Short answer: measure the distance travelled. Attendance and completion tell you who was in the room; they don’t tell you what the room did for them. If you’re a training provider, an employability programme or a course deliverer, you can capture the change — in confidence, skills or readiness for work — with a simple before and after. Here’s how, and why commissioners are asking for it now.
Why this is landing now
Commissioners and funders increasingly want outcomes, not attendance. A register records that people showed up; it says nothing about whether they left more confident, more skilled or more ready for work. The programmes that win and keep contracts are the ones that can show the shift — the distance travelled — and back it with evidence. The good news: capturing it is quick, anonymous and low-risk.
What you’d actually do
- Pick your measures. Choose two or three things your course is meant to move — confidence, a specific skill, job-readiness, wellbeing. Keep it short.
- Capture a baseline. At the start, ask the group to rate each one on a 1–10 scale. It’s anonymous and group-level — no named individuals, low GDPR risk. See the distance-travelled tool →
- Deliver the programme. Run the course as normal.
- Re-measure at the end — and at the midpoint. Ask the same questions again at the close, and optionally midway through, so you can see when the change happened, not just that it did.
- Work out the distance travelled. The rise from baseline to end is your outcome — e.g. confidence moving from a group average of 4 to 7. That’s the evidence a commissioner is actually asking for. Use the average calculator →
- Cost your delivery hours too. Log the staff hours behind the course and Owl Impact converts them into a costed social value figure in pounds, using a recognised national proxy — so you can show outcomes and what the delivery was worth.
Why it fits a training provider especially well
It turns “30 people attended” into “30 people, confidence up from 4 to 7, delivered for a costed £X of social value” — the language commissioners respond to. Because the data is anonymous and group-level, you get the evidence without holding personal records on learners. And if you train other deliverers, the same simple before/after travels with them, so your whole network captures outcomes the same way. See train-the-trainer →
Try it free on your next course
Owl Impact is priced by usage — capture the distance travelled on a real course, cost your delivery, and hand a commissioner outcomes instead of a register. No obligation.
See what tracking over time costs → Or try distance travelled free →