The power of independent feedback processes in training and learning programs

Feedback is one of your best sources of information for evaluating how learning programs actually land with people and whether they are effective.

The problem is that when feedback is collected by someone with too much skin in the game — someone who looks good if the results are positive — it creates powerful incentives that undermine the whole exercise.

Here is something we see every day: you always look better when you concentrate on improving a program than justifying it. If your relentless focus on improvement gets you down to tiny tweaks, it's still plain that the program is good, because there is little left to improve.

Independence addresses these challenges. When feedback goes to a third party who designs the questions, collects the responses, and reports a fair summary to both sides simultaneously, the process becomes credible and the information gets used. And it's usually more efficient too.

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Here are the ways that independence pays:

Greater consistency and reliability:

When feedback is collected in-house, different people may manage the process differently, ask different questions, or skip steps, making comparisons across programs or years impossible. A stable third-party process makes it easy to stay disciplined and consistent.

Time and resource efficiency:

Collecting, analysing, and reporting feedback using in-house resources is a tedious, error-prone, and administratively heavy task that staff often openly dislike. An independent process reduces mistakes and ensures objectivity for less cost than the staffing expense that would be needed to resource this internally.

Reduced bias and pressure:

Internal feedback collection almost always carries pressure to validate the training – unconsciously or otherwise. When this occurs, not only is there waste in the process, but the investment in the training is never truly justified anyway.

Secure, privacy-aligned data:

Data is stored securely and anonymised, keeping you on the right side of privacy principles. You can request access for analysis (notwithstanding any data cleaning required to preserve anonymity), or have us perform deeper dive analysis on your behalf.

Better business relationships:

Ensuring training suppliers well-structured, impartial feedback that they wouldn’t have otherwise received makes the commissioning organisation a great partner, strengthening the relationships. Equally, for training providers, taking care to seek out this information is just as powerful.

Deeper insights:

When there is feedback in all directions becomes more honest, meaningful, credible and actionable than when the process is led by the training provider or the receiving organisation.

Insights from beyond your organisation:

A reservoir of high-quality, well-structured data from a process that transcends your organisation allows us to provide sector-wide insights into which learning experiences are working in relevant contexts. This helps you extract greater value from your data and make progressively smarter investments over time.

Ultimately, it's all about:

Improved decision-making:

Rich, de-identified data fuels a deeper understanding of impact, and helps make more informed choices about the best mix of learning programs in the future.

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To learn more about the independent feedback management process we run for dozens of learning programs, start with this Overview of the RED Track Feedback process.