The ASTD estimates for training expenditures are in the neighborhood of beyond $40 billion or so annually. Who can be exact at that altitude but, as the late Senator Everett Dirkson so adroitly commented, “pretty soon we’re talking about real money.”
The problem is that training doesn’t work and that HR and training vendors have never been any good at trying to prove the opposite. In fact, I’m beginning to read the antipodal response in the HR trade press, viz: You shouldn’t have to measure the return on training, you should be able to simply accept its effectiveness on faith.
So, training joins Sasquatch, for whom we at least have some amateur videos and gorilla-like footprints. We can watch the dark side of the moon, and send miniature cameras coursing through human veins, but measuring training is out of the question.
Training doesn’t work because the military/industrial complex surrounding it would have sent shivers down President Eisenhower’s spine, and he was the war hero who first coined the phrase. The symbiosis of the training vendors and the HR department budgets is not conducive to trying to prove that training works worth a darn, but only that the classroom experiences are enjoyed by the participants and that thousands of people have been marched through the requisite case studies, computer simulations, and PowerPoint™ presentations.
Participants should never evaluate their training experiences. Their bosses should, back on the job. Trainers should never lead separate lives, but should come from the environment of the learners, and be content rich and experienced and on temporary assignment. Materials should never be off-the-shelf and sold by the ton, but should be custom-designed and then transferred in ownership to the client.
If we did that, we’d have training that works. But until then, we can just stare in awe at $45 billion or so with no need to justify it…

© Alan Weiss 2001 All rights reserved.

Alan Weiss, Ph.D., CMC is the author of 16 books, including the seminal Million Dollar Consulting (McGraw-Hill) and his newest, The Ultimate Consultant (Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer). You can reach him at Alan@summitconsulting.com. Visit his web site, http://www.summitconsulting.com to subscribe to his free monthly newsletter, Balancing Act: Blending Life, Work, and Relationships.