Some of the organizations survive without offering any training to their employees. They may believe that training is a waste of money, which suggests they have had negative experiences with training in the past. Alternatively, they may be willing to buy in employees with the skills and knowledge needed to run their businesses. Employers should have clear goals for the training function in their organization. These goals include assisting employees in developing the skills and knowledge needed to perform effectively in their current jobs, preparing employees to take on a variety of jobs as and when required; and helping employees develop and achieve their potential.

Training is an investment. How much should an organization spend on training its employees? No two organizations are alike so this question cannot be answered with any degree of accuracy. Further, at different periods a company may spend more or less on training. For instance, in times of high labor turnover, more money may need to be spent on training of new recruits, especially if employees with no relevant experience are being hired.

Evaluation can serve as a useful component of all programs and services, ideally in a formative sense to make amendments and improvements as well as a general monitoring role. A paradox facing most practicing managers of training is that their non-training bosses typically neither ask for nor require formal evaluations. And, when these managers do evaluate, it is usually in response to a crisis and invariably comes too late. A typical work-place scenario consists of the busy training practitioner doing what the company wants, feeling successful, and not being regularly required to prove the added value that results from training.

Evaluation is quite simply, an appraisal or judgment of the value or worth of something. All evaluations, by whatever method, are made by applying judgment to facts and evidence. A technically sound evaluation should be based on evidence that is reasonably complete, accurate and pertinent, evaluate what is intends to evaluate and identify cause and effect. A more useful and practical definition of training evaluation is that provided by Hamblin (1974); ?Any attempt to obtain information (feedback) on the effects of a training programmed, and to assess the value of the training in the light of that information.

Evaluation is traditionally represented as the final stage in a systematic approach whose purpose is to improve interventions (formative evaluation) or make a judgment about worth and effectiveness (summative evaluation) (Burnham, 1995: 5; Stake, 1991, cited in Guskey, 1998). Hamblin (1974, cited in Armstrong, 1999: 531) defines training evaluation as “Any attempt to obtain information (feedback) of the effects of a training programmed and to assess the value of the training in the light of that information‘. Thus training evaluation is seen as an analytical process that includes collecting and joining subjective and objective data on all (or selected) phases of training process coming from various sources and gained by different techniques. Evaluation results in the synthesis of data which includes the summary of results and recommendations referring to the evaluated programmed (Stanley, 1987).

It is not an easy task to evaluate the effectiveness of the training effort but it must be done. One of the best ways of convincing doubting management of the value of training is to provide them with facts and figures which show that improvements in individual or group performance may take place as a result of training.

There are many purposes and objectives of the evaluation and its actually depends on the actual need of the organization. Basically there are six most commonly purpose of evaluation as stated below:

1. To improve the quality of the training – in terms of the delivery, trainer, methods, length of training, the training objectives, content and level;
2. To assess the effectiveness of the overall course, trainer and training methods;
3. To justify the course, prove that the benefits outweigh the costs;
4. To justify the role of training for budget purposes, in cutback situations. ;
5. To prove that worthwhile activity is taking place ; and
6. To improve the quality of the activity

For full document you can download from the download button below, and as usual the material is strictly for educational purpose, and the content is subject to my own personal interpretation which may be differ from you.

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