How to Evaluate the Success of Your Training Programs

So, what’s the best way to gauge the success of a training program?

If you ask me (the trainer), the most important measures of success are participant engagement, transfer of knowledge, and acquisition of skills. If you ask you (the leader) you’d probably say it’s about behaviour change and results (in other words, performance on the job and KPIs).

Guess what? We’re both right.

Let’s unpack what this means, and how you can actually measure whether your training programs are doing what you need them to do.

Start With the End in Mind

If you’re a leader considering training to help your team, the very first question you should ask is: “What outcome am I looking for?"

Some examples:

“We need our Sales team to hit their targets.”
“We need our team to comply with safety protocols.”
“We need our customer service team to consistently achieve top customer satisfaction scores.”

So far so good, but before you jump to training as the solution, ask yourself two questions:

1. How do you know that training will actually solve this problem?
2. If training can help, how will you measure its impact?

Step 1: Will Training Actually Help?

Sometimes performance gaps come from behaviour, systems, or process issues, not lack of skill. Before designing or requesting training, use a tool like Cathy Moore’s “Will Training Help?” flowchart to test your assumption.

If you determine that training is the right approach, move to step two (defining desired outcomes), and work backwards from there.

Step 2: Define the Desired Outcomes

Let’s say your goal is to help your Sales team hit their targets. You decide your strategy will be to implement a “solution selling” methodology.

Before offering training, identify 3 things:

1. What do reps need to know?
2. What do they need to be able to do?
3. How will you evaluate whether they're applying new skills on the job?

Once you’ve mapped these out, you're ready to request (or design) training.

This is where many organizations make a wrong turn. They start with the topic, “We need a course on solution selling” instead of the outcome, and end up spending thousands on training without ever seeing the results they hoped for.

When you begin with a clear definition of what “success” looks like, you dramatically increase your chance of providing training that delivers ROI.

The Cake Analogy

Imagine you’re launching a new line of cakes. Your goal? To bake the fluffiest cake in the market.

You believe the key is whipping egg whites by hand before folding them into the batter. This is your strategy. You hire a team of bakers and train them thoroughly in this technique.

In the classroom, they all pass the test, they can whip egg whites perfectly. The training seems successful.

But are they applying the method back at the bakery? Are the cakes actually fluffier? If not, your problem might not be the training, it might be behavioural, or it could be the strategy.

This is exactly what the Kirkpatrick Model helps us evaluate. This model should be used to evaluate the success of the training initiative.

The Four Levels of Evaluation (Kirkpatrick Model)

1. Reaction: Did participants enjoy the training and find it useful and relevant?
2. Learning: Did they actually learn new knowledge and/or skills?
3. Behaviour: Are they applying those new skills on the job?
4. Results: Did those behaviour changes lead to measurable business outcomes?

Each level tells part of the story. If your participants loved the training (Level 1) and demonstrated competence (Level 2), but aren’t applying what they learned (Level 3), you’ll never see improved results (Level 4).

And if you're seeing great behaviour change and execution, but the business results aren’t improving, then your strategy (not the training) needs to be re-evaluated.

When done right, effective training doesn’t just improve skills, it can also expose flaws in the business strategy itself.

So, Why Isn’t Everyone Doing This?

In my experience, it often comes down to a lack of cross-functional collaboration.

Let’s apply this theory to Sales training:

1. Sales leadership defines the strategy (what reps need to know and do).
2. The training or enablement team designs and delivers the program.
3. The participants complete the training and are evaluated.
4. Leadership reviews the results and sets reps loose in the field.

But this is where the system often breaks down. When reps need coaching to apply new skills well, who’s responsible? Who’s tracking whether they’re actually using the new methodology?

Without coordination between Sales, Enablement, Training, and Leadership, even the best planned training initiatives can fall flat.

The Bottom Line

Most organizations don’t just want “successful training.”
They want successful outcomes, which training is only part of.

When leaders, enablement teams, and trainers align around clear goals, success metrics, and follow-up support, training stops being an event and becomes part of a strategy for measurable improvement.

Let's Nerd Out!

Want to evaluate your current method for evaluating training success, or just chat more on this topic? I’d love nerd-out with you.

Contact me at hello@mirandaferreira.ca. I will answer your message, and no 😝 I won't ask you for money.