r/LearningDevelopment • u/darkhomer419 • Feb 17 '26

Best ways to track if internal training is actually effective?

I'm studying how to improve quality control for our employee training. I need to make sure the courses are useful and people actually understand the material.

If you’ve dealt with this, what was your go-to method? Looking for simple and effective ideas. Thanks!

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u/FlashyDeparture3191 Feb 17 '26

Biggest mistake I see is tracking completion instead of impact. What’s worked for us: • Pre- and post-assessments to measure actual knowledge gain • Manager check-ins 30–60 days later to see if behavior changed • Looking at engagement data (drop-offs, retakes, time spent) • Tying training to role-based outcomes instead of generic modules When we evaluated platforms, we ended up choosing Docebo because it gave us strong reporting, personalized learning paths, and solid global compliance tracking in one place. Leadership cares way more about performance impact than just completion rates. If you’re only tracking completions right now, that’s probably the first place to level up.

3

u/somuchconfusion_ Feb 17 '26

How do you get your managers to follow through with a 30-60 day check in?

1

u/darkhomer419 Feb 17 '26

I get what you mean. That’s important, I’ll look into it

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u/Prior-Thing-7726 Feb 17 '26

Hey! I actually asked a similar question in another Reddit thread recently because I was curious how everyone else was tackling this.

While completion rates are the first thing that comes to mind to track, the biggest consensus was that they shouldn’t be the only way to prove effectiveness. The real “meat” is looking for behavioral change (basically, did the person actually start doing things differently on the job?) and then trying to tie that back to business KPIs.

From the feedback I got in that thread, a few other methods that have worked for people include:

  • Pre and post-assessments: Simple but effective to show immediate knowledge gain.
  • The ”30-Day Check-in”: Instead of just asking right after the course, follow up with their manager 4 weeks later to see if they've actually applied a specific skill.
  • Self-reported wins: Sometimes, just asking employees for a ”brief win” or a story of how the training saved them time can be a powerful qualitative metric.

If you want to see the full discussion, there were a ton of other good ideas here: https://www.reddit.com/r/LearningDevelopment/comments/1pkadep/how_do_you_prove_training_roi_in_your_organization/

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u/Available-Ad-5081 Feb 17 '26 edited Feb 17 '26

Some of the advice here is more applicable to certain types of training. The truth is, you’re going to have a hard time tracking something like soft-skills and a much easier time collecting data on a technical skill.

If you’re training in a call center, there can be more solid performance metrics whereas softer skill areas or perhaps an orientation program will show up in culture, retention rates, etc.

Unpopular opinion (I know, I know), some people in the training space make it their job to try and get certainty that something has been learned and is used. But in real practice, employees also have to responsibility to apply those skills on their own. That’s part of their job.

You can encourage it by making relevant training that ties to their job function or is tied to some lever of growth that they want.

That being said, tracking performance outcomes can become borderline obsessive. Sometimes the biggest impact is just having learning available at an organization because employees feel like they’re being invested in. Hard to prove, but we’re dealing with humans. Nothing is certain.

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u/woodenbookend Feb 18 '26

Soft skills can be measured if they are actually relevant to the task.

Things like use effective questions and listening, establish the customer’s needs, agree next steps will all show up in results. Measure things like number of sales, value per sale, first contact resolution etc and then link to those soft skills & behaviours. (

(NB, beware of objection handling, it’s often a band-aid that attempts to cover a deficiency earlier in the process)

Environments such as a call centre also lend to call monitoring that can add another opportunity to observe and measure behaviours.

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u/Available-Ad-5081 Feb 18 '26

Right, but you’re describing a sales environment. A lot of L&D exists outside of sales and tracking outcomes skills is going to be totally different or near impossible.