When building an eLearning course, it’s important to make sure it’s as effective and engaging as possible for your learners. This will help your students or employees get the best learning experience from their online course materials, while in turn making your eLearning course more successful.

If you’re new to this, you may think designing an online course looks quite simple. But as with anything, there are certain principles you can follow for best practice in eLearning.

To help you out, we’ve put together 5 tips for building a better eLearning course, so you get the best training results from your staff or students.

Establish the kind of training course you need

It sounds simple, but this is an important step to take before you even start to build your online course.

The truth is, there’s no point designing a super complex course if your employees only need a quick and straightforward update on a company policy, for example. Making staff or students spend a lot of time on courses that are overly complicated or time consuming is never a good idea – they’ll resent learning and be wary of future training materials.

Think about the kind of format that’s best to address the needs of your audience. Then get to work on designing and developing your course in line with those needs.

Split your eLearning course into smaller modules

Next, decide if you can break down your course materials into smaller sized pieces. This has a number of benefits – for both you, and your learners.

Designing your eLearning course so that it is can be built and delivered over a series of modules means it will be easier to modify further down the track. It will also make your course more appealing and easier for employees or students to digest. Most people find it easier to read and absorb learning materials in smaller chunks, and can even be turned off by online courses that are too long and time consuming.

Short, succinct modules also allow users greater flexibility, as they can log in and complete each module at a time that’s convenient to them.

Incorporate tasks and activities into eLearning courses

Have you ever sat through a training session, listening to a presenter talk through endless slides of text? This can get very boring and frustrating for learners, while also failing to engage them in the content. Online courses that are nothing more than slabs of information on-screen are just as ineffective.

In contrast, by having students or employees complete tasks and activities throughout the course, you can make it a far more engaging experience. When incorporating activities into your materials, think about the actions your employees will need to take in the workplace. For example, tasks that explore decision making, problem solving and other ‘real world’ scenarios.

Be clear about the outcomes of the course

Be clear about exactly what it is that learners will achieve from completing your online course. Will they receive accreditation in a new skill, for example? Your eLearning course will be more successful if you can state clearly what outcome will be achieved by learners.

Karla Gutierrez, writing for Shift eLearning, believes that “the best eLearning courses … give learners clear and compelling reasons why the content is so important for them to learn. If the course doesn't answer the “what’s in it for me?” from the beginning, learners will not be interested or motivated to continue, no matter how great it looks.”

Gutierrez highlights the importance of gaining the learners’ attention from the start and remembering to apply the “WIIFM – what’s in it for me” rule. Tell users what they’ll be getting out of the course, if you want them to enroll.

Last, but not least – make sure your online course looks good. While this may seem superficial, the reality is that when it comes to eLearning, first impressions matter.

In fact, it only takes about 0.05 seconds for users to form an opinion about your website and decide whether they want to continue or leave. And eLearning courses are no different. After all, eLearning is a visual medium, so you’ll need to spend time getting this right if you want to stand out from the competition.

It’s best to keep things simple when it comes to building an online course. Cluttered, text-heavy screens can distract or confuse users, so stick to clean white space and simple relevant images.

By following these 5 steps, you’ll be making sure your online materials are easy to use, engaging for learners and aesthetically pleasing – the corner stones of a successful eLearning course!

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Unsure about whether your organization needs a social media policy?

Recent headlines involving the Secret Service are a strong reminder of the importance of social media guidelines for any organization. In January 2017, a Secret Service agent was criticized for her use of social media, after posting comments on Facebook suggesting that she would rather go to jail than risk her life for Donald Trump.

The events drew negative attention to both the agent and her employer, with the Secret Service forced to issue a statement about the incident. The statement, from the agency's headquarters in Washington, assured members of the public that "any allegations of misconduct are taken seriously and swiftly investigated.” “All Secret Service agents and employees are held to the highest standards of professional and ethical conduct," the statement continued.

In this case, you can see how comments on an employee’s private Facebook account have become labelled as serious ‘misconduct’ – while putting the professional and ethical reputation of the organization in question. To avoid these kinds of situations from occurring, it’s vital for all companies to have a strong social media policy in place, outlining guidelines and expected behavior from their employees.

Here are three ways your organization will benefit from a good social media policy.

The primary function of your social media policy is to protect the reputation of your company.

These days, with much of our life being documented online, there is a thinner line between what’s private and public. Many people include details of their occupation and employer on their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, meaning anything that is posted on social media could be seen to reflect that company’s organizational values. While this might not be true, or even fair, if the content contains sensitive or confidential information about your workplace, it presents a serious risk for both employees and their employers.

A social media policy helps to define what’s appropriate for staff to post about their company on social media channels. Having clearly defined guidelines means employees know the difference between what’s appropriate and not appropriate to discuss on social media.

“Generally, the policy will state that employees shouldn't write anything they wouldn’t want splashed across the public media,” says Mark Henricks, in an article for Entrepreneur. Keeping this framework in mind can help protect both staff and the organization, as in the case of the Secret Service above.

Social media presents significant potential for risk when it comes to posting sensitive or confidential company information, which can lead to serious legal consequences for both staff and employers. In today’s workforce, social media policies are no longer a simple ‘nice to have’ detail – they have become a very necessary legal policy document.

By having a social media policy in place, you can remove any confusion about legal issues. A good social media policy will:

Clearly spell out which social media use in the workplace is acceptable and which is not

Include information on what’s considered confidential or private company information

Explain the consequences of going against the rules of this policy

As an employer, you’re doing the right thing by educating staff in this area. And most employees will appreciate having clear guidelines about what the organization considers public information.

Rich Nadworny, Director of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, explains: “social policies won’t stop all poor behavior. But they will cause some people to pause and think before they act socially.” Stopping to think before making a careless Facebook post or Tweet could be the difference between keeping your job or from getting fired and drawn into a serious legal dispute.

Promote your organization through social media

Now that we’ve talked about the more serious aspects of social media, it’s important to also realise its potential for bringing positive attention to your company. Using social media in the right way can raise more awareness of your organization and what it does. And your social media policy will help you do this!

A good social media policy will contain clear guidelines to help employees understand ways they can use social media to help achieve company goals. Encourage staff to share good news stories and company wins across social media channels. You should feel comfortable that employees know what’s considered confidential or sensitive information, as it’s outlined in your policy document.

Your social media policy should also contain details of your company’s social spokesperson, so all staff know who to direct enquiries or concerns from these channels. You don’t want employees to be fielding these questions themselves – firstly, it’s not part of their job description, and secondly, they probably aren’t best equipped to handle these enquiries in the public eye.

For more help creating a social media policy for your organization, take a look at this short one-hour course on Developing a Social Media Policy. This eLearning course is useful for anyone wanting to know more about protecting their business and employees while using social media. You’ll also receive a free social media policy example for you to download at the end.

Delivering the most effective training for the workforce is a serious challenge for many companies today.

All too often we hear about companies who are experiencing dismal engagement rates and poor results from their current training methods—so that’s a great place to start looking. If you want to make the most of your workforce, you should always be looking for ways to improve the training experience for your learners.

One way to improve the learning experience for your people is to group them into small teams during the education process.

Here are a few reasons why this is still such an important thing to do:

When your employees work together in small groups then they have better opportunities to discuss the project at hand. This discussion will naturally create more opportunities for ideas to flow and to be shared between the group. Think about it: it's certainly easier to be creative when you have a few people around to bounce your ideas off of.

On the other hand, when you’re learning on your own then you are only getting exposure to your own ideas about the particular project. You don't have the advantage of additional perspectives from your teammates and this limits your ability to find solutions when confronted with learning-based problems.

When approaching a learning objective alone you can only evaluate things based on your own experience and limited exposure to that experience of others. However, when you are learning within a small group you are benefiting from the experience of those who you are working with as well.

These individuals may come from different backgrounds and they may have been exposed to business environments that you have never been a part of. This collection of varied experiences makes it much easier to find solutions to learning-based problems.

An organization is only as strong as its weakest link. When you train your personnel to work in small teams, then each individual is able to get support from those they are working with. This means that your learners can take more risks, gain more insight, and benefit from the support and encouragement of the rest of the team.

When you are working on something alone then you are like a castaway on a deserted island. It can be quite lonely and lead to self-doubt, which ultimately ends up with the employee staying within their safety zones.

This is a problem when you want to increase productivity. When you put people together in small groups then everyone is able to bring the group up to a higher level of accomplishment.

Working together in small teams means that ideas will be repeated within the group. Some individuals will grasp the concept quickly, while others will need to be exposed to the ideas multiple times before the process truly sinks in.

By asking your learners to work together in groups you are ensuring that ideas will be repeated within the group. This means that everyone will be better equipped to recall the information that they are learning.

You can identify potential leadership talent faster.

How often do you get the opportunity to identify potential leadership talent within your workforce? When you put your learners together into groups then you will be able to evaluate their performance and quickly identify those who have a talent for leadership. These individuals can be promoted and help you grow your business faster, without bringing in outside resources. We have discussed the advantages of promoting from within before, and this is an easy way to find candidates.

Simulations are one of the most powerful ways for you to reinforce the concepts that you have presented to your learners. While computer-based simulations are certainly efficient, there are several areas where real-life simulations might be more effective. Sales teams, for example, can practice their sales presentation skills within their groups and get real-time feedback on their strengths and weaknesses. The same goes for customer service departments and many other departments within your organization.

Learners gain valuable feedback from the other team members.

Feedback is critical when practicing something for the first time. While it’s certainly helpful to gain feedback from administrators and instructors, some of the most valuable feedback can come from others within the same or similar positions.

By placing these individuals into smaller groups you are giving them the opportunity to communicate with each other and help each other with feedback. Each individual may see different opportunities for improvement that may have been missed if you had someone working solo.

Your training strategy has a direct impact on your profits. If your workforce is not getting effective or engaging training then you are missing out on a key component of growing and maintaining your competitive edge.

There are several different proven strategies for improving your training processes, but a great place to start is by placing your learners into small groups.

If you are looking for resources to help you train your staff in everything from compliance to communication, visit the Go1 Marketplace today. We have thousands of free and paid resources to help you.

Why training for small teams is still important

Blended learning is one of the most powerful approaches to workplace education available today because it combines both online digital media and traditional learning methods to deliver a more effective and engaging solution for learners.

Here are a few reasons why blended learning is the new workplace learning solution:

When your instructors can incorporate digital solutions into their teaching programs then they have more tools in their arsenal. However, not only do they have more educational firepower, they also have a more efficient platform to educate your workforce as well.

In traditional learning environments, slower learners typically hold back the pace of the class. This means that you need to spend extra time educating a few people while others are forced to wait.

Blended learning, on the other hand, allows you to customize the experience so that those who are faster can complete various parts of the training while others are still coming up to speed.

You really can’t personalize the traditional learning model very much. The classroom approach has more of a one-size-fits-all methodology and that’s one reason why some students find themselves less engaged when they attend this type of training.

Blended learning allows you to serve up content that’s optimized for each individual learner. Some students may pick up on the material faster by being exposed to an online chat room, for example. Others might respond the best by watching streaming videos. You can still take the traditional approach and give lectures in a blended environment, and at the same time customize the experience so that your team is more invested in it.

Traditional models come with a lot of expenses. The instructors need to spend more time in the classroom, the materials need to be updated regularly, and you usually need to spend money renting out the space to train your learners.

Blended learning, on the other hand, allows you to spend much less on trainers and materials. Learners can study the material from anywhere that they have online access and it’s usually quite fast and easy to update digital content.

There’s not a lot of flexibility in a traditional corporate learning environment. The lecture cannot be paused or replayed when the learners are having trouble with a particular concept, for example.

However, in a blended learning environment you can incorporate a wide variety of multimedia options into the lecture to keep your learners engaged. This also gives them the ability to approach the material from multiple angles.

Making adjustments as you go is easy: if you need to pause the program and switch gears, you can do it easily when you are using online blended learning solutions.

Your employees are already accustomed to learning online.

We now have a workforce that has spent the past decade growing learning online. We search for facts on Wikipedia and we study languages by watching YouTube videos. We take online quizzes to see what Friends character we are, and we interact with people all over the world using our mobile devices.

It just makes sense to capitalize on this by delivering content in a way that your learners are used to it. This familiarity will help your learners stay focused on the material and prevent boredom from creeping in.

While there are some metrics that you can track in a traditional learning model, a blended learning environment gives you access to tools that can track many more important data points.

There are tons of online tools available to evaluate learner performance and this information is extremely important if you want to make the most of your training.

Using online tools you can now track things like:


The time it takes employees to respond to individual questions



Vocal inflection and quality on customer calls


All of these tracking solutions have a duel benefit as well: they keep the learners engaged. Engagement is a critical component to delivering high-quality training, and performance tracking simply helps keep your learners “in the game.”

The very nature of work itself has changed quite a bit over the past few years, and as we continue to integrate more tech solutions into our organizations it’s becoming more important than ever that we keep our training methods up to date and relevant.

Here are a few tips to help you implement your next Blended Learning teaching experience.

Decide early on how interactive you want your program.

Some blended learning programs still rely heavily on instructor-led classrooms, while others are 85% or more online. Before you set out to create your program, you should decide how much of it you want to be delivered over the Internet or via multimedia. 

Feedback is critical in a blended learning environment. If you want to optimize your program for results, then you should be looking for opportunities to improve it wherever you can. This might mean something as simply as improving the video narration to help keep the video modules interesting.

We are social animals and this means we are hard-wired to learn in a group environment. Online resources make this easy to implement: you can use forums, chat rooms, webinars, and a wide variety of additional options to inspire your learners to collaborate as they go through the material. 

If you’re interested in learning more about blended learning solutions for your organization, have a look at the Go1 Marketplace. 

You’ll find thousands of free and paid solutions to help you deliver an outstanding learning experience for your teams. 

Why blended learning is the future of workplace learning

eLearning has had a tremendous impact on workplace education over the past decade. Perhaps that's one reason why over 70% of all companies now utilize some form of learning management system. The pharmaceutical industry in particular is one that requires a heavy amount of multimedia instruction in order to train up their employees these days.

As the pharmaceutical industry continues to evolve at an exponential rate, the demand for adequately trained personnel grows right with it. The old way of doing things when it comes to training simply does not work anymore, and taking a one-size-fits-all approach to training is flirting with disaster. There are simply far too many legal and safety issues that must be addressed on a company-by-company basis.

Today we are going to talk about one example of how modern eLearning made a huge impact on the pharmaceutical industry. 

James L. Vesper won the 2015 Dissertation Award for his design-based research study where he designed, developed, and refined an eLearning program for the World Health Organization (WHO). This program was developed to help train employees on handling vaccines and other pharmaceutical products—and to train employees on how to keep these products at the correct temperature through their life cycles.

Vesper started out by evaluated the WHO existing course, which was essentially a “Learning on Wheels” course where 15 individuals would follow three mentors on a bus trip through Turkey. As they crossed the country, they stopped at various healthcare sites and evaluate how these organizations handled their temperature sensitive pharmaceuticals.

This was obviously an expensive process, both in terms of time and financial resources, so there was a clear opportunity for capitalizing on an eLearning-based alternative that could be reused and tailored to the specific needs of employees.

Building The Course and Looking For Opportunities To Optimize

One important thing to keep in mind when building an eLearning course is that you should evaluate your technology and look for opportunities to improve content delivery and performance.

Once you have optimized for these factors in the beginning, then you will have created a course that can be used over and over again, rather than reinventing the wheel every time you try to perform the training manually.

For example, Vesper and his team learned that integrating YouTube clips into the program was a problem: they were actually being geo-blocked for some of the trainees depending on what country they were in.

Another valuable lesson that they learned when building the course was that it's important to keep your trainers and mentors involved during the process.

This is so that you can lead your trainees and help guide them through their training. Just because you are rolling out a technology-based solution, does not mean that you can abandon your people to learn everything on their own!

There were three different versions of the design and development phase of this program. The first phase included an expert review based on a Failure Mode Effects Analysis risk assessment tool.

The second phase revolved around a mentor review, which was what they used to develop their trainer/facilitator guidelines. This was also the phase where the developers were able to create specific learning expectations and eliminate risks.

The final development phase included a “field test” where various individuals from 11 different countries went through the eLearning course. Developers paid specific attention to keeping this test group as diverse as possible by including trainees with different backgrounds in nonprofit, government, and industry.

The reason for this approach is quite simple: this is what the learning population will look like in the pharmaceutical industry across the board, very, very soon. After all, we are living in an increasingly diverse and global workforce.

Vesper came away with 13 design principles once he finished this award-winning program, and one was that it’s important to look for “opportunities of articulation” when creating your course. The idea is that it’s paramount to have your learners demonstrate what they have learned from the program. In this particular case, for example, the learners had to evaluate the vaccine-handling processes of various healthcare organizations in Albania.

So let’s summarize what we can learn from Vesper’s case study:

When building an e-learning solution in the pharmaceutical industry it helps to have an existing program that you are improving on. Starting out from scratch can take more time and resources.

Creating multiple stages of evaluating and refining your training material is important, because this is the only way to identify risks and inefficiencies.

Look for opportunities for your learners to articulate what they have learned. Give them the opportunity to apply the concepts and present their findings to you.

When building your platform, look for opportunities to demonstrate the effectiveness of your processes by addressing existing real-world cases.

How online learning is impacting the pharmaceutical industry

Go1, the education technology startup I co-founded, recently announced a $4 million raise. Inevitably an announcement like this triggers a stream of congratulations and questions on how to fundraise.

I find it somewhat awkward to respond. Raising money should not be seen as an achievement in itself. Instead, hopefully, it is the means to achieve the real work that a business is setting out to do.

Our goal is to transform corporate learning by providing the world’s largest marketplace of courses. Raising investment helps fuel our growth faster than we could through free cash flow – no more, no less.

So rather than address misplaced congratulations, I want to respond to questions on how to fundraise and share some advice to Australian founders.

1. THE STARTUP ECOSYSTEM IN AUSTRALIA IS GETTING STRONGER – YOU SHOULD LOOK LOCAL AND GLOBAL

I first experienced Silicon Valley when Go1 went through Y Combinator (the first accelerator responsible for Airbnb and Dropbox). At the time the Australian ecosystem just couldn’t compare.

That’s changing, and we’ve got a growing local startup community. There are now many significant Aussie venture capital firms and experienced angel investors.

Good investors add more than just money to your balance sheet, they can provide advice and networks that can be invaluable. There are increasingly good options locally.

At the same time, I think it’s really important to have a global mindset from day one. Investors look for returns, and often the Australian domestic market is only going to be a fraction of the opportunity.

Having international experience in the pool of investors you talk to can be tremendously helpful. Even if you might be too early stage for overseas investors, you can learn a lot through pitching your plan to them.

Raising investment takes time. Having a meeting might seem trivial, but providing documentation and answering questions can consume huge amounts of time (and inevitably no two investors ask the same questions).

If additional capital is fundamental to your future plans, then be in fundraising mode and have a clear plan how you approach it. Don’t do it half-heartedly. The longer it takes, the more distracting it will be for your business.

Remember, raising money is the means and not the end itself. The time you spend fundraising has an opportunity cost: time you could have spent growing your company.

Have a plan and timetable that aligns with your business growth and product roadmap. Our business plan is built on growing our inside sales team. We just closed our pre-series A round to help us get to the next level of growth for the company.

And any time that you raise money, you should assume that it might be the last dollar of investment you will ever receive.

The investment market swings from famine to feast and back again quickly. As I write this, in Australia we are in a good period where many people are interested in supporting and backing startups. That won’t necessarily always be the case.

Even good companies can struggle to raise further rounds. So in addition to raising what you need to get your business to the next stage, aim for your runway (the amount of time you have before your money runs out) to be long enough to get you to a cash flow positive position.

And finally, remember, keep your feet on the ground – don’t get carried away if you do secure venture funding. You’re doing this to solve a problem – the real work is running and growing your business.

This article was originally published on StartupSmart.com.au

Andrew Barnes: why fundraising is the means not the end

In today’s competitive job market, it’s important to find ways to stand out from the competition. Landing an interview for your dream job is great, but recruitment processes can be long and challenging – so you’ll need a few tricks up your sleeve to get through to the next round.

While it may sound like something from the school yard, storytelling can be a powerful secret weapon when it comes to job interviews. According to Gabrielle Dolan, author of Storytelling for Job Interviews, we “shouldn't underestimate the power of sharing relevant personal stories in interviews.” Sharing your stories, through storytelling, can help you stand out to hiring managers, allowing you to show off your communication skills, convey confidence and give interviewers a sense of your real personality.

Let’s look at why storytelling is such an important part of any job interview and how you can start using it for greater career success.

Dolan says that during interviews, some people make the mistake of reading out their employment history, rather than engaging the interviewer by telling relevant stories that demonstrate their strengths. Rattling off a list of bullet points from your resume is a waste of the interview time you’ve been given – for everyone. After all, your interviewer already knows this information and most likely has it in front of them on your CV.

As Dolan says, “if you’ve got an interview, you’ve most likely ticked all the boxes when it comes to skills, experience and qualifications.” Interviews are your chance to close the sale and seal the deal.

“The interview allows them to determine what you’re like… will they like working with you? Are you a good cultural fit for the company? Do you have the right values that the company is looking for?” she says. Don’t waste this opportunity to let your personality shine and show your interviewers why you’re the best fit for the position.

Sharing stories, from both your professional and personal life can be an excellent way to demonstrate to interviewers your skills and capabilities. Giving clear and relevant examples through storytelling can help hiring managers see why you're a valuable asset to their team and organization.

While having the necessary qualifications and experience are certainly important, employers are also interested in finding employees whose values are aligned with that of the organization.

When interviewing candidates, HR professionals pay close attention to an individual’s values, as well as their skills. This is particularly true in the non-profit and humanitarian sectors, for example, where values such as empathy and compassion are highly sought after and important for the job.

In an interview, you’re being given a wonderful opportunity to tell potential employers first-hand how your personal values can support the organization’s mission and vision. Storytelling allows you to go into a lot more depth in this area, with personal or work-related stories giving insight into the core values that are uniquely important to you.

You may be able to describe how overcoming a particular challenge helped you build greater resilience in the workplace, and how you can successfully apply that quality to the potential role. In this way, you can effectively demonstrate your values while building a stronger emotional connection with your interviewers.

Now that you know why storytelling is so important for interviews, you can become better prepared for your next recruitment process.

Preparing some relevant personal and work-related stories that demonstrate both your capabilities and values will significantly increase your chances of success. Think of memorable experiences from your past jobs, or personal challenges you’ve overcome, that help showcase your skills and personality.

In doing this, you’ll also be well prepared with real-life examples that support all those bullet points on your resume. Don’t be afraid of sharing stories that show interviewers your vulnerability. Being able to talk about mistakes you’ve made in the past, or learning curves you’ve successfully traversed, shows a high level of self-awareness and the ability to continually develop.

The most important thing is to make sure the stories you tell in interviews are 100% real. Don’t be tempted to make up scenarios that might make you sound more interesting or highly skilled. Remember, interviews are an opportunity to see if each party is a good fit for the other – the job needs to be right for you, as well as you being right for the job. It’s vital that your stories show potential employers your authentic self, for your best chance at landing the job and enjoying a fulfilling career.

The power of storytelling in job interviews

Most companies invest a significant amount of time and money in training their employees, to improve staff competencies and increase productivity and profits. However, very few companies are taking the time to evaluate the impact of employee training.

This is surprising – when making any kind of large investment, such as a house or new car, it’s common practice to weigh up the costs and outcomes to see if the investment is worthwhile. You’d think that in the same way, companies who invest a lot of money into training for their employees would want to see the results of this spending.

But many companies are failing to follow through on this important step, leaving them unclear of the impact of training on their organization and their return on investment (ROI). A recent study found that 96% of of learning and development leaders are searching for ways to improve data gathering and analysis on training, yet only 17% currently measure impact. This leaves a huge 83% of organizations without the right data to measure and evaluate the success of their training.

Why are employers leaving themselves in the dark when it comes to knowing the value of their staff training programs? Without any data or figures being collected, how do you know whether your training program is money well spent?

Training methods need to be effective in engaging staff and bringing benefits to the organization. You’ll know whether training is a worthwhile investment by measuring the impact it has on your employees and organization.

Finding out how training benefits your company

The first thing you need to identify are the benefits that employee training is bringing to the organization. This is the core question at the heart of training evaluation. Ideally, you should be seeing organizational benefits that can be converted into dollar values, thus indicating their worth to your organization.

Being able to recognize and name these benefits will also build a case for continued spending in this area, showing what the organization has gained through learning and development. These measurements will help you prove the importance of training to management, helping you build a solid business case for further funding.

Using Kirkpatrick’s four levels of evaluation model

So how do you identify these benefits, reducing them to clear figures and numbers? 

One of the most popular ways to assess the impact of training is by using an evaluation model known developed by Donald Kirkpatrick, past president of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD). 

Kirkpatrick pioneered what is referred to as the ‘four levels of evaluation’ – a way to measure the impact of training programs for organizations using the four levels (which you can think of as steps) outlined below.

Reaction – first, employees are evaluated to determine responses to their training, gaining insight on whether they found the training to be relevant, valuable or engaging

Learning – next, you need to establish the degree to which employees learned intended knowledge from the training, to determine if training objectives are met through pre and post evaluation of the participants’ knowledge and skill level

Behavior – this next step looks at behavioral changes as a result of training, to see whether or not training is being applied on the job

Results – finally, you need to evaluate the tangible results the company received from the training program, such as: improved productivity, reduced costs, higher quality product, lower staff turnover, increased profits and sales.

While all four evaluation steps are necessary to determine full impacts, your ROI is most determined by the final ‘results’ step – which is often the part that is neglected most!

Using staff productivity as an indicator of training impacts

Let’s break down one of these tangible results to look closer at Kirkpatrick’s model. Productivity in itself is a very good indicator of the success of your company’s training methods.

Ask yourself whether training has made a positive impact on productivity levels of individual staff. Be specific (or ask managers to be specific) when answering this question. For example, can employees perform certain tasks more quickly since their training? Do they need less help from supervisors and managers to complete their tasks? Are fewer mistakes and errors being made?

When staff need less supervision, managers and team leaders have more time to focus on their higher level duties. And with improved productivity levels, you’ll have less overtime and often increased profits – giving you a solid indicator of your ROI in numbers. If you can see these kinds of improvements after staff training sessions, you’re most likely getting a good return on your investment.

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

Employee training programs are an important investment in your business. But how do you measure their effectiveness? We'll show you how!

Measuring the impact of employee training: what you need to know

In today’s diverse workforce, not everyone wants to become an executive leader, as individuals are driven by many different factors when it comes to a meaningful career. However, even if you’re not motivated by the thought of being CEO, embracing the qualities of top leaders can be an important step in boosting your career.

By learning to think and act like a CEO, you can become a far more successful entrepreneur or employee, regardless of your industry or job description. For employers and managers, it’s important to encourage staff to do the same as part of their professional development. Helping staff aspire to the qualities of good leadership will give your company a unique point of difference, with employees who are engaged, productive and contributing to a positive work culture.

Here are some steps you can take to start teaching your employees to think like a CEO.

Show staff how they fit into the big picture

When you know how your work contributes to an overall goal, it makes everyday duties so much more rewarding and motivating. And understanding how things fit together to contribute to the company’s ‘big picture’ is an essential part of thinking like a leader.

In an article for Entrepreneur, David Royce recommends managers “make a point to discuss how an entry-level sales job directly affects the company's annual goals.” Royce says this helps staff see how they fit into the big picture of their organization, and “as employees start to envision how their actions lead to overall company success, they will better understand how a CEO strategizes.”

Make this an important step of your onboarding process, so all employees are aware of the company values and big picture as soon as they get through the door. This will also help new hires understand their roles within an organizational context, leading to more knowledgeable, capable employees who are more invested in a company that invests in them. 

The most successful CEOs are strong leaders, highly skilled in innovative and strategic thinking. You can help employees start strategizing and thinking like a CEO by investing in effective training to improve their leaderships skills.

Make sure staff members have access to ongoing learning and development tools as part of their professional development – tools such as workshops, webinars, online training courses and eLearning resources. With the right training tools, you can expect to see increased productivity and performance, higher levels of staff job satisfaction and better employee engagement and team morale. 

As Royce says, by taking these steps, you’ll soon “start to see mini-CEOs wandering the halls – encouraging one another, planning group activities and proactively suggesting new ideas that promote company values.”

Royce also recommends setting up a system for tracking employee progress, to reward and encourage high performers.

To do this, you can “set company goals or individual department goals, or implement specific monthly incentive programs,” Royce suggests. “Then reward your staff by throwing a party, hosting a movie night at the local theatre or buying the first round of drinks during happy hour -- anything that shows how success will be encouraged and celebrated as company goals are achieved.”

Rewarding high performing employees in this way encourages individuals to do their best to stand out from the competition – a quality found in many top-ranking leaders.

Employers and managers have a duty to create a positive work environment and culture for staff, with the attitude of a company’s CEO having the largest ripple effect on staff morale.

Leading by example is a large part of creating a mentally healthy workplace, and a good leader will know the importance of maintaining a positive mind-set and attitude – even when faced with challenges or adversity. 

To help teach employees to think like a CEO, encourage each individual to step up and promote a positive attitude at work. Staff members who consciously maintain a good attitude in the workplace – whether it’s on the sales floor, in the call centre, or when meeting with clients – are highly valuable as employees. 

If you’re a manager, keep an eye out for employees who regularly show this awareness and skill. These team members are likely to be the ones who move into leadership roles in the future, perhaps even CEO!

Why you should be teaching your employees to think like a CEO

We've discussed before how beneficial eLearning can be to the health of your organization. We comes to training your staff, it’s one of the most effective and affordable solutions available today. For many companies, the best solution is actually a blended learning approach.