Metrics That Can Assist With Learning Outcomes
What do we track? How frequently? When it comes to learning outcomes, determining what to measure can be a difficult idea.
Metrics for Assessing Learning Outcomes
Learners rarely realize how their learning programs can affect their job in terms of the actual learning outcomes. However, for Learning & Development professionals and Corporate Training Companies, it is a must. It is not just important to know what the metrics are but also how they connect to the learner’s work. Making that connection isn’t always straightforward, which is why metrics selection is critical.
- Revenue Measurements
A salesperson or Account Manager who participates in a Sales Management Program can quickly understand KPIs like a percentage revenue increase. However, a salesperson may not be able to precisely relate to such a measure. How do we deal with such a situation? Here are some suggestions to help you develop these measurements.
Examine the notion of unit metrics: can a contract processor, for example, offer data on the percentage increase in the number of deals handled every month? Other unit metrics could include the number of sold units per month and the number of unsold units.
Of course, numerous sales metrics may be collected concerning lead generation, such as % rise in marketing qualified leads or % rise in sales qualified leads; % increase in sales conversions weekly, and so on.
The variety of sales measures is unlimited, but if you can link to revenue, you may be able to create metrics that are important to your participants and have an influence on revenue. In general, however, if participants can relate to a statistic that eventually leads to a % rise in sales (growth) or % loss in sales (loss), you’re likely to acquire valuable data about how your learning program affects revenue.
- Metrics for Cost Reduction
Most successful firms are adept at managing and controlling costs—but participants’ participation in learning programs is rarely credited with cost reduction.
Cost metrics such as % rise/reduction in direct or indirect costs, % increase/decrease in unit costs (for example, the price of creating a product or service went up or down due to an increase or decrease in fuel costs), and % increase/decrease in service costs are simple metrics that can be derived directly or indirectly from a system. Other indicators, such as increased/decreased inventory costs or higher expenses owing to time delays, are more difficult to calculate. In such circumstances, it is simpler and quicker two metrics rather than one, such as the percentage growth in inventory during a given period as well as the expenditures associated with that increase.
In today’s SaaS firms, it is critical to capture the expenses of poor assurance, such as a percentage increase in faults over a given period and unit costs of defect repair. There are numerous other metrics related to quality and information security, all of which could be based on faults and the costs of correcting those issues.
- Metrics of Productivity
Simply put, increased productivity is getting more work done in less time. This is a critical metric for businesses because it gauges the productivity of the business. In a call center, for example, the metric may be the “number of calls handled each month per employee.” If the number constantly rises, it is a strong indicator that the contact center is becoming more productive.
Productivity measures in a factory scenario could include the “number of units/products produced each month,” whereas, in a SaaS company, similar measurements could include the “number of new features added monthly.” In a sales context, the “Sales Qualified leads generated per representative per month” can be used as an indicator of productivity, but in a customer support job, the “Number of support tickets handled per person per month” can be useful.
The guiding idea, on the other hand, is to quantify output (services or products) units per person, division, or specialized entity over a regular period.
- Metrics of Client Satisfaction
Customer satisfaction measures are reasonably easy to calculate and tend to be consistent across industries. Customer satisfaction is often quantified using a survey that asks a basic question: “How pleased are you with the company’s products/services?”
- The Balanced Scorecard.
The Balanced Scorecard, proposed in 1992 by David Norton and Robert Kaplan, examines the four important business criteria listed previous section: revenue, cost reduction, productivity, and customer satisfaction. However, unless participants work in positions that directly affect the Balanced Scorecard, it is difficult for them to appreciate their clear correlation to these crucial business measures.
Because the Kirkpatrick Model of Learning Measurement is built into the CALFTM platform, you can capture all of these metrics. Clients use the CALFTM platform to successfully show the economic effects of their learning initiatives, ranging from user-defined Program Metrics (similar to the metrics outlined in sections 1-4 of this article) to the Balanced Scorecard.
Conclusion
While determining what to measure can be difficult, the Scorecard architecture and the fundamental metrics that comprise the Balanced Scorecard enable you to select measures that are relevant to every organization. It is critical to keep the metrics basic and relevant to the learner to capture a useful learning outcome.
