Chief Learning Officer - October 2008 - (Page 36)

Learning Measurements: It’s Time to Align BY MOHANA RADHAKRISHNAN Chief learning ofﬁcers face increased pressure from the C-suite to justify expenses and quantify business decisions. It’s time to re-examine how to measure learning and make a change. our training classes have a 92 percent ﬁll rate. A whopping 95 percent of your employees have completed one or more formal training programs. You’re thrilled to see these positive metrics — until upper management asks you to deﬁne what employees are learning, where they are learning it and how this learning impacts the company’s bottom line. Chances are you don’t have an answer. Most learning professionals don’t. It’s time for a paradigm shift in the way we approach learning measurement. Companies are grappling with issues related to 2009 CLO SYMPOSIUM learning measureMetrics guru Jack J. Phillips, chairman ments. According of the ROI Institute, will be keynoting at to a survey conthe Spring 2009 CLO Symposium taking ducted in 2007 by place from April 6-8 in Miami Beach. Expertus and TrainFor more information, see www.clomedia. ing Industry Inc., com/events/symposiums. almost 77 percent of respondents said their current measurements fall short in providing meaningful intelligence for business planning. Additionally, only 16 percent say they have all the information they need for business planning and strategy. Learning leaders aren’t the only professionals who aren’t getting what they need from current learning measurements. According to the survey, most companies still focus on learning-related metrics such as course completions (84 percent), registrations (57 percent) and learner costs (49 percent). However, 36 Chief Learning Ofﬁcer • October 2008 • www.clomedia.com Y 69 percent of the audience looking at these metrics includes business-unit executives and managers. When your audience is focused on cost-savings and revenue growth, telling them about full classes and the number of people trained just isn’t going to cut it. Business-unit managers want to know what their employees are learning, where they are accessing information and how that knowledge impacts the business. Your LMS can’t answer most of these questions. Workplace trends — such as informal learning, the globalization of the corporate workforce and movements toward alternative work environments where staff members telecommute and job share — continue to be hard to measure. With increased pressure from the C-suite to deliver comprehensive, meaningful intelligence that businessunit managers can use for strategic planning, it’s more important than ever for learning leaders to have “dollars and sense” in mind. Maximize the measurement tools you already have, develop new methods to measure informal learning and deliver the reports in succinct formats. Maximize the Tools You Have According to another Expertus survey, the data sources most frequently used by learning professionals for reporting are LMSs (55 percent), HR systems (47 percent) and performance systems (31 percent). Learning managers say these systems often fall short due to hurdles such as data inaccuracy, lack of adequate data, reporting limitations of the technology and limitations in time to gather and analyze the data. Pointing ﬁngers at the limitations of technology isn’t doing anyone any good. Seventy-six percent of respon- http://www.clomedia.com/events/symposiums http://www.clomedia.com/events/symposiums http://www.clomedia.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Chief Learning Officer - October 2008

Chief Learning Officer - October 2008 Editor’s Letter Connections Business Impact Best Practices Effectiveness Guest Editorial How Fast Is Your ‘B’ Team? Hampton Hotels CLO Profile Save the World, Make a Buck: Seven Ideas From the Nonprofit Sector Developing Leaders at Amnesty International Learning Measurements: It’s Time to Align Aligning Measurement to Business Success Training Employees With Special Needs How to Reach Disabled Learners Hands Off: Facilitating Informal Learning Who Owns Informal Learning? Case Study Business Intelligence Advertisers’ Index Editorial Resources In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - October 2008

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