How to Transform Your Employee Learning Data into Effective, Actionable Insights

If your organization is seeking continuous improvement strategies, the key to saving time and closing the skills gap is easier than you think. It all boils down to measurements that deliver actionable insights. By understanding how to leverage learning and development (L&D) initiatives, you’ll facilitate growth, efficiency, and employee engagement. 

In this blog, Steve Lange, Head of Explorance Metrics That Matters Consultancy, dives into: 

• The purpose of learning measurement 

• Tips for effectively measuring learning data 

• Using the right tools for learning measurement 

• Strategies for managing data to drive growth 

For even more expert insights into how you can enhance your L&D programs with the right SAAS partner, check out the Explorance Metrics That Matter page. 

Why Measuring Learning & Development Performance is Crucial to Getting Results 

As the Head of Explorance Metrics That Matters Consultancy, customers often ask: Why measure learning? 

Is it only for organizational improvement? 

While the answer seems straightforward, it’s important to revisit and refine your measuring goals regularly to ensure they align with your evolving needs. For example, your organization needs to deepen its employee skills or increase adaptability.  

Beyond measuring for improvement, here are three specific areas that offer deeper insights into how you can enhance learning measurement: 

Inform/Monitor 

First, measuring learning informs us of what is going on and monitors progress against pre-determined goals and outcomes. If your organization does not have clear goals or benchmarks to monitor against, how do you tell what “good data” looks like? 

Unless you have set processes in place, you cannot monitor learning effectively. 

Evaluate/Analyze 

The question often arises, “What is the data telling us?” Data is more than numbers, lines, charts, or graphs. When you notice an interesting trend or spike in the data, or see results that don’t meet expectations, you need to analyze and determine the root cause. 

If you narrow the issue down, you can use these insights to take actionable steps toward improvement. 

Manage  

Finally, you can turn monitoring and analysis into effective actions by applying those insights to drive long-term organizational success. This proactive approach enhances employee performance, optimizes resource allocation, and fosters a culture of continuous improvement. 

By leveraging these insights, you position your organization for long-term growth and adaptability. 

How to Find the Right Monitoring Tool for Continuous Improvement 

With the right tool, organizations can track performance and make data-driven decisions that enhance both individual development and organizational growth. However, the best tools in the world won’t deliver a substantial ROI if you can’t communicate the results. 

Here are examples of reporting tools you can use for monitoring learning: 

Static reports 

Reports are handy, as most evaluation tools generate several distinct kinds and can often be sent to various stakeholders as desired. Depending on what tool or technology your organization uses, you can customize reports with filters such as date ranges, learner demographics, and learning methods. 

Dashboards 

Dashboards are the most universal tool for monitoring data of any kind, not solely L&D operations or learning evaluation data. With the rapid expansion of software platforms and various on- and offline reporting tools, nearly every business unit or organization has at least one, if not multiple, dashboards. Dashboards often display live data, are updated in real-time, and can feature advanced filtering capabilities. 

Start Evaluating and Analyzing for Actionable Insights 

Evaluating and analyzing data occurs after monitoring employee learning has revealed actionable data. In the learning and development field, experts call this “managing by exception.” 

This means that when key metrics or KPIs fall below a specific benchmark or goal, and it’s clear that this is a significantly unattainable trend, you must ask deeper questions and explore different levels of data. These levels can include raw, aggregated, qualitative, or quantitative information. 

Depending on the sophistication of the tools, this process can still involve dashboards and reports. It may also include exporting evaluation data into third-party applications such as Excel or data visualization tools like Microsoft BI or Tableau—and sometimes all these options combined. 

The key here is to extract insights from the data that identify a cause that you can act on. This is where you transition from monitoring to managing the data.  

Here is a table organizing the three metrics, using an everyday example of driving your car compared to working in your learning organization. 

3 Tactics to Effectively Manage Your Data to Drive Growth 

Using key strategies to manage your data efficiently can benefit your organization by enhancing learning effectiveness and identifying skill gaps for growth. Here are three initiatives that can help you: 

Manage by exception 

It’s essential to measure performance against goals or benchmarks. Tracking data alone isn’t enough. Having a goal, threshold, or benchmark allows you to evaluate your performance’s effectiveness. A tool like Explorance Metrics That Matter can help answer the question, “What does good data look like?” 

By comparing key metrics against over one billion data points, you get valuable insights into performance standards, including: 

• Instructor performance 

• Content and courseware relevant to the job 

• Learning effectiveness 

• Scrap, or wasted, learning 

• Learning application 

When you measure against a goal or benchmark, you can quickly identify areas where performance is lagging or gaps are occurring. Focusing on these exceptions allows you to quickly prioritize and direct your time further analyzing the learning data. 

Be intentionally curious and ask the right questions 

As you’ve discovered earlier, data on its own doesn’t reveal any insights on the surface. When analyzing data, you need to ask questions about the data itself. 

For example: 

• How far from my goal or benchmark are my key metrics? 

• Is this a new occurrence, or has this been happening before? 

• Is this a trend or something that happens during a specific time? 

• Are all the metrics underperforming, or just one or two? 

• Can I use demographics to determine whether a specific group of learners or location is impacting lower performance? 

• What kind of feedback are learners providing? 

The key takeaway is that you need to be curious about the data, and question what factors (both positive and negative) might be impacting the results. 

Start broad, drill down 

A great starting point is to aggregate data at a higher level, such as the entire L&D organization, a particular curriculum, or a portfolio. 

From there, you can filter down to: 

•  A course 

• A class 

• Different learning methods 

• Various date ranges 

Finally, you will get to learner demographics and comments. Of course, it sounds straightforward, but it takes concerted, intentional effort. A tool like Metrics that Matter can help your organization save significant time with its built-in AI-based comment analysis tool, MLY. Regardless of the tools or process you use, your goal should be to take action. 

Act on Data  

When deciding on recommendations and actions, sometimes you own the actions, and other times, another group or team will rely on you as the expert to provide guidance on the next steps. 

A helpful approach is to summarize your analysis into strengths and opportunities. 

Strengths represent scores that exceed goals and benchmarks, as well as data or positive feedback received from learners about high-scoring courses, content, or instructors. For example, if a course consistently receives high ratings for its engaging content and knowledgeable instructors, this can be highlighted as a strength to reinforce best practices. 

Opportunities offer a constructive way to suggest improvements or considerations. If instructor scores are low, and learners request more real-world examples and on-the-job applications, you can meet with the instructor to discuss connecting course content to practical applications. Additionally, reviewing the content ensures they have the resources and aren’t required to generate examples independently. 

The point is that you are going beyond using data to create charts, graphs and reports. You might already be having conversations regarding continuous improvement, which means you are on the right track. Now, take the next step and translate those discussions into action planning. 

Action planning 

Action planning can be summed up into the commonly used framework: “What, So What, Now What?” 

Here is each part of that formula defined: 

• What: Something happened, causing a low score. 

• So What: We’ve found out what is impacting the low score, and if we don’t fix it, learners will continue to struggle (or something of that effect). 

• Now What: Now we are suggesting these things to improve the performance 

What transforms acting on data from good to great is documenting and tracking your steps. These processes help prioritize the work, assign accountability, and close the feedback loop by reporting on how the changes have impacted the results. 

An action plan can also serve as a valuable tool for summarizing how you monitor, analyze, and manage data. This allows you to effectively communicate how your organization uses data for optimal improvement. Promoting your action plan increases the visibility of your L&D organization and increases the survey response rate by showing that people’s input is being acknowledged and acted upon. 

Transform Employee Learning Data and Increase Effectiveness Across Organizations 

You now have all the knowledge you need to transform your employee learning data into effective, actionable insights. The four key elements you need to measure learning and development performance for enhanced employee learning include: 

Purpose of Measurement 

• Inform/Monitor: Measuring learning helps track performance toward specific goals. Success cannot be measured without established benchmarks. 

• Evaluate/Analyze: Data must be analyzed to understand trends or issues. This involves digging deeper to uncover root causes rather than accepting surface-level findings. 

• Manage: Insights from monitoring and analysis should drive strategies for improvement and ensure data-driven decision-making. 

Types of Monitoring Tools 

• Static Reports: These deliver specific data to stakeholders and are often customizable based on filters like date or learner demographics. 

• Dashboards: Offering real-time data monitoring with advanced filtering capabilities, they are widely used across organizations for various metrics, including learning and development. 

Strategies for Effective Data Management 

• Managing by Exception: Setting benchmarks allows you to identify performance gaps quickly and focus analysis on areas needing attention. 

• Intentional Curiosity: Asking the right questions about data helps uncover more profound insights and causal relationships. 

• Pyramid Approach: Start analysis at a high-level organizational level, then drill down to specific courses or learner demographics to identify issues and opportunities. 

Action Planning and Implementation 

• Acting on Data: Summarize findings into strengths and opportunities for improvement. Engage with stakeholders to suggest actionable changes based on analysis. 

• Action Planning Framework: Use the “What, So What, Now What?” model to structure responses to low performance, prioritize improvements, and track progress. Documenting actions fosters accountability and promotes the L&D organization’s effectiveness. 

By implementing these strategies, you can ensure your employee learning data effectively informs stakeholders, drives impactful actions for continuous improvement, and enhances organizational performance. Supporting these initiatives will further allow your organization to boost employee engagement and excel in a competitive environment. 

Enhance Your Learning Measurement Processes with Explorance Metrics That Matter