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Training Leaders Encountering Challenges with Business Outcome–based Metrics

As training executives feel the budget burn, they are being forced to defend their value. Training leaders find it challenging to use advanced and business outcome–based metrics to communicate with senior management about the impact and efficiency of their operations, indicate respondents of a joint survey by Training Industry, Inc. and Expertus. Only 23% of the respondents indicate they use these types of metrics, according to findings in the associated report titled Training Efficiency: Optimizing Cost, whereas the majority (62%) uses learning metrics such as Kirkpatrick’s Levels I-III and volume-based metrics.

“This isn’t just a language barrier between the training organization and senior management, it is having defensible business arguments that illustrate the value of training,” says Mohana Radhakrishnan, Founder and Vice President of Client Services for Expertus, in a news release. “Busy metrics no longer suffice from an executive level and it’s time for training organizations to turn their data into actionable information.”

Additionally, expectations to expand training are at odds with pressures to reduce costs, the survey of 113 training leaders at companies of varying size and industry sector finds. The majority of training managers think administration is where the greatest cost savings will be, while technology is seen as an area to defend from cost-cutting, the report shows, as they also see it as the best tool for bringing about those very cost savings.