Who's keeping score?

Business people maintain the illusion that there's a higher level of accountability in the business world than there might be, say, in academia, or the arts. Applied to training, to promoting best practices within a company, one might think that the success of training and communication efforts are measured mostly by the change, indeed the improvement, in employee performance.

And if you're, say, a high school teacher who has thought about moving into the business world, perhaps in a training function, you might see this as one of the challenging differences between the two environments -- that in business, real-world outcomes are the ultimate measure of the quality of instruction.

Trouble is, I've been at this a long time, and it is often hard to get that kind of information. Oh, there are very specific skills-training programs that are easier to follow up, but most of the time, it is hard to figure out if the training really had an impact on how people do their jobs.

A lot of attention gets paid to how people feel about the training itself -- was it a good seminar, conference, on-line course? But, "Did it make a difference?" -- that's a question that isn't asked nearly as often as I expected when I first got into this field a couple of decades ago, and it hasn't changed much since.

Mind you, sometimes precise objective measurement isn't needed. Sometimes the company launches a program, and immediately sees desired changes in the workplace. Anecdotal evidence and subjective opinions from managers, if sufficient in number and generally in agreement, can be very valuable.

All the same, I often wish there were clearer indications of return on investment . . . even if the company isn't worried about it. I'm proud of my work, and I like to see results. But when you're an instructional designer or content developer for hire, you often create materials and just turn them over to your company contacts. You don't actually see how they are implemented, and you never hear what happened next. You get hired again, so presumably they thought it did them some good, but you don't know why they think that.

The other reason a little more rigorous follow up might be nice is as a foundation for budget decisions. With no real measure of how training and communication benefited the company, it is hard to argue for more of it, or to defend it from elimination when times get a little tight. In many, many organizations, one of the main things propping up the training function is a feeling that it should be done, and feelings change with business conditions.

There are, of course, a lot of consultants out there who would just as soon never be held to any standards or outcomes. But I'd almost always wish I knew a little more about how things worked out . . .