Six
out of 10 HR and financial directors have little or no idea what return they
get on their company’s investment in training, independent research finds.
Commissioned
by business improvement company Boxwood, the research was carried out with
directors at 40 of the UK’s largest listed companies, each with an average
training spend of £1.5m per year.
Sectors
covered included retail, manufacturing, construction and financial services.
More than a third of respondents confirmed they did see business benefits
arising from their training investment.
However,
when questioned further, it became apparent that many were basing their views
on an inherent belief that training must be a good thing, rather than offering
any real evidence that it generates a payback. Most cited evaluation forms as
their only measure.
Anthony
Greenfield, Boxwood’s head of learning, said: “There are many reasons why
businesses fail to make the link between business performance improvement and
their training investment.
“One
of the most common is separating the benefits delivered through training from
other initiatives that impact on business performance. There is also a
widespread use of short-term and subjective measures such as training
evaluation feedback which simply do not delve deep enough.”
