Management and Leadership Qualifications

Are they really cost effective?

Kirkpatrick’s four levels of training evaluation

Level 1 – Reaction of delegate – the “happy sheets”

Level 2 – Learning – increase in knowledge or capability

Level 3 – Behaviour – extent of behaviour and capability improvement

Level 4 – Results – the effect on the business

Donald L Kirkpatrick and James D Kirkpatrick, Evaluating Training Programs. Third Edition, Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc., 2006

What does cost effective mean?

Calculate the cost of the training intervention in financial terms

Calculate the benefit of the training intervention in financial terms (Kirkpatrick’s Level 4)

If the benefit is higher than the cost, the training intervention is cost-effective

The cost of the training intervention in financial terms

Example – a one day workshop for 10 people called, “Running Effective Meetings”

The benefit of the training intervention in financial terms

Morale?Better outcomes?10 people each attending 24 meetings a year

with 8 people in each. Their influence on the meetings means that each meeting is shortened by a quarter of an hour (average pay rate per each person is £16 per hour)

Cost saving = 10 x 24 x 8 x £16/4 = £7,680

NHS Application - Keeping body and soul together: why NHS teamwork is critical to patient outcomes

“One of the most striking findings to emerge from their latest analysis is that the very best predictor of patient mortality is the percentage of staff working in well-structured teams”

Professor Michael West, Professor of Organisational Psychology, Lancaster University Management School