Training Industry Magazine - Content Development 2017 Special Edition - 12


1. They consider themselves "performance
consultants." They do not treat themselves
as a learning arm of the business, but
as consultants to the business to help
them achieve their goals by improving
employee performance.
2. They associate themselves with the
business. They are not reactive to the
business's training requests, but proactive
partners to the business in maneuvering
through business realities and finding
solutions to achieve performance goals.
3. They start with the end in mind. They
focus on the business metrics that define
the existence of the business and the
behavioral changes they need to instigate
in employees to achieve desired business
results, and work backward in arriving at
the learning journey.
4. They do not get constricted with any one
form of training. They do not see training
as an event, but look at it as a learning
journey to achieve behavioral changes in
employees, thus directly impacting their
performance and hence ROI.
5.They measure business outcomes. They
put all their energy into focusing on business
outcomes as the measure of success, and
consider individual measures for training/
learning interventions incidental.
Five things can be hard to remember, so
let's simplify these points by saying: They

flip the Kirkpatrick Model™ on its head, and
start with trying to impact business results.

FLIPPED KIRKPATRICK
In its simplistic form, the Kirkpatrick
Model evaluates the effectiveness of
any type of training, formal or informal,
across four levels:
Level 1 (Reaction): Evaluates the learners'
response to training
Level 2 (Learning): Measures the learning
from the material
Level 3 (Behavior): Considers if learners
are applying what they learned in the
training on the job

*	Only 5% of L&D organizations excel at
using data to align with business
*	59% have trouble connecting learning
experiences with business outcomes
*	Only 35% list business impact goals
in their plans
*	19% have no business plan
*	22% rarely or never track progress
toward strategic initiatives
Source: Bersin by Deloitte

Level 4 (Results): Evaluates the impact of
training on the organization (or the ROI)

now creating a learning journey to impact
business metrics.

By flipping the Kirkpatrick Model, you start
by baselining direct evidence of what the
learning program can do for the business
(improving NPS, decreasing sales cycles,
etc.), which takes the discussion closer
to business goals and in a language
that the business can understand. Your
efforts, budgets and schedules are now
aligned to business metrics and you start
evaluating at Level 4.

This journey may contain multiple learning
interventions apart from classroom or
e-learning programs, like workshops,
videos, job aids, coaching, simulations,
electronic
performance
systems,
collaborative networks, etc. You now
design it considering the constraints of the
business and you make it available to the
audience most likely to engage with it, thus
increasing the success rate of adoption.

This leads to treating learning as a journey
instead of an event, making continuous
improvement in your learning program
possible. Instead of creating classroom
training or e-learning programs, you are

But, why is that not what we are doing now?
While the outputs may look similar to what
we are designing for today, a closer look
would establish that they are fundamentally
different in their approach. (See Figure 1.)

LEARNING FOR IMPACT

FIGURE 1

NEW
LEARNING JOURNEY

OLD
TRAINING INTERVENTION

Aligned to business goals and metrics
Designed to improve performance of
specific audience
Aligned to work with learner and
workplace demographics
Demonstrates ROI - the same ROI
that the business would report

Aligned to perceived training needs
Designed to transfer knowledge and
skills with little emphasis on metrics
Restricted to traditional ways of formal
training - in form and delivery
Difficult to demonstrate ROI and
attribute bahavioral changes to training

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THE DISCONNECT BETWEEN
L&D AND BUSINESS

In the corporate world, training effectiveness
should not be measured and attempts to do
so are time consuming and irrelevant for
the business. What matters most is training's
impact on business goals. What can be
measured, and what businesses will have no
problem allocating time or budget for, are
metrics important to the business - Level 4
of the Kirkpatrick Model.
Most businesses have no interest in spending
the time and money in evaluating training
programs at Level 1 because determining
how satisfied learners are with content styles
is nearly impossible to tie back to an increase
in sales. It's time for us to flip the Kirkpatrick
Model on its head and start spending with
the end in mind. It's time to design learning
journeys for business impact.
Arun Prakash is the chief learning architect at
InfoPro Learning. Email Arun.
http://www.kirkpatrickpartners.com/OurPhilosophy/TheKirkpatrickModel http://www.kirkpatrickpartners.com/OurPhilosophy/TheKirkpatrickModel
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