Measuring Training Impact Through Learning Effectiveness Metrics

L&D functioned for very long as a support team within organizations

L&D functioned for very long as a support team within organizations, with training of any sort being treated largely as a learning delivery mechanism for employee orientation.

However, more and more organizations are now beginning to focus on how learning initiatives can align to their business goals, and impact employee performance directly. That makes L&D a direct stakeholder in impacting businesses overall – something our entire fraternity wanted for the longest time. The question then is – are we equipped to play the part?

While learning delivery has continually evolved – keeping up with new technology and innovating on effective learning design – the measurement of the value brought in by these initiatives has largely remained a challenge.

Currently, most organizations are relying on course completion (or even learner satisfaction aka smile sheets) data as their only indicator for measuring learning effectiveness. By itself, this is insufficient and often misleading. It’s a good indicator only if it’s used as a basis for deeper analysis on how to improve the effectiveness of learning interventions.

Though organizations realize the value of more robust analytics, they often have trouble identifying the right metrics to measure the impact of their learning interventions.

Since our GoBeyond initiative has been about nudging L&D to go beyond ‘ticking the box’ and focus on what matters most, Measuring Learning Effectiveness seemed like an area that could use some of our undivided focus.