The Impact of Assessment and Testing

Michael Brannick - 2/2/04

Business performance and employee career plans ride on the relevance and validity of corporate learning programs. Valid corporate learning programs make learning assessment an ongoing part of training and an ongoing, fundamental part of your employees’ jo

Organizations that have made assessment an integral part of learning and development, and a part of their core value system, appreciate the principal worth of a quality workforce. The impact of good assessment and testing matures your learning program and helps propel the potential for your people and for your business.

For Your Business
Economic conditions being what they are, we place more and more demands on our employees. Budgets shrink while workloads expand. Productivity enhancement allows this to happen with a positive outcome. Your people have a stake in all areas of the company and need to respond to organizational changes fast. Exposing your workers to an increased amount of learning opportunities will help them adapt. Learning pays off for the business in the long run by reducing recruitment and attrition costs, but more importantly, learning targeted at improving business systems and processes pays off in more customers and more efficient operations.

The analysis conducted by the Chief Learning Officer Business Intelligence Board is a testimony to the business need for continuous development of your human capital. The Board used contributions from more than 900 learning professionals from almost 900 different organizations. More than 55 percent of these contributors are chief learning officers or hold similar positions within the training departments of their organizations. These professionals point to learning and employee skill growth as an integral step to meeting the company’s success. Almost 97 percent believe that employee learning and skill growth is either critical or very important to their company’s success.

The Board also identified three universal truths that foster learning and business triumphs. First, an organization’s success is dependent on its commitment to employee development. Second, learning programs must be recurrently evaluated and refreshed to determine their relevancy to the business position. And third, the business needs concrete measurement on the results of your learning program.

It is a fact. After relevant, valid assessment and testing, employee skill gaps will be reduced, allowing your business to execute its strategies. Proving the impact of learning investments turns knowledge gaps into a central corporate asset. By cultivating this asset, you are growing and protecting the bottom line. Operating costs will decrease, while market share and revenue growth intensify.