Let’s face it: most learning and development (L&D) functions do not generate revenue. Unless your business model sells L&D services, the L&D function is part of the overhead family. These are the functions the organization believes it can reduce or eliminate without significant harmful impact. If your stakeholders possess this viewpoint, they do not value learning as one of the strategic levers for making the organization successful.
As an L&D professional, your many responsibilities include changing this perception. The thought of doing this may seem overwhelming, but there is a practical approach you can use to get started.
Types of L&D Structures
A one-person L&D function: Structures where one person executes learning in their organization. This person finds the training needs and designs and develops the solutions. They handle project management, change management, communications and marketing. Like the sole proprietor of a business, they wear many hats.
A newly launched L&D function: Structures born from new company launches, new products or services, or new needs. Someone supported the initial launch of the L&D team because they knew internal and external customers needed training. But after initial launch or rollout, the role of L&D may not be clear.
A mature L&D function with several programs but limited measurement strategy: Structures which have been established for some time but evaluation of their services and programs has been limited to the learner experience. The learner or organization’s requests drive learning needs, but these do not match the strategic goals.
A curious L&D professional: Individuals in any of the above structures or in some other structure who are interested in personal growth and development.
If you are in one of the above categories, you may benefit from a practical approach to demonstrating L&D value in your organization.
The Practical Approach to Showing L&D’s Value
1. Build relationships.
Do you know who the decision-making stakeholders are? Do you have a relationship with them? If they are not easily accessible, build a relationship with advocates. Advocates are stakeholders who value learning and can champion or share its importance in the organization. Advocates have direct and/or indirect influence. They can report to decision-making stakeholders and are peers, or are part of related departments working with the stakeholder organization.
Your organization must view the learning function as a strategic partner. The journey to this designation begins with relationships.
Tip: Not sure how to build relationships? Start by getting to know the person before jumping into work-related topics. Discover something the person cares about (i.e., family, free time activity, nonprofit endeavors), and give them the opportunity to share their passion. Consider scheduling “building the relationship” meetings and be honest that this is what you want to accomplish.
2. Gain awareness of the strategic direction.
Do you know your organization’s strategic direction? What the business’ 3-5-year plan? Is the business looking to increase profits, acquire other focus areas, or expand into new markets or technology? What skills or knowledge will be essential for this direction? Another component of demonstrating value is knowing the strategic direction and how L&D supports this. L&D gets closer to being strategic partners rather than order takers. Again, building relationships is a supporting activity for this.
Tip: Understanding strategic direction is a two-for-one opportunity. Holding information-gathering meetings to grow your business acumen capability is also an excellent way to build relationships. Holding these meetings with key stakeholders or advocates is an additional win.
3. Target the easy metrics first.
Activities like relationship building and awareness of organizational direction are qualitative approaches toward demonstrating value. They position you in the mind of your stakeholders, so they genuinely know who you are, but the quantitative elements of learning analytics underscore or sear L&D value in an organization.
Many learning professionals start out wanting to measure too many metrics. Before evaluating your L&D function, determine what story your organization will see as most important. For many organizations, a story whose summary line begins with, “because of training we were able to (increase business, prevent loss or remain compliant)” is the best story, but for L&D functions in one of the structures listed earlier, this may be too much to achieve when you’re getting started. First, consider the easy metrics and ask which would be necessary for your organization. More straightforward metrics include participation or completion rates, and learner satisfaction indicators such as learner perception of program quality, delivery format, role applicability and recommendation potential.
When the stakeholders see you sharing the learner perspective and making changes reflecting learner feedback, they see you care about the people they care about.
Tip: These metrics are easy because their ingredients are your programs and the learners. You can get this data even if you lack a learning management system (LMS). A simple spreadsheet and survey tool can be an excellent starting point.
4. Once you see wins with the easier metrics, notch up to the advanced metrics.
Move up to the next level of metrics where you can demonstrate where L&D increases knowledge or changes behavior. This level of measurement may only apply to specific programs in the L&D portfolio. Avoid believing every learning program in your portfolio needs this level of evaluation.
Knowledge measurement can be achieved through assessment and tracking scores before and after program delivery. You can also measure knowledge through learner perception. Ask the learner how they would rate their knowledge level on key topics before learning and after. You may also consider asking peers or managers. These people experience the change in knowledge from their regular interactions with the learner.
Measuring behavior is about seeing if the learner is applying the knowledge. Use techniques like observation, self-perception, or peer/manager feedback to see if the learner is applying what they learned. Insure you measure before and after the learner experiences the program.
Knowledge and behavior assessments have the potential to attract the stakeholder’s interest. After seeing the outcomes, they may request additional views because they can see a connection between knowledge and behavior and their key performance indicators (KPIs) like sales and operations related metrics.
Tip: Some programs may lend well to measuring only the change in behavior since the proper application may assume a level of knowledge.
5. Share the L&D story.
You know who to share your data with if you’ve built relationships. Share it before they ask. Simple communication to the stakeholders and advocates about the month’s or quarter’s results can spark a need to know that people weren’t aware they had.
You may be tempted to share the data using spreadsheet summaries or data visualizations like bar charts and other graphs. That’s good, but most people need to hear the story. What does the data mean? Is the data showing learners crave how to coach their team members? Is the data showing people need to know more about solutions or services?
If you tell the story about the data, it saves your stakeholder the time of coming up with the story on their own.
Tip: Tell the story first and add the data to back up the story. For instance, what if you decide to assess knowledge of a solution or product a couple of weeks after the learning? When you compare results to the pre-learning assessment, you may see an increase in scores, meaning learners retained what they learned. What a great story to share with stakeholders — their team members have a stronger understanding of the solution or the product after training. After telling this story, share the pre- and post-learning scores.
That’s all there is to getting started…but not exactly. In this article we focused on getting started practically, but this does not mean your organization will see L&D as a strategic business lever after you implement these approaches. You are working toward connecting organization strategic goals to L&D. This will take more time just like it takes time to implement these practical steps.
Remember these last two tips:
- View time as an opportunity, not a burden.
- You are now in a position, because of relationships and the stories you’ve told to move towards the next level, where you can create programs that directly connect to strategic goals. Beginning small with one or two programs is another excellent practical starting point.
