How To Get Real Value Out Of Organizational Training
We believe investments in organizational training should have measurable impact. And that leaders shouldn’t have to struggle to prove it.
Maximizing Value from Organizational Training
Organizational training is the systematic development of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required for employees to perform their jobs effectively and contribute to the organization’s overall success. With a focus on business transformation, this type of training goes beyond individual skill development, aiming to also influence a lift in performance for the team(s) these individuals work on and to build knowledge and capacity in the organization.

Many leaders invest significant time and resources into organizational training, hoping to drive meaningful change and business impact.
All too often, though, the training fails to translate into real-world application, and leaders are left struggling to demonstrate a tangible return on their investment.
We believe that all investments in organizational training should have measurable impact. And leaders shouldn’t have to struggle to prove it.
Truth is – getting real value from training doesn’t happen by chance.
The key to maximizing the value of your training initiatives lies in taking a strategic, outcome-driven approach.
Below, we share some of our more practical tips to help leaders get the most out of organizational training. By aligning your training to specific business goals, engaging leaders and employees together, and providing ongoing reinforcement and support, you can ensure your training investments deliver lasting, impactful results.
1Define Clear Business Outcomes
Organizational training shouldn’t take a generic, one-size-fits-all approach. It must be tailored to address your organization’s unique challenges and performance gaps.
Start by clearly defining the specific business outcomes you want to achieve—whether that’s improved customer service, reduced errors, increased productivity, or something else entirely.

Conduct a thorough needs analysis to understand the root causes of the problems you’re trying to solve. Involve key stakeholders, including leaders and employees, to get a holistic view of the issues and desired changes. This upfront work ensures the training is addressing the right problems and aligns with your broader strategic objectives.
Needs analysis isn’t something that has to take a long time to sort out – using a problem-solving approach, a skilled instructional designer can cover a lot of ground in a few hours.
2Engage Leaders and Employees Together
Effective organizational training requires shared accountability and commitment from both leaders and employees. Leaders must be actively involved, not just as sponsors, but as active participants in the training process. This collaborative approach is essential for cultivating an adaptive, learning-oriented culture and the psychological safety required to grow and transform.
When leaders learn alongside their teams, it reinforces the importance of the training and creates alignment around the desired outcomes. Employees are more likely to apply new skills and behaviours if they see their leaders modelling and supporting the changes.
Ongoing check-ins, coaching, and progress monitoring from leaders help sustain the momentum and ensure the training translates to real workplace impact.
By engaging leaders and employees as partners in the training process, you’re sending a clear message that learning and development is a shared responsibility. It also helps break down silos and fosters cross-functional collaboration—a hallmark of successful learning organizations.
3Design for Effective Transfer of Learning
Too often, training programs focus solely on knowledge transfer without adequately preparing participants to apply their new skills in the real world. Taking the time to design for the practical application of learned material can make all the difference in translating your training investments into measurable results.

Start with a learner-centric approach to design. Training content and activities must be highly relevant and engaging for the target audience. Incorporating adult learning principles, hands-on practice, problem-solving, and opportunities for reflection are critical for learning transfer, as are providing bridges to building new skills, such as job aids, tools, and other resources to help learners successfully apply what they’ve learned.
Building in opportunities for ongoing reinforcement, such as follow-up sessions, coaching, peer-to-peer learning—and addressing potential barriers to application, such as time constraints, lack of resources, or conflicting priorities, sets the stage for successful transfer of learning to the job.
But employees have a role to play here, too.
It’s essential to design for empowerment, both in the classroom and on the job, so that employees understand they’re expected to take ownership of their learning and development rather than passively receiving information.
By focusing on effective transfer of learning, you increase the likelihood that the training will lead to tangible behavior changes and business impact.
4Measure and Demonstrate Value
Traditional return on investment (ROI) models often fall short when it comes to measuring the impact of organizational training.
That’s why we were excited when we found the Gillis & Bailey High Impact Evaluation™ Model. A made-in-Canada option developed through research in both the private and public sectors, HIE is a predictive model that makes it easy for organizations to measure, monitor, and enhance learning impact with innovative tools to ensure learning is aligned and locked to the organization’s desired goals. Through various evaluation approaches, HIE helps gather qualitative feedback from participants and leaders to understand the perceived value and impact of the training.

Also helpful are:
- Creating opportunities for employees and leaders to share success stories and anecdotes that illustrate how the training has made a tangible difference in the organization;
- Leveraging the Learning Cycle from the FourSight Problem Solving Toolkit to capture lessons learned after each training event so that you continuously evaluate and adjust the training program to ensure it remains relevant and effective over time.
This data-driven, iterative approach allows you to demonstrate the value and impact of your training investments rather than relying on generic “happy sheets” or elusive ROI calculations.
Conclusion
Organizational training is a powerful tool for business transformation, but only if strategically approached and focused on tangible outcomes.
By aligning training to specific business goals, engaging leaders and employees together, designing for effective learning transfer, and measuring the real impact, you can maximize the value of your training investment.
Remember, training is not a one-and-done event. It requires an ongoing, collaborative effort to sustain the desired changes and ensure the training continues to deliver value.
By taking a strategic approach, you can unlock the true potential of your training programs and position your organization for long-term success.
Need Help maximizing the value of your organizational training?
Book a complimentary 30-minute discovery call to run down the challenge you’re facing.
We will listen to what you’re working through and help you figure out your next best steps. You may discover a new approach to training. Or you may discover we can help you find a better solution.
About TouchPoints Learning & Innovation: We are an enthusiastic team of experts in learning, change and innovation. We help organizations solve business problems through facilitated creative problem-solving, team development services, outcome-driven innovation, and custom training development and delivery.
