Training Your Personnel: Level 4

Unit 6 - Background to Training


6.3 Training Assessment

Training is an integral part of staff development and should be subject to periodic assessment to ensure that training needs are being met. The purpose of training assessment is to ensure that appropriate levels of competence have been achieved.

External certificated courses will normally involve formal assessment, usually through written examinations and/or the submission of essays and reports by individual students on predetermined topics.

In-house environmental training should also be subject to formal assessment according to pre-agreed performance targets. The subject areas could cover, for example, familiarity with the organisation's environmental policy, adherence to the management system, an understanding of environmental legislation and an awareness of the issues which affect the organisation. Methods of assessment could include written tests, appraisals, interviews and group discussions.

Organisations should aim to assess the tangible benefits of training in terms of improvements in environmental performance, for example through reductions in waste, improved technologies, improvements in energy efficiency and better customer and community relations.

Finally, the training strategy should be regularly reviewed to ensure that new issues are covered. Staff should be given the opportunity to participate in the development of the training strategy. The review might take the form of questionnaires or surveys asking staff their views on:

  1. The effectiveness of the training methods.
  2. The issues covered.
  3. Those issues which should be addressed.
  4. Suggestions for improving environmental performance.

Exercise:
Collate all the training material for your company that you should have gathered throughout the module and put together an environmental training file for your company.