Leading Change: TRAINING

Level 5: Return-on-Investment

Kirkpatrick’s four levels of assessment have served the training world well over the years. Kirkpatrick suggests that organizations begin evaluation by using Level 1 for all programs (which he describes as customer satisfaction) and continue through Levels 2, 3, and 4. Organizations that begin evaluation at Level 3 or 4 are making a mistake, Kirkpatrick suggests.

In recent years, however, there has been a growing interest in moving beyond business outcomes to explore whether, on balance, the training generated a financial benefit for the organization that, ideally, more than offset the costs of the program. Thus the emergence of a new Level 5 or return-on-investment (ROI) assessment.

Level 5 evaluation measures ...