Employers invest in training when there is a hard business reason to do so—for example, because they want to reduce unacceptable loss of time due to accidents, excessive waste of materials or time lost because employees require too much supervision.
Essential Skills training tends to be most effective when it is used to help employees improve their own ability to perform in the workplace. In other words, all training activities need to be evaluated according to how much they contribute to improving workplace performance (not just according to how employees feel about the training, but also in terms of what they learn, how their behaviour changes and how they improve in their jobs).
It is important to track benefits, outcomes and impacts. Benefits accrue to all stakeholders, including employers, employees, managers and customers. These benefits need to be recognized and communicated widely to maintain the momentum of Essential Skills interventions.
The kinds of outcomes that employers who invest in Essential Skills training tend to measure and manage include the following:
Some impacts that employers may want to measure include improved safety, increased productivity, increased retention, reduced absenteeism and reduced error rates. Evaluating the entire package of benefits, outcomes and impacts resulting from Essential Skills training is crucial to understanding the business case for investing in Essential Skills. A business case will typically include a combination of hard and soft returns that improve both individual and organizational performance.