The Best Training Metric

Training can often be a tricky thing to measure. Just because it’s difficult, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. After all, when the people who make budget decisions decide to ask what the value of your training program is, you’ll need a good answer.

With today’s blog, I’m going to try something a little different. I’d like to get your thoughts, dear reader, on the following question. Share your thoughts in the comment section. I’ll come back on Thursday summarizing all the thoughts that are contributed here and add my own thoughts as well.

The question: Which of the following is the BEST metric to measure a training program? 

1. 97% of staff have completed the 75-minute mandatory Unconscious Bias training session since its roll-out six weeks ago.
2. Average participant feedback scores for this training component were 4.8 out of a possible 5.
3. The eLearning module cost us $18,900 to produce. Employees who completed it have seen re-work errors drop by 24%, saving an average of 2.25 hours of re-work per employee per day. This equates to an average daily boost in productivity of $540, or $2,700 per week.
4. “This was by far the most interesting and engaging eLearning module I’ve taken in my 10 years of working for this organization!”
5. Participant post-test scores rose by an average of 17% compared to their pre-test scores.
6. Following the roll-out of the new customer service training, customer wait times have been reduced by an average of 2 minutes per call.
7. The Net Promoter Score (NPS) on our 1-day New Employee Orientation program is 54.
8. Locations that have completed this 2-day training program have realized a 13% increase in revenue compared to those who have not yet completed this training program.
9. “Thanks for offering this. I’m pretty sure I’ll be better with difficult customers when I head into work tomorrow.”
10. After 3 months, 78% of learners who responded to the survey said they were still applying the new technique.
11. 88% of participants responded that they are either extremely likely or likely to apply these skills in their work.
12. After 90 days 62% of managers reported that employees are applying new skills after the training.

Give me some thoughts about which of these is the most powerful metric (and why) in the Comment section, and I’ll compile what’s written and add my own thoughts this Thursday.