Training Measurements in learning organizations

Conversations with learning executives, conducted through Expertus Learning Intelligence Forums, revealed that attitudes about learning measurements are changing for the better.

Overall, executives are talking much less about traditional measurements and much more about business-related measurements.

Getting visibility into the business impact of learning has become increasingly important because corporate learning is now widely viewed as a business service. The vast majority of training reporting is done for internal business customers, such as sales executives, call center managers, and business unit leaders.

One VP of learning said, we have to move from measurements based on training by the pound to those that are relevant to our business. Measurements such as total learning hours, pages accessed, class registrations, completions, and assessment scores have little if any value to internal customers ñ as well as to business-focused learning executives.

According to a senior director of education services, We can’t train just for the sake of training. We have to be able to answer questions about business impact. The Kirkpatrick model is great theory, but itís very expensive and time consuming to get to level five. Practically, you have to find a measurement system that uses what’s already in place. Good learning business intelligence which increases the visibility and provides insights to improve business decisions is the need of the hour.

Our many hours of discussion with learning executives can be summarized into a few simple guidelines for effective training measurement:

· Make sure your metrics are meaningful to your customers.

· Keep metrics simple and practical. The fewer the better.

· Invest time in identifying metrics up front, not after the fact.

· Go out of your way to communicate and explain findings to your customers and to senior management. Don’t wait for them to ask you.

In addition to providing real insight into the value of your training programs, practical and meaningful metrics can help you educate your stakeholders and raise important business issues.

If you’ve got questions about learning strategies or if you have a good example of measurements done well, contact us. We’d be happy to offer an objective and practical perspective.

For more information log on to www.expertus.com

www.trainingefficiency.com

Measurements: One of the Toughest Challenges in Training

We come across many learning executives who still struggle to obtain meaningful metrics that would support decision making and exhibit the business impact of the investment made in training. In fact, in our most recent training challenges survey, 78% of respondents said the biggest weakness in their current reporting was providing information to support business planning and strategy.

Some of the other major obstacles encountered are data accuracy, lack of data, data standardization, time constraints, and data access.

A lot of companies look to their LMS to solve their learning measurement challenge. But, our survey found that 84% of respondents were dissatisfied with their training reporting.  Respondents cited limited standardized reporting, learning technology integration issues, customization requirements, and usability as the primary areas of dissatisfaction.

It is not fair to blame all measurement problems on LMS technology. In our first Learning Intelligence Forum, learning executives were concerned about the difficulties of measuring informal learning, the need to efficiently correlate performance and learning, and the technical challenges involved in pulling data from multiple sources, such as HR and CRM systems.

We believe efficient, effective, and meaningful metrics are essential for successful learning operations management.  And we believe there’s a dearth of information and resources about this important topic. By facilitating discussions, gathering market data, sharing our experiences, and offering informational resources, we hope to do our part in moving the industry forward.

I’d love to hear from you about your training measurement programs or if you don’t have one our learning strategy consultants can help you build one.

For more information log on to www.expertus.com

www.trainingefficiency.com

Consolidate & Centralize Your Learning Technologies

When you consolidate and reduce the number of your company’s learning systems, a cumulative positive effect is spread across the entire training organization.

 

There will be fewer system support requirements, less maintenance, fewer patches, fewer resource requirements, fixes and upgrades. In addition, you’ll need fewer people with technology skill sets, which helps to reduce support costs. The bonus benefit is your reporting will become easier, which will lead to better learning measurements.

 

In our experience, there are two main challenges to the consolidation and centralization of learning technology:
    1. Deciding what to do with legacy data 
    2. How to meet the functional requirements of varying business units

 

With regard to legacy data, there are several options. Assuming you have the ability to keep your legacy systems, you can migrate users to new systems and build data integration into your stable legacy systems. Users can still access the data, but you won’t have to go through a big data migration effort, which can be time consuming and expensive.

If you have to go through a data migration effort, which is usually accompanied by a significant amount of data clean up, it makes sense to conduct a data audit and do some systems analysis up front.

 

The second big challenge is how to meet the functional requirements of various groups across your organization. More and more training departments are leveraging newer technologies and approaches by building LMS functionality OUTSIDE of their LMS, in the form of portals and widgets. This approach allows you to customize to the needs of those diverse business units and significantly improve the user experience.

For more tips, check out our recent webinar recording or read our white paper, Eliminate Waste and Reap the Rewards: Nine Ways to Trim Operational Expenses to Fund Strategic Learning, both available at www.TrainingEfficiency.com.

 

If your organization is considering an LMS consolidation or if you’re interested in increasing the efficiency of your learning technology infrastructure, contact me.

 

For more information log on to www.expertus.com

www.trainingefficiency.com