No-Nonsense Reasons To Track Learning
1. Tying Training to Results (and Promotions)
If you aren’t measuring it, you can’t manage it.
Results
When your employee finishes a lesson or course, you should be pushing that data to your CRM and tying it to their everyday performance goals.
In sales, you might tie your prospecting course to the number of cold calls a rep makes in a day, or the average number of meetings they are set before training versus after.
In customer support, you might tie your customer service lessons to the number of cases a rep closes, pre-training versus post.
If you aren’t seeing the lift in results that you expect, now you know, and you can tweak your approach. If you do see the lift you expect, you can double down.
Either way, if you're tracking results, you can manage results.
Promotions
People will take training seriously when you show them the tangible benefits it has on their career.
No promotion should go unannounced without a reference to the member’s outstanding adoption of training practices (and, of course, his or her resulting performance).
2. Know Who to Help (and How to Help)
When you track training, you can provide pre-assessments to subjects; for example, you might ask your reps to write out their current voicemail strategy and email messaging. Once you get their responses, you can fast-track the A-players to more advanced training while giving those who are struggling a more hands-on approach.
This is critical.
Can you imagine if an NFL coach gave his first and third string players equal playing time? That team would probably fail before its first down.
In the same way, as a manager, you need to know who is struggling so you can help them out and let your stronger team members shine on without being dragged down by too much training.
3. Make Feedback Loops a Part of the Process
Tracking your training doesn’t just mean providing assessments and quizzes; it also means creating a flow of dialogue between the company and its learners.
You might be happy just shooting around PowerPoints, trusting your people to engage with the material, and maybe they are. But did they understand the material? Did they give it a critical thought? Are they clear on the best way to implement the learning into their current processes?
You will never know if you’re not tracking. If you make it difficult (or even less-than-super-easy) for your learners to provide feedback, they won’t.
Make feedback a part of your training process by building it right into your training.
