The Measurement "W's"

Sue Orchanian
edited August 6 in Talent Insights
What’s the Difference Between Measuring and Reporting
 
How often are you asked to run a report for someone.  Is it once a week, twice a month, quarterly, yearly?  When you are asked, do you know what it is going to be used for?  Running reports, when you don’t know WHY, has no value.  It is just a set of numbers that are virtually meaningless.  However, if the data from the report is used to support organizational goals, then that is an entirely different story.
 
Learning Measurement is something that requires specific organization goals.  Your Customer Success Manager can consultant with you to explore the opportunities that learning has in helping different departments, or the organization, achieve its goals.
 
Reporting is the actual review of specific metrics that will be used to compare progress to your learning measurement goals.  Reports are an output.
 
 
Talent Development Reporting principles
TDRp is recognized in the industry for its approach to develop and implement internal reporting and management standards for all key human capital processes like L&D, leadership development, and talent acquisition.  It will help you and your organization:
  • Identify your key company goals
  • Align learning to these key company goals and establish the planned impact of your initiatives on business outcomes
  • Identify, report, and manage the most important effectiveness and efficiency measure for your key initiatives. Decide which measures to manage and which to monitor
  • Manage key initiatives through the year to deliver planned results
 
What to Measure?

Measurement falls into three buckets:  efficiency, effectiveness and outcome.
 
Efficiency measures will provide insight into the quantity of training delivered.  For example, program utilization, training hours, cost per learner, program adoption and consumption.
 
Effectiveness measures are indicators about the quality of the learning program.  For example, learner reaction and satisfaction, skills learned, and the application of the learning.
 
Outcome measures capture the impact L&D is expected to have on the organizations more important goals.  For example, risk reduction, or a sales training initiative might be expected to contribute towards the company goal of increasing sales by 10%.
 
Who Are You Measuring For?

Think of this from a strategic perspective.  What is the primary reason why you purchased Skillsoft content?  Once you understand this, you can confirm if the right audience is being supported through your program.  There can be many different individuals/groups that are interested in the measurement of your learning program.  They can be one or more of the following (or others that you can come up with):  Stakeholders, Management and Leadership, Tech & Dev and/or L&B, Compliance, Enterprise programs, LOB programs, Certifications, Leadership programs, DEI programs.
 
When to Measure?
 
This can be a challenge because you do not want to be caught up in running data and providing metrics all the time.  If you have just begun your learning program, you should consider getting baseline measurements 6 months after program launch.  Then, think about what makes the most sense.  Should it be done quarterly? Yearly? Measure against your organizations own performance by making comparisons month over month? Quarter over quarter? year over year?  Do you want to measure your performance with others in similar industries or verticals?  Do you want to measure trends to predict future outcomes?  Whatever you decide, it is not always worth it to measure monthly on all points.  In addition, it is not always effective to only measure yearly.
 
Why Measure?

That’s a very good question!  Running reports just for the sake of reporting is not a good use of your time.  However, running reports that will measure value is something different. 
 
What your goal will be is to prove value from your learning program through learning analytics.  Are you training on the right things?  Are people engaging with learning and coming back for more?  Are people applying what they learned to their job?  Is your L&D truly making a different for the organization?
 
If you want to know if your training program is hitting the mark, or is falling short, it makes sense to run reports on a regular basis and observe trends.  By doing so, you can make corrections if you are not getting the results that you expected.
 
I hope you enjoyed this blog post and received some value from it, as I hope you are getting value from your learning program!