How To Deliver Your Learning Content ROI
Learn how to deliver your learning content ROI (return on investment) and validate your learning content's business value with these 5 best practices.
1. Align Your Strategy With Real Business Needs From The Start
Beginning your plan of action to drive learning content ROI requires the understanding of business needs. Start by asking the right questions to gain an efficient understanding. To employ this strategy, you'll have to think like a performance consultant and probe to get closer to the core issue.
Here's how to get started:
- Identify any evidence of skill gaps or performance issues.
- Determine previous tactics, such as process improvements or manager interventions, that have been used to resolve the issue.
- Find out if factors beyond learning are involved.
- Determine the key performance indicators (KPIs) as benchmarks for success.
- Determine the key contact who will be in charge of measuring target benchmark achievements.
Be clear on the type of intervention, whether performance or learning support, that's needed. Determine if learning is truly the answer to solving the issue at hand. Keep in mind that identifying other areas of concern, such as a lack of awareness, a motivation gap, or an organization's cultural or behavioral problem, can help mold your strategy for delivering valuable learning content.
Discuss the target KPIs and their measurements after determining the intervention that's needed. For example, you can use a reduction in annual staff turnover rates in specific roles to measure improvement based on how much this KPI has declined or improved. Whichever KPI you use, ensure that it helps you make smart decisions to improve the business's bottom line, to warrant learning content ROI.
Related: How to Deliver and Provide Business Value from Learning
2. Converse With Learners
Communication with learners is vital to better understanding their needs. Engage your learners by discussing their preferred methods of learning and their pain points. Here are a few ways to start these conversations:
- Use surveys to identify learners' pain points, when they occur, and factors that can help resolve these issues.
- Understand the tasks learners do, so you have a better idea how to improve performance.
- Identify a performance hero by creating solid benchmarks of success and learning from experts.
- Consider short- and long-term fixes by separating temporary solutions that immediately address the issue from preventative, long-term solutions, which may require additional coaching or training.
Starting conversations with your learners will help you identify the types of learning content for performance enhancement, including the need for behavioral or skill learning, just-in-time learning content, or a hybrid of both. These conversations also help you determine learner preferences, such as time frames for learning, devices they enjoy using, helpful support or learning examples, and the places they will be learning, for example, at their desks or while traveling. These factors help you set the foundation of additional learning content benchmarks that you can use to prove the validity of your learning content, while they also help you determine if you're fulfilling the needs of that particular audience.
3. Keep Track Of Data With Dashboards
Example of a trend tracker dashboard – powered by Elucidat
While waiting for enterprise-level KPIs to materialize, it's vital to keep up with your learning content performance. Setting up a dashboard to consistently monitor data also offers the benefit of simultaneously assisting learners to improve their performance while enabling you to modify your strategy if you need to. You can also improve your chances of meeting your target KPIs by sharing advice with your Learning and Development team on what worked and what didn't work, based on improved KPIs, so you can build a robust learning habits profile.
You can monitor mobility access and completion rates on your dashboard, for instance. You may expect completion rates to occur on a case-by-case basis, whereas mobile access may be high. Uptake stats are also vital with self-help eLearning, but they can initially be low due to various factors, including a lack of awareness or of managerial support. With the help of dashboards, you can continuously measure improvement to deliver value.
4. Swiftly Address Learning Needs To Process Adaptations
If a learning strategy is hampering improvement efforts, then it's time to change. However, don't let slow processes that need updating get in your way. You can bring important stakeholders into your eLearning projects with the right collaborative authoring tools to create real value that meets business needs and accelerates eLearning productivity.
Here are a few ways to accomplish this task:
- Stay on track by using collaborative technology.
- Use a central collaborative authoring tool that enhances teamwork and reduces or eliminates paperwork.
- Track new projects with agility by setting up reusable themes. Use cloud-based learning tools for instant updates.
- Empower your team to edit and create content with immediacy and without blockage.
Related: How to know if your learning is hitting the mark? Look to your dashboards
5. Open Up About The Process
It's important to keep learners involved in the process to promote innovation and to gain valuable feedback. That's why you should be honest about your process.
Here are some tips on how to accomplish this task:
- Include a narrative and quotes, and validate learning content with data.
- Share information with learners and leaders.
- Devise a communications strategy so your team can explain its initiatives and what to expect.
- Run marketing-style campaigns to demonstrate Learning and Development's capabilities.
Final Thoughts
Delivering ROI on your learning content requires using the right collaborative tools, dashboards, and learning strategy. If you want to learn how to improve your learning content performance with analytics, Elucidat offers analytical tools that can meet your needs. By following these best practices, your Learning and Development team will be on the way to delivering learning content ROI.
Next step: Download our guide on How to Deliver and Provide Business Value from Learning.
