The CIPD’s thirteenth annual ‘Learning and Talent Development’ survey shows that coaching, both by line managers and external coaches, is on the increase. Mentoring and buddying schemes seem to have dropped back from last year - although I wonder how much this is down to the 601 organisations’-worth of respondents being confused about the terminology (see earlier blog post on ‘Coaching and Mentoring – what’s the difference?’). Dig a little deeper and there are interesting differences in how the approaches are deployed.

External coaching is being used far more for leaders and potential leaders, with 82% of respondents citing it as most effective for leaders (with external conferences in second place at 77% as the most effective learning and development practice for this group).

According to the National Employers Skills Survey of almost 80,000 employers, published by the Learning & Skills Council, £38bn a year is spent on training.  Now, as that figure was published in May 2008, it’s reasonable to guess that maybe, just maybe, training budgets have taken a bit of a hit recently.  Even so, we’re looking at a serious amount of money being spent on training.  How much of it is wasted?  How well the question can be answered depends on how well the ROI is measured.   Too often the only measure is what’s often called the ‘happy sheet’ or end-of-workshop feedback form.  What that will give you is immediate reaction to the session – good for quality control and first impressions, and even some good intentions, but not much more.  Here are some suggestions for going beyond the happy sheet:

1. Do a quick e-mail, or better yet, phone survey of participants.  Do this 3 – 6 months after the training ask everyone the same questions.  What’s changed?  What are you doing differently?  What are the benefits of your new skills/behaviour?  Can you give some examples?  If you had tons of people on the training programme, pick a sample.
2. Run your own focus group and ask the questions above and have people write up their answers in pairs or small groups on flip charts.  Get them to share examples – when this is done as a group it can often jog the memory and more examples emerge.
3. Don’t beat about the bush: be clear that you need to establish what, if any, return your organisation is getting on the investment they made in this employee’s development.  So by responding to the survey, or showing up at the focus group, the employee is merely keeping their end of the bargain.  Explain that subsequent training will be expanded, refined or dropped depending on its ROI and therefore participant feedback is invaluable.