Do you ever wonder if the money you spend on training is having any impact? Maybe you think it's too complicated? Whether your training budget is large or small, this week we can help you with some

Training is often part of a bigger picture, and is rarely a solution on its own. Training evaluation at its most simple is assessing the CONTRIBUTION that training makes to your organisation, rather than assuming a casual link between a piece of learning and a business impact.

Here are some tips for finding out the contribution your training has made:

Prime the trainer beforehand to listen out for people saying ‘this will be really helpful with…' If you can follow up even a couple of these comments with phone calls, you will get additional evidence to show your training is having an impact.

If your training has an online element, make the last section a quick ‘how will this help' question, preferably with a drop down list of options so that delegates can respond easily.

Anecdotes are powerful evidence of training impact. Ring a couple of delegates a week or so after the programme and ask them how the programme is helping. Ask them to give you a specific example of what they found useful, or what they have done differently as a result.

Contact a line manager and ask straightforward questions about the impact of the training.

A lot of impact may be visible in the workplace. For example, go and sit on the floor of the contact centre, ask if you can attend a management meeting, look to see if a person is better organised etc. You'll be surprised what you learn, and the delegates will be impressed that you are taking that much interest.

If a training programme is poor, you will find out pretty quickly (probably while it's still running). If it's all good news – be pleased!

If the news is mixed, make a decision about the amount of time you want to spend on how the programme can be changed or improved to get the most out of your training.

If there appears to be no impact from a training programme, treat it as a learning opportunity for yourself and the organisation.

The notion of evaluating learning and development activity against business objectives in the context of return on investment (ROI) is a concept with which many organisations struggle.

Recently The ROI Academy™ teamed up with LINE Communications, one of Europe's leading learning services specialists, to provide a comprehensive learning solution suite for their clients. The combination of award-winning custom learning and communications programmes from LINE and The ROI Academy™'s dynamic evaluation systems provide an ideal combination of service and software tool.

Until now our clients would come to us with isolated training objectives and the expectation that e-learning or some other form of blended training programme would achieve their needs. Or alternatively, our clients would come to us with an urgent need to prove a return on investment on existing training programmes. In both cases, it was difficult to talk to our clients about their overall learning and evaluation strategy without a combination of the learning and development expertise and evaluation systems experience. The partnership between LINE and The ROI Academy™ now enables both organisations to engage their clients from the earliest stages of training objective setting right through to the delivery of the training programme(s) to the staff or end-users.

The ROI Academy™ and LINE partnership operates on both a technical and commercial level. Commercially, this enables both companies to co-market their products and services into key sectors. Moreover, both organisations share marketing expertise at exhibitions globally and locally. The technical partnership sees both organisations working jointly to produce software tools that meet the needs of their clients. The Performance Pound Wizard™ tool is the first jointly produced software tool that, when used with the full range of The ROI Academy™ services, enables clients to measure their organisational or departmental training results in a language that training professionals will immediately understand - thus making adjustments to their training easier to plan.

LINE has three lines of service: Content Development, Consultancy and Technology Services, all delivered in a fully bespoke manner. Over two decades the company has built up a world class client base which spans the corporate, education and public sectors, working with clients such as BP, BNFL, Ford, Accenture, BT, Jaguar, AON, Volvo, DfES, MOD, Capita and the BBC.