How To Track The Effectiveness Of Your L&D Platform

Training helps employees acquire new competencies, solidify existing knowledge, and elevate existing performance levels. Organizations invest in employee training and development for a variety of reasons. However, regardless of what the reason for training might be, you need to ask yourself how efficient your training program is and whether progress can be measured to ensure a proper assessment of the initiative's impact. Without a system to measure each step and perform assessments, one cannot know if a given training is doing what it was intended to do or if the chosen training program is the right fit for that particular group. Most businesses might find keeping tabs on their employees' training status challenging. The process is especially difficult for organizations with large numbers of employees. The role of learning management systems (LMS) in this context becomes clear. Thanks to cloud learning solutions, companies can now track how their employees improve over time and automate a number of processes. The training program's goal is to maximize the training effectiveness and provide a satisfactory return on investment to the companies that fund it.

In this post, we will delve deeper into the significance of tracking training programs, the metrics that will assist you in tracking the performance of your training participants, and the organizational benefits of tracking training performance.

Why Tracking Training Efficiency Is A Must

Tracking employee training allows you to implement more effective learning and development initiatives. When you have training metrics, you can evaluate how well the program is working and find any problems so you can fix them quickly for the participants. You can redesign a training program to improve the participants' learning experience if they find it too challenging to comprehend and uninteresting. According to Training Mag, companies spent an estimated $1,111 per employee on training on average in 2020. With such high costs involved, it is only reasonable to want to know if all these significant investments paid off. Tracking employee training effectiveness is one of the most accurate ways to evaluate the net impact of a training program. It shows if your team is getting the right skills and knowledge while learning the way they should.

Benefits of Tracking Employee Training Efficiency‍

When you track your employee training, you can determine whether your employees are acquiring knowledge most effectively. This is important because they cannot reach their full potential without learning correctly. The majority of demotivated and disengaged employees are those who do not acquire new knowledge and skills gradually.

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Some of the benefits of tracking your training efficiency are : 

1. Easier onboarding : As a result of the existing data derived from tracking employee training over time,  creating training programs that are concise and valuable to deliver the best results becomes much easier. Due to this, your onboarding process becomes more straightforward since the training has already been tested. 

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2. More accurate date for employee evaluation: Periodically, every organization conducts performance evaluations. This is required to maintain efficiency and effectiveness. Having a complete record of employee success in training also leaves you with quantifiable indicators for measuring performance.

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3. Make data-driven decisions: Training tracking is vital since it allows you to assess the performance of your employees on training assessments. For instance, you can track who fails to comprehend the course material or which topics the majority of employees struggle with.

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How to track your training efficiency

Training metrics are essential when it comes to measuring the effectiveness of any program. To get an accurate measure of the effectiveness of your training, it is crucial to highlight the metrics you want to focus on to get meaningful data. Some of the training metrics you can focus on are: 

• Training cost per employee: This metric divides the overall cost of training by the total number of employees. This can be for a specific program or the total amount of training completed in a given year. To get the cost of training per employee, divide the total training costs by the number of employees at your organization. Knowing the cost helps you allocate resources effectively, as you can monitor spending and see if you are overspending.

• Training experience satisfaction: This is one of the most commonly measured training metrics, typically used in post-training surveys. It measures learner satisfaction with the training they have just received. The Net Promoter Score, which ranges from 1 to 10, can be used in conjunction with the question “How likely would you recommend the training to a colleague?” to collect feedback and gauge training experience satisfaction.

• Training completion and drop-out rates: 

Another way to measure the effectiveness is by checking the rate of learners who complete the course against those who enrolled and dropped out. To encourage training completion among participants, introducing innovative approaches like using bite-sized videos and gamification can help boost learner engagement by creating an interactive learning environment. 

Other proven methodologies to measure training effectiveness

The Kirkpatrick Model is a widely recognized technique for evaluating the efficiency of training and education programs. This method evaluates formal and informal training methods using four criteria levels: reaction, learning, behavior, and outcomes.

Level1: Reaction

The first part of this model is "reaction," which is a way to measure if learners find the training interesting, helpful, and relevant to their jobs. This level is usually measured by a post-training survey (commonly known as a "smile sheet") that asks learners to rate their experience.

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Level 2: Learning

Using this model, we can utilize Level 2 to assess each participant's learning based on whether they acquired the desired knowledge, skills, attitude, self-assurance, and dedication to the training. During the assessment, formal and informal methods can be used to evaluate learning, which should be done before and after the training to determine accuracy and comprehension. Exams and interview-based evaluations are some examples of assessment methods that can be applied at this stage. To get accurate results, it is recommended to use a clear scoring procedure predetermined before the assessment.

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Level 3: Behavior

Level 3 assesses whether participants' learning has significantly impacted them and whether they are applying what they have learned. Considering behavioral changes makes it possible to determine whether the skills were comprehended and whether they are practically applicable in the workplace. 

Frequently, evaluating behavior reveals workplace problems. A lack of behavioral change may indicate that not only the training was ineffective, but the organization's current processes and cultural conditions may not be conducive to the desired change.

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Level 4: Outcomes  

The final level is devoted to measuring direct results. Level four compares learning to the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of an organization, which were set up before learning began. Some common KPIs are a higher return on investment, fewer accidents at work, and more sales.

Adopting the Kirkpatrick Model produces an executable measurement plan for clearly defining objectives, measuring outcomes, and finding areas of substantial influence. This helps analyze data at each level and enables organizations to study the relationship between training levels to acquire a more profound knowledge of the training outcomes, adapt their plans, and adapting their course during the learning process.

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How to track your training efficiency in a Nutshell? 

A learning management system is currently the most efficient approach to tracking training efficiency. An excellent LMS does precisely what its name implies: it organizes the implementation plan for employee training and keeps track of employee involvement, results, and completion dates.

Yes, a spreadsheet or other traditional evaluation tools could be used, but if your company has more than a few employees, this quickly becomes messy and inefficient. Even the smallest businesses can benefit from taking the initiative to find and use better ways to track employee training. Getting content for your LMS is something you should not busy yourself with because Greenmusk learning services can help your organization build a training program from scratch or breathe life into your existing one alongside interactive visual elements to keep training participants informed and engaged without breaking the bank.