When you provide learning and professional development to staff, you need to know how well it’s working and if it was effective. If you utilise the steps of the Kirkpatrick model correctly, you’ll understand if the learning was effective across the organisation, helping to foster a mature culture of learning – and ultimately if it impacts ROI positively.
1. Reaction
This step measures how far learners enjoyed their learning and if they were satisfied. With a focus on the learner, engagement and ease-of-use are major contributing factors that develop the workforce to the fullest extent.
How the content is delivered can improve results dramatically and contribute to a mature learning environment. By Focusing on bite-sized chunks and microlearning, you can enhance the learning process. Not only that, using an LMS and app will help learning recall which will create a more positive experience.
Rapl manages this is by using gamified learning that will motivate and engage employees which means better completion rates and higher interaction with the employees’ learning. With an easy one-touch login, and push notifications, your staff won’t forget to take time out to learn and will in fact relish and enjoy the prospect of developing.
People forget nearly 90% of what they have learnt within just 7 days, unless the concepts are reinforced. That’s why employees swamped with documents, presentations, and classroom sessions are not likely to learn much.
However, time constraints make it difficult to reinforce vast concepts.
What can you do instead? Arm your employees with one concept at a time. Studies show the human attention span is only 8.25 seconds, so keep your training concise.
RapL is your software for that.
2. Learning
What did your employees learn? Are they doing their jobs more effectively? If the learning did not have specific outcomes in step 1, results may lack substance – understanding if learning took place is key as you begin to analyse its effectiveness.
Only a fifth of managers who start using the Kirkpatrick method complete it and go through all stages. By using practical scenarios and rationales, Rapl shows up knowledge gaps in the analytics as you segment departments, teams, and individuals. With evaluation methods and continuous testing, it’s much easier to analyse and make informed decisions which can lead to positive behavioural change.
A flipped learning approach measures learning on an ongoing basis and induces insightful results. Short quizzes is one way to engage employees and also decrease knowledge gaps and there will be better learning transfer over time.
If you find you have poor results at this stage, it should not mean an end to the learning program. Using the data will give you a deep understanding of how your team is working. Understanding if there was learning transfer will uncover cost-saving insights. Use this as an opportunity to discover how you can do things better next time and engage your employees more.
3. Behaviour
Oftentimes, assessing changes in behaviour can take weeks. Culture takes time to evolve. The goal of learning and employee development should be to attain or maintain a mature learning culture. For example, if a company has problems in one area or department, the company can train employees by using practical scenarios through evaluation. This gives clear direction for employees and context for your staff. As well as this, a rationale for answers detailing why an answer is wrong can improve the learning and change behaviours. Using an LMS to evaluate behaviour will serve your analytics – and insights – well.
Tailoring the learning to your employees will also make make the learning more accessible but with constant reinforcement, it can truly change the behaviours of your employees. By using the steps in the Kirkpatrick model, you can grow the culture of the organisation. You’ll see successful changes in behaviour when employees are using their learning every day in the workplace.
Evaluating this and ensuring that it is done correctly proves that the processes and mature learning culture are in effect. Where the learning was efficient and successful, it is clear to see within an organisation, however, when behaviour does not change, this could highlight a problem in the processes, structures or culture of your organisation.
4. Results
The final level of the Kirkpatrick model is how the learning impacts ROI. It’s what the learning in previous steps should be driving towards. The Kirkpatrick model is a map that can help you – without an ability to analyse the ROI, your company risks throwing good money after bad so analytics play a vital role.
In a recent study, only a quarter of businesses stated that their own development programs were effective and helped performance with measurables, and only 8% track the ROI in relation to learning. Measuring results before the learning took place is the best way to gauge whether the learning goals have been achieved. To discover if the learning positively impacted the business, you should devote time to gather the data and glean key information and picking the right metrics will help you gain value from training.
The more data you have, the more informed your decisions will be regarding future learning.
When calculating cost, factoring in the cost of the learning and presentations, and also the time taken by employees will give you a better overall understanding of how the learning has impacted your organisation. Rapl’s innovative easy-to-use design minimises costs while also maximising the efficiency of employees. Not only is it interactive, but it is also gamified so the learner can compete in leaderboards and return to the learning in a much more engaged way, driving bottom line and positively impacting the ROI.
For a free consultation, go to www.getrapl.com or call (02) 8667 0783. Rapl will help your business with tailor-made services for your business that will increase productivity, efficiency, and improve your bottom line.
