In some professions, the results of poor training are obvious and can cost lives - like in emergency services, medical professions and the military. Such professions tend to train often and successfully, and where the training outcomes are less obvious, it can be more challenging to explain the need for money and resources. Business leaders are reluctant to invest in endeavors that are not patently effective and add to the bottom line.

For learning and development teams to show their organization the need for training, they need to produce results that demonstrate increases in usefulness, productivity and profits. Without a strong correlation proving that increased training created additional improvements or other positive business effects, business leaders are likely to discontinue training courses and the time for training.

Some of the takeaways from this workshop are:

- Aligning your training to the most important goals and needs of your company

- Conducting a needs analysis to ensure training has a role to play in meeting the goal or need

- Reaching upfront agreement with the goal owner or sponsor on impact and other measures of success as well as on roles and responsibilities

- Carefully planning the program, including targets for all KPIs with a focus on high-value metrics

- Managing the program to deliver promised results by tracking and understanding key measures

- Sorting through the different models and levels of evaluation to manage the training and demonstrate results - Briefing your results with business acumen and without the use of L&D terminology