Maximising training evaluation for employee performance improvement

Orientation: Employee performance is a vital aspect within organisations in South Africa (SA). It is argued that poor performance can be addressed through training and development. Performances should be evaluated before and after training interventions to ensure that training was beneficial to the employees.Research purpose: The study intended to establish whether training evaluation conducted after training in the SA financial sector measures employee performance improvement.Motivation for the study: Most businesses invest in training and development interventions anticipating that employees will use what they have learned to improve their performance. There is limited recent empirical research on SA financial sector training evaluation tools, especially those that indicate employee performance improvement after training.Main findings and discussion: The findings of this study indicate the following: SA financial organisations frequently use levels 1–3 (satisfaction; learning; application) of the Kirkpatrick-Phillips training evaluation tool; continuous employee performance improvement needs to be assessed more regularly, especially after training; and levels 4–5 (results; ROI) of the Kirkpatrick-Phillips evaluation model are seldom measured due to a lack of skills, motivation, and resources.Implications and contribution: There are significant implications for Human Resource Development (HRD) professionals and managers within the SA financial sector. Since there is a positive significant association with training evaluation and employee performance, relevant stakeholders must be aware that the purpose of training must be to improve and measure employee performance. This paper contributes theoretically to HRD management practices, training evaluations, and performance improvement. The practical contribution is the proposed Training Evaluation Framework for Performance Improvement for stakeholders to use to ensure that HRD evaluations measures performance improvement.