What gets measured gets done! Learning metrics have mostly been confined to an inside out focus around efficiency and cost-driven factors: personal days, penetration percentage, attendance/no show percent (turnout), utilization of trainers, utilization of training facilities, cost per participant, budgeted versus spent money on L&D, L&D cost per training hour- the list is endless. The question is what is the essence?

All of these metrics convey only how efficiently and economically you are running the learning operations and how far you are able to reach across the organization. Perhaps a few are also around justification of taking up technology and some of the other tools of the trade. Wherever effectiveness does get measured, it has mostly been limited to satisfaction (through smile sheets) and knowledge change (through pre-post assessments). A few organizations do a good job of capturing 360-degree feedback – change of behavior on specific competencies as per program focus.

While everyone wants to see impact, how well is that impact defined? A popular example is that of team building. In a situation where people do not collaborate, the simple solution that seems to be quite apparent to anyone is let’s put the team through a team building training! Sounds like, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” (Abraham Maslow). It can also be a case of self-diagnosis and self-medication. There are two parts to this:

Business Impact: What do you want collaboration to drive? What is lack of collaboration coming in the way of? What are the critical business outcomes that are getting impacted? Is it affecting the customer? Is it affecting sales? Is it affecting project delivery? How about quality? Or, is it leading to slips in the SLAs?

Root Cause: What is not working in the team? And why is it not working? There is the example of the British Rowing team for the Beijing Olympics that was put together by selecting the best of the best. It is said that while technically everything was perfect with them, the coach felt something was still missing. What was missing was the emotional connection with one another. Putting them together in one place over three days had a magical effect when they got to know each other better and discovered the human element beyond the sports person. The team won two gold, two silver and two bronze medals, putting Britain at the top of the rowing medal table.

Not only do businesses demand to see the impact, but it is also the role of training team to be able to make it happen. Here are a few questions that need to be answered:

How well is the business problem defined?

• It has to happen in close consultation with the business stakeholder(s).

How clearly are the performance and competence gaps identified?

• There needs to be a clear linkage between expected performance and these behaviors.

Are there established metrics that define performance?

• If not, then on what basis will the change in performance be measured?

Is there an objective, data-driven process for measuring performance?

• If not, then how will the change in performance be determined?

These are questions that come much before the design, content and other aspects related to training delivery.

For impact to be visible, the above aspects need to be taken care of well. Real tangible impact on business will happen when that impact can be defined and measured, and the transfer of learning is enabled and learning is made as a continuous way to make performance happen. It is important to begin with the end in mind and ensure that all the required actions are taken to achieve that.

Rahul Agarwal is the senior consultant of learning strategy at G-Cube.