Linking Learning and Development to your Performance Data

Today's Guest Post comes from Stanley Janas at Halogen Software. He makes a compelling argument about linking training and development to performance metrics.  It is a great read.  In the spirit of full disclosure, I am now Director of Learning + Development at Tufts Medical Center here in Boston, Massachusetts.  Halogen has been solicited for a quote for their performance and learning management software solutions.

Getting Value from Your Employee Training Initiatives Most Learning and Development teams face two main challenges: accurately identifying their organization’s learning needs, and verifying that their training interventions are effective. Some try to define their learning offering by looking at their most popular learning activities and expanding their offering in that area. They rationalize that employees know what training they need and communicate that through their selections. Learning activities are added and removed from the catalog based on their popularity. Another common method to define curricula is by working with management to develop a training offering that aligns with the organization's strategic goals. One of the most effective ways to define a training offering is to look at the employee performance data gathered from your performance management process. Develop Your Training Offering Based on Actual Learning Needs One of the best ways to identify learning needs is to look at employee performance ratings, especially on competencies, and identify gaps between organizational needs or expectations, and actual performance. By taking an aggregate view of this data you can:

• Identify the competencies with the lowest (or highest) overall scores so you can easily identify skill gaps that need to be addressed in the organization.
• Look at the percentage of employees who have received a specific rating on a competency, making it easy to identify organizational learning needs.
• Compare each employee's score against the overall average for the group or against targets, to identify areas for development.

This analysis allows Learning and Development teams to clearly identify performance gaps and assess learning needs for the entire organization. If your organization conducts assessments for succession planning purposes, you should look at the employee performance data from this process. Access Development Plans for the Entire Organization In addition to providing employee performance ratings, your organization's performance appraisals likely invite managers to assign development plans to their employees.

Collecting and analyzing this data from your performance appraisals is another way to get real data on individual employee training needs, whether their development plans are associated with competencies that need development, with stretch objectives that require an employee to acquire new skills or with career or professional development plans. Again, you may also be able to get similar information from any assessments conducted as part of your succession planning process. Provide Training That Supports High-Level Organizational Goals

You should also look to your organization's high level goals, mission, vision and values. While managers and employees use this information to align their personal goals, Learning and Development teams can use it to create curricula and learning paths that support the achievement of these goals. Validate the Effectiveness of Training by Measuring Improvements in Performance The same data that helps Learning and Development teams identify skill gaps can help them validate the effectiveness of learning interventions. Learning and Development teams should measure changes or improvements in employee performance ratings over time to validate the effectiveness of training.

This is the most accurate way to truly measure the value of training in terms of sustained performance improvements.

Stanley Janas is Director of HR at Halogen Software.  He can be reached at sjanas@halogensoftware.com