Training metrics for MEASURING TRAINING SUCCESS
Training Metrics are used to evaluate the effectiveness of your training to determine how it improves employee performance. Measuring the impact of learning solutions allows learning and development (L&D) teams to identify which solutions are working and areas for improvement.
We start with in-depth needs analyses to better understand our clients’ performance challenges and business needs. Then, we design a custom learning solution around a set of specific, pre-defined metrics. By focusing on performance and business needs from the start, we help L&D groups to demonstrate the positive impact they have on the business.
Very few learning organizations identify and track training metrics that are tied to business results (i.e. behavior change, and business impact).
Brandon Hall Group’s 2020 Learning Measurement Study found that the greatest challenges for a business organization to measure the impact of learning include:
- Lack of proper metrics
- Shortage of time/staff
- Not having the technology to support it
- Struggle to link learning to outcomes
- Difficult to assess
- Not seeing a need
The AllenComm performance mapping process defines four levels for measuring the success of your training (per Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Evaluation):
-
Reaction – Gauges overall learner sentiment and satisfaction with the training by measuring engagement, relevancy, confidence level, complexity, and usability (data from surveys, interviews, help desk)
-
Learning Outcomes– Evaluates whether the skills or knowledge were learned (data from pre- and post-exam, scored activities)
-
Performance Results – Measures observable changes in behavior (operational data or score cards)
-
Business Impact – Assesses the impact on the business (increased sales, decreased operational costs)
The first step to develop an effective strategy is to begin by identifying the business goal that is going to be served by the training, in order to make sure that the learning solution is the right fit for the intended goal. It is important to think about measurements to help guide your path forward before you design the training.
Involving business partners at this stage will help create alignment of strategy and goals, and promote the buy-in that will allow you to create a baseline pre-launch to measure against after the training is launched. Change management planning is essential to success.
After completing the plan, the next step is to gather and report on the data using visualizations. It will be important to consider whether to collect both engagement and performance data. Keep in mind that you will not be able to measure the same metric for every training; it depends on the intervention. It is best to consider what the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are that are indisputable, easy to get measurement from, and that can be acted on. You may want to consider the following to determine the KPIs:
1. Use the generated reports and visualizations to analyze trends. You may compare a learner’s activity with others in the same program, with learners who have previously taken the course, or against the course rubrics.
2. Empathy interviews, with end users, managers, stakeholders and other benefactors, as part of a design thinking process, are powerful on the front end and throughout the development process to gather qualitative results.
Make sure you are intentional in the data that you are collecting. Gathering data you won’t use is wasteful and can cause confusion.
Once you have collected and analyzed the data, you will find areas to improve the learning solution over time. Create checkpoints to gather data to show improvement regular intervals, such as 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days. This way you will be able to iterate your training to improve it overtime.
Most importantly, remember that the way to engage employees is to provide them with opportunities to learn and develop new competencies. Research suggests that lifelong learning contributes to happiness. When highly engaged employees are challenged and given the skills to grow and develop within their chosen career path, they are more likely to be energized by new opportunities at work and satisfied with their current organization.
Working with our clients, we use diagnostics to track the desired performance impact and to make iterative improvements on the effectiveness of the learning solutions over time.
