Training is not an end in itself. In order to ensure that time, effort and money invested in training is worthwhile, training should be validated. That is, any training program should be evaluated to ensure that it is meeting the identified needs and that it succeeds in raising productivity and delivers effective outcomes.
Care needs to be taken that technology training is appropriate to the needs of the trainee and the election management body as a whole; that it will be relevant to the tasks to be undertaken by the trainee in his or her work. The number and variety of training available can appear to be endless. However, not all courses will be relevant to everyone. Particular training courses are best selected that will provide real benefits in the workplace. There may be a temptation for staff to undertake training that is interesting to them rather than relevant to their work.
Training can be validated a number of ways. One of the most important ways is to use performance measures to gauge the success of the process for which the training is being used. For example, measures of the success of training of voters using an electronic voting system could include error rates, numbers of complaints from voters and numbers of requests for additional assistance.
Other training-related performance measures for in-house staff could include number of clients dealt with, speed with which requests are handled, speed with which election results are finalised, and so on.
Training should also be evaluated by the trainees. At the end of any formal training session, it is good practice for the trainer to provide the trainees with an evaluation questionnaire. This typically asks the trainee to rate a series of statements or questions about the training experience on a very good to very bad scale. This kind of evaluation lends itself to being computerised, so that results can be quickly amalgamated and analysed.
Training evaluation can be beneficial to both the trainer and the trainee. For the trainer, it gives valuable feedback about the effectiveness of the training session, from the perspective of the trainee. For the trainee, a good training evaluation will focus the trainee on how much he or she learned from the training and whether his or her training objectives were attained.
