Channel had been discouraging: heavy fog and light rain. The men had been cooped
up in their cramped accommodations for over two months, and the tension of the
wait was palpable. Suddenly, the weather improved …should they attack? It was a
momentous decision; over a million men, five thousand vessels, thousands of
aircraft, vehicles and amphibians, all stood by.
Ike pondered the pros and cons…it was the fate
of the poor soldiers that decided him. He had studied
all the records of training and capability analysis, based on evaluation and re-evaluation:
they were as ready now as they would ever be!
He
leaned forward, his mind made up: “Gentlemen!”
he said, “let's go!!” The greatest invasion in history was launched by three words
of one man…all because he had taken
personal care to find out that his forces were fully trained …and by the best,
tested methods, appropriate to the job.
There cannot be any guesswork where the fate of your people, as well as that of your organization,
are decided by how well trained they are, to tackle tomorrow.
Starting from the viewpoint of organizational objectives/ goals/skill-gaps, managers need to
coordinate with trainers and top management in developing the staff of today,
as well as of tomorrow. That is:
- Organizational
objectives/ specific skills required
- Match person to the
training
- Evaluate: knowledge,
skill or behavioral changes perceived e.g. quality difference, less complaints,
sales
- Enhanced effectiveness
as registered by enhanced performance and attitudinal differences observed
- External sources:
feedback from dealers/ other departments/ public
- Attitudinal changes in
line managers, who cannot see what evaluation has to do with them.
Development of managerial skills as well as personal
development is hard
to quantify; measurement can become largely subjective. So its better to evaluate how good your methods are:
- Which approaches best
match (type/ category of individual)
- Underscores other
training methods available
- Tells you what returns
you got on your investment, in terms of time and money
- Evaluation can reinforce
learning
- Evaluation can be broken
down into seven stages:
- Reaction: get their oral/ written reactions/
responses to the program; record/ analyze/ improve content
- Observation: record weak areas still remaining,
- Testing/simulation: in
dummy environment, or presentation. Teach them to identify how they learnt;
will be immensely useful for future
- Expose trainees to a
range of training methods, and tabulate results to help analyze/ generalize
findings
- Questionnaires to
analyze attitudes, personal priorities, management styles, conflict areas,
stress levels etc.
- By measuring results;
focus on what activities were most/ least effective.
- Effects on others: External feedback; inevitable, but
pursue actively.
Unlike
(individual) performance appraisal, T& D evaluation
aims at:
- Assessing whether T& D objectives have been achieved Identifying
which methods of T& D suited who, and why
- Quality of your own departmental T&D efforts i.e., skill in
identifying T&D needs.
QUESTION:
- Why do managers evaluate
men, but never the system used to evaluate the men? If you have something to say, say it
right here.
- What, in your opinion,
should be the main features of a check-list designed to evaluate the on-going
efficacy of an evaluation system for appraisal systems? Please share your views
with us.
