Bhutan: Measuring Employee Training Effectiveness: A Public Sector Case Study

Abstract

The public sector of Bhutan—as in many developing countries—budgets substantial funds for capacity building and training, and in the case of one of the ministries in the government, the investment is not evaluated for effectiveness. This case looks at the effectiveness of the existing training programs of that ministry and recommends necessary policy and regulatory changes to improve training processes. The model of measuring training effectiveness developed by Donald Kirkpatrick in 1959 (known as the four level model) was used; the data for the study was collected from two sets of questionnaires. One set was from the employees who have undergone some form of training in the last three years and the other from the manager of these employees. A total of 92 employees and 23 managers responded positively to the survey. The conclusion of the study established that there is ample room for the ministry to improve their training effectiveness – and this point is true for many relatively underdeveloped emerging markets in Asia that are similar to Bhutan.