How to measure the value of L&D programs

As an L&D leader, you know why your people need learning and development. But the other stakeholders in your organization may not. To gain their trust, it’s critical to show the ROI of your learning investments. 

In this article, Kristin Thomas, Pluralsight’s Director of Customer Value Realization, explains how to prove the impact of upskilling in your organization and build stakeholder trust.  

How exactly do you prove the value of L&D? Kristin boils it down to two key elements: Did your people learn new skills? And are they using those skills on the job?

“We need to be able to prove that the skill investments that we’re making are resulting in net new skill gain happening. [We also need to prove] that those skills are being used in our work environments on the things that are most mission critical,” she says.

Without these two pieces of information, you can’t see how learning affected KPIs. These include employee retention, customer satisfaction scores, and ticket resolution times.

Uncover 17 metrics to track the ROI of L&D.

To see upskilling ROI, your people need to learn and use new skills. Follow these steps to align learning metrics with the initiatives that are most important to your organization.

What problem are you trying to solve with upskilling? What’s the larger business context? 

For example, maybe you provide upskilling as an employee benefit or for compliance requirements. Or maybe you’re using it to accelerate project timelines, improve quality, or align with other team objectives. 

These are very different things. You need to know which one you’re targeting to measure upskilling results appropriately. 

“Begin with the end in mind,” advises Kristin.

Next, design your upskilling program based on the future of work. In other words, what work do team members need to do after learning? What outcome are you hoping to achieve?

Understanding where you’re going will help you align with the business and build the roles your organization needs. It will also help you determine specific learning and development metrics to track.

Designing for the future of work starts by understanding your current state. Uncover the KPIs teams are already using to track their success. 

If you can identify those KPIs up front, you can design skill development with them in mind. Try asking questions like:

• How are you measuring the productivity of your team and the quality of their output?
• What are three sales metrics that tell you your close rates or revenue are improving?
• How do you know you're improving your voluntary and involuntary turnover rates?
• How do you know your process times are improving?

“This is not a laundry list of all the things you need to measure,” says Kristin. “Pick one or two key metrics, maybe three, if you really want to be an overachiever.”

Look at the work your teams are delivering. Compare that with the work they need to deliver to support the higher-level strategy and KPIs you identified in the previous step. Do your people have the skills and proficiencies they need to complete that work? 

It’s also important to consider their confidence levels. “The higher their confidence that they can perform the work, the more likely they are to actually do it. They’re not going to delay. They’re going to jump right in and start delivering for you,” says Kristin.

For many people, consistent learning is a behavior change. 

“As leaders, we know that trying to help people consistently change their behavior requires a lot of support, and it requires a lot of time,” says Kristin. “There's competing timelines. There's competition for resources. We have to make sure that we're baking [support] into our skill development programs.”

To provide a support system for learning and development:

• Give employees permission to learn
• Explain what they’re learning and why
• Share tools to help them implement new solutions, adopt new tooling, or accelerate output

Once you put these elements together, it’s time to monitor your upskilling program. Kristin advises looking beyond engagement metrics like number of hours or platform usage.

“Engagement's an early indicator of success, but it isn't the complete story. Just using something does not mean that it is actually changing the business,” explains Kristin. “We want to see asset usage tightly aligned to the objectives and goals for these roles.”

It’s also important to monitor learners’ preferences. Are participants satisfied with the resources you provide? Is the learning relevant to their current or future work? Are you providing the right blend of classroom, online, and hands-on learning? 

“Always be collecting that information,” says Kristin. “It keeps yourself fresh and keeps your programs tightly aligned to what needs to be delivered across the organization.”

Learn more about tactical, strategic, and transformational upskilling.

If all of this is making your head spin, it’s okay to start small. 

“At this moment, I wouldn't say replace everything that you're already doing,” said Kristin. “Look for one or two metrics around effectiveness. 

“Maybe it's just, ‘How many people upskilled?’ You're starting to get closer to, ‘What did they get upskilled in, and how much skill did they develop?’ That's 3 metrics that you could layer into what you're already looking at. I would start there.”

Get all of the insights you need to show the value of L&D—watch the webinar on demand now.