Here you are. You’ve done the work of identifying the skills gaps in your organization.
You’ve gathered data (check out this handy Needs Analysis Tool), analyzed it, and determined when or if a learning solution needs to be incorporated. Now, you’ve designed a program to address those gaps.
But here’s the challenge: How do you prove that your efforts are making a real difference? It’s one thing to roll out a training initiative; it’s another to show its impact on performance and the business.
If you’re struggling to show the connection between closing those skills gaps and measurable business outcomes, you’re not alone. Many L&D professionals find it tough to communicate learning impact in a way that resonates with leadership. The good news is, you can, and it’s all about the data.
The same data that helped you pinpoint the skills gap can also be used to measure—and communicate learning impact.
So, let’s explore how you can connect the dots between identifying skills gaps and demonstrating the outcomes that matter to your business leaders.
Measuring Performance Impact Matters
As we all know, it’s easy to get caught up in developing and delivering programs, but at the end of the day, business leaders care about one thing: results. Even if they have not expressly asked for impact results or, in some cases, shown an interest in measuring performance impact, they instinctively want to know how your learning initiatives measure up against the bottom line. So, we can’t sit back and claim the usual:
- It’s not part of my job role
- “They” aren’t asking for data
- “They” don’t care about data
- I don’t have time
- It takes too long
As we are seeing across a wide range of industries, training is often one of the first areas to be “red-lined” when budgets tighten. Therefore, the business may not be asking about “performance data,” but they sure as hell are looking for it when it comes to justifying L&D spend. This is why connecting your learning programs to the company’s goals is more important now than ever. It becomes a game of “How can we get the business to eat it’s veggies?” It wants the chocolate cake and empty calories of “butts in seats” metrics but it needs the carrots of performance change.
Shifting from measuring activities to measuring performance change
The purpose of a skills gap analysis isn’t just to highlight what’s missing; it’s about connecting those gaps to business outcomes. If your analysis reveals a lack of technical skills, the solution isn’t just related to training (Let the team members eat cake!). Our job is to determine the clear pathways and resources that close the gap (the veggies) and move toward improving business results, such as reducing missed deadlines or improving project quality.
When we demonstrate this, we become more than the fun mom who feeds the kids chocolate for breakfast – we become a force of good.
To the business, course completion or test scores might seem like progress, but another part of our role is to help them see that these measurements don’t address the real issue. Before you come at me, I know some leaders (looking at you HR and Legal 👀) only care about participation for compliance purposes, but leaders who are focused on impact ask: Did the training change performance? Did it improve timelines or reduce errors? Our real value comes from showing how learning solves the problems that hold the organization back. They want the veggies!
Redefine what Measurement looks like
How can we shift from measuring activity to measuring performance impact?
It starts by reframing what success looks like. Instead of focusing on smile sheets that happen after the fact, build a plan to link your training initiatives directly to performance outcomes before you develop anything. In other words, grate some carrots into those chocolate chip cookies.
Here’s how you can begin to make that shift:
1. Start with Clear Business Goals
The key to meaningful measurement begins at the very start of development, defining specific business outcomes tied to closing skills gaps. What (business) problem will this “training” solve?
- Reduce project delays?
- Reduce process errors?
- Improve customer satisfaction?
- Reduce complaints?
- Increase productivity?
- Increase sales?
By shifting learning objectives to actionable performance outcomes connected to tangible business goals, you create links to measuring performance.
Now, you have an impact measurement to hang your hat on! This small shift in thinking about outcomes with business results are the carrots in the cookies. This ensures that the learning isn’t just about “learning” but also about delivering tangible business impact.
2. Identify “What Success Looks Like” Before Development Begins
Once you have a clear understanding of the business goal(s), it’s time to determine which performance metrics will demonstrate progress. It should answer the question: “What will success look like?”
What this looks like:
For example, let’s take measuring “behavioral change” as an example. Behavioral changes on any level are typically harder to quantify, but if we consider them from a business goal perspective, it becomes easier.
- Standard learning objective for leaders to learn how to “develop employees”: “Leaders will be able to create and implement development plans for their team members, providing ongoing feedback to support individual performance.“
- (Business-driven) Outcome for “developing employees”: “Leaders will be able to conduct regular 1-on-1 feedback meetings, with 90% of team members having updated and actionable 30/60/90 development plans.”
- What success will look like (proof): Engagement surveys will show a 25% increase in employee satisfaction related to development opportunities and a 15% increase in internal promotions.
By knowing what success will look like from the beginning, you establish a baseline against which you can measure performance changes, and leaders can see the real-world impact of those changes.
3. Tell the Story Behind the Data
At this point, it’s not just about gathering data; it’s about making sense of it and then communicating it. The most effective way to communicate performance impact to your leaders is to tell a story that connects the dots between learning and observable impact.
Example: Instead of giving the business just the cake, “100 employees completed the software training,” you add the veggie, “After the training, employees reduced their manual data processing time by 20%, leading to faster project turnaround times and improving the team’s ability to meet deadlines.”
Including the performance data in your story shifts the focus from the empty calories of simple participation numbers to how the learning influenced changes in employee performance. It adds nutrients to the data. You’re not just saying the training worked—you’re showing how it worked, what problem it addressed, and why that problem matters to the business. And this is precisely the kind of “data diet” business leaders want.
Accessing KPI Data
One of the biggest challenges we, as L&D professionals, face is not having direct access to the vegetable drawer that stores the KPIs that matter most to the business. We have all the metrics related to learning activities, but other departments often own the more meaningful data related to productivity, revenue, or operational efficiency. So, how can we gain access to the data we need?
- Partnering with Key Stakeholders Before Development: Build relationships with stakeholders before you need their help. Be transparent in the information you need and how it will be used.
- Use Existing HR Data: Competency maps, engagement scores, safety measurements, turn-over numbers etc.
- Leverage operational dashboards: This requires building trust (see item #1), but those dashboards contain mountains of data waiting to be explored, such as production errors, customer returns, time to sales, etc.
- Invite various stakeholders to collaborate on pilots: When they see how the data is going to be used to measure success they may be more eager to help.
By involving stakeholders early in the development phase and building strong relationships, you’re not just like Oliver Twist and “begging for more”, you’re bringing them into the process. This collaboration shows that everyone is aligned on the goals and understands the importance of the metrics being tracked. When stakeholders see how the carrots directly contribute to healthy success, they become more invested in the outcome and are more willing to share all the produce!
To wrap this up:
Measuring the impact of learning is more than just showing the worth of your L&D department – it’s about demonstrating how learning makes a real difference in the business and to it’s people. When you connect skill gaps to what leaders actually give a damn about, you begin to position learning as a driver of performance. Aligning your training with business goals, tracking the right metrics, and telling a clear, data-backed story helps you make a strong case to leadership that learning isn’t just a “nice to have.” L&D can be more than just chocolate cake for breakfast!
Here are some quick, actionable steps you can start right away:
- Meet with Key Stakeholders: Set up a conversation to discuss their business challenges.
- Reframe Learning Objectives: Align objectives to outcomes with business metrics like improving sales or reducing errors.
- Track One Business Metric: Pick one key metric to follow, such as project completion times or error rates.
- Gather Pre-Training Data: Collect a small piece of performance data before your next training session to try measuring against.
- Survey Stakeholders: Send a quick survey to stakeholders asking about metrics they track and what success looks like.
- Create a Success Story Template: Start capturing training impact with a simple template showing the problem, solution, and outcomes.
The journey to data-driven L&D starts with a single step. What will yours be? Do you have experiences or tips that could help our brothers and sisters sneak the veggies into dessert? Please share!
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