What is all the fuss about collecting metrics for learning programs? Why should we care about learning measurements?
This question may seem like it is complex, but is it really? Let’s go through some of the reasons why you should measure learning — even if no one is asking you to.
Learning is no longer an activity or luxury that only occurs at specific stages in your life or career. With the digital revolution, learning has become immediate, real-time, and relevant whether you’re young, old, in the workforce, in school, or at home. As a learning and development professional, you’ve likely confronted the digital learning revolution armed with instructional design models from the pre-digital world. But today’s digital universe has a new model to address its wealth of new technologies and a new philosophy of learning experience design: learning cluster design.
1. Cover your ass
No one wants to be caught with their pants down. When you track and measure your program’s metrics, you are now in a position to answer the questions that may be thrown at you. Organizations look at your collection of metrics as a sign that you know what you are doing. Not collecting metrics may be seen as a sign that you are afraid of what those metrics may say. Good or bad — you need to be ready to explain why or why not your program is working. Leadership often wants the story about your program. Knowing that story is true and accurate — because you have the numbers to back it up — is what covers your ass.
2. Gain confidence in your decisions
How do you know you are making the right choice in regard to your learning program? You decided to teach a module using a video vs. an article. Why?
Metrics will help you make those decisions in an objective way that is hard to question. If you are able to prove why option A is better than option B, then you know that moving forward with option A is the right move. Say that when your audience watches videos about how to perform a job task, their job performance is more accurate for the job task taught than audience members who read a technical guide. If this pattern is repeated for your audience, you can feel confident directing resources into the creation of more videos for similar job performance areas.
3. Grow trust with stakeholders
For most L&D teams to grow in both scope and team size, stakeholders have to trust that things are getting done correctly, efficiently, and timely. You have to show the numbers to prove that is happening. Stakeholders have to know that when they come to you with a problem, you can create a solution and they will see improvement. Also, when you ask stakeholders to remove their direct reports from their duties temporarily to complete training, they want to know that it is actually something valuable. Use metrics to prove your program was worth that time investment. The next time you ask, they are more likely to trust that you will be responsible with the time they give you.
4. Protect your program
You could be running the best learning program in the country, but if you can’t prove it, that amazing program can get cut. Maybe your direct supervisor sees the value without the numbers, but the further away within the organization from your role, the more you have to prove to prevent your program from getting shut down. You don’t want your program to be put under the microscope because you didn’t collect the data needed to prove its success. Your program is more than a budget line-item to be crossed out. Show them why.
5. Protect your team
Not only can programs get cut, but non-essential persons can be cut too. Salaries are a big investment and if leadership can’t see the ROI of having your team on board, layoffs can occur. If you don’t have the metrics to show the long-term value of your team, people can be let go. I’ve seen entire teams let go and the company opting to hire temp workers to meet temporary needs. Collect the data to show why your team is needed and what they do for your organization.
6. Do right by your learners
Your audience depends on you to provide them with the resources to help them perform well. If what you are providing to them isn’t working, you can be causing harm. Not only are you harming their experience within your organization, but you can harm the organization as well. It’s important that employees feel supported. Protect the talent within your workforce and don’t give them a reason to seek out other organizations. Provide them with the content and training that will ramp up the skills they need as quickly as possible so that they can do their best work.
7. Justify future investments
Need more headcount? New software? Computers that are capable of processing large file loads? You can prove why you need it with — you guessed it — metrics! Get the numbers to show how a higher headcount will enable your team to get through your ever-growing backlog. Show that investment in that new learning solution will give you the ability to enable more learning opportunities. Prove that the time saved on rendering and editing media with new laptops pays for itself through the reduction in person-hours spent using current computers. Your requests are more likely to get approved if you have the data to back them up.
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8. Define the next steps for improvement
Continuous improvement is how good learning programs become great. How is the program performing? Is the expected impact being made? Why is everyone missing question #4? Why is my audience dropping off at the 2-minute mark of this 4-minute video? Questions like these may arise after a program is deployed. Investigating and coming up with fixes will strengthen your program and improve performance and sentiment. Sometimes it is hard to define what needs to be done next. Let your learning data guide you on where to focus your efforts.
So, are you convinced? I hope so. One of the biggest tragedies is when an amazing program gets cut or a team gets laid off because of a lack of a good case for keeping the lights on. Your learning metrics tell the story of your program. Let’s make it a good one that is bulletproof.
