Nearly 70% of learning and development (L&D) teams report feeling pressure from leadership to measure learning’s impact, according to an annual survey by LEO Learning and Watershed.
However, many firms are struggling to find ways to do this. The survey found that almost all (96%) of the respondents want to measure their learning effectiveness, but only 50% are evaluating learning based on ROI, job performance and organizational impact. An increasing amount of respondents (28%) report not knowing how to get started when it comes to learning measurement.
“With a total sample size of almost 1,000, we now have a compelling body of evidence on the attitudes, challenges and activity around measurement in L&D over the last three years,” said Piers Lea, Chief Strategy Officer at LEO Learning.
“This year’s survey results overwhelmingly show organizations want to measure the business impact of learning and believe it is possible to do so.”
“To create a more nuanced, multi-faceted picture of the business impact of learning, we recommend L&D teams first focus on their data gathering strategy,” said Tim Dickinson, Director of Learning Analytics Strategy at Watershed.
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“As L&D teams create a comprehensive data-driven picture of the effectiveness of learning across their organisations, they can combine this with data from other areas in the business to start building evidence of business impact.”
Dickinson suggests that measuring the true business impact requires learning departments to be well aligned with existing business goals or metrics. “To get aligned, start small,” he suggests. “Choose a business metric that is underperforming, then develop a learning program to improve that metric, and identify the data points needed to measure that program alongside business KPIs.”
When it comes to the use of learning data to achieve personalised learning, the survey found 86% of L&D teams want to use such data, but only 21% are doing this now. Nearly 40% report not knowing how to get started or what tools to use.
The potential impacts of an effective learning programme:
Attraction and retention – More than six in 10 UK workers claim they would switch employers to secure more regular training opportunities, according to research from AVADO.
Improved productivity – A report from Gartner suggests 70% of employees have not yet mastered the skills they need for their jobs today. Improving their skills through training could help your teams perform much better.
Outperform competitors – Businesses are facing a skills gap crisis, due to failure to upskill their workforces, a new report published by skills body City & Guilds Group has revealed. Keeping ahead of the game when it comes to training could give you the edge you need to stay in front of competitors.
