Learning impact reporting trails performance expectations
Demonstrating learning’s impact remains a familiar challenge: 71% expect better job performance, while 53% report strong ability to communicate impact with data.
Just over half of respondents to an Instructure survey say their organisations can communicate learning programme impact using data to a great or very great extent.
The survey of 1,166 US professionals across HR, learning and development, technology, senior leadership and related roles puts that figure at 53%. A further 21% report little or no ability to communicate programme impact using data.
Seventy-one per cent expect learning programmes to improve job performance to a great or very great extent. Seventy per cent expect improvements in productivity or operational efficiency and 69% expect better role readiness or skills mastery.
Twenty per cent report little or no credible evidence of programme impact. Barriers include limited workforce data, reporting limitations, siloed systems and staffing constraints. Each of the seven barriers assessed was cited as a limitation to a great or very great extent by between 42% and 46% of respondents.
The report returns to a familiar challenge for L&D: moving beyond course completion to demonstrate changes in skills and performance.
Instructure chief learning officer Melissa Loble said: ‘Course completion can tell leaders who finished a program. It doesn’t show whether employees built the skills they need or whether learning translated into stronger performance.’
Its recommendations revisit familiar, if unevenly applied, principles: identify current skills and future capability needs, work backwards from desired outcomes to define evidence of progress, and connect learning data with employee and business results. The report advocates using that evidence to improve programmes, address skills gaps and inform internal mobility and succession planning.
Learning expectations and evidence
- 71% expect learning to improve job performance to a great or very great extent.
- 70% expect productivity or operational efficiency improvements to that extent.
- 69% expect role readiness or skills mastery improvements to that extent.
- 53% can communicate programme impact using data to that extent.
- 21% report little or no ability to communicate programme impact using data.
- 20% report little or no credible evidence of programme impact.
Links
The full report, Learning programmes have an outcomes problem: Research shows the proof is in the skills, is available to download.