BEYOND LEARNING: CRAFTING FUTURES, ACHIEVING GOALS
Key Measurables when Transforming Skills
“Unless we determine what shall be measured and whatthe yardstick of measurementin an area will be,the area itself will not be seen”
-– Peter Drucker, Austrian American management consultant, educator, and author
Dealing with constant business changes requires the right skills and people. It takes significant time to reskill an entire workforce and it’s equally disruptive to replace one. The constant balance of looking nto the future in terms of what types of skills will be needed and how much runway is there to adapt to the time is something that most leaders are struggling with as of today. In managing skill transformation, aligning quality with success is key. The quality of the transformation lies in its ability to deliver the desired business outcomes so measuring whether you achieved your goals becomes crucial. To accomplish this, it is essential to define targeted outcomes, accounting for both high-level objectives and specific details. This helps in driving the right investments to achieve targeted outcomes.
This article presents a view of how one can go about measuring outcomes and what one might want to look at when working on a skill transformation program. The measurable themes here are not exhaustive but an indicator/outline for leaders to think in terms of measurables.
One key consideration before measuring is ensuring the right infrastructure is set up to gather data and that data is clean. Data should also have the ability to give you details and one should ensure that the right adherence/compliance processes are set at the data source. If the data is skewed then the way we look at the measurables will also be skewed.
Skill Acquisition and Development
A. Skill Assessment/Proficiency: Assess improvement in skills through pre and post-training assessment. Organizations can use industry-leading assessment platforms to assess the technical BEYOND LEARNING : CRAFTING FUTURES, ACHIEVING GOALS Drive Transformation Celebrate every win! competency of employees. Most industry platforms have well-defined data analytics that help in dissecting assessment details. (e.g. categorization of employees by assessment scores for further learning interventions, employees who fared better on top technology assessments, employees ready for new learning opportunities)
B. Completion Rate: Measuring the percentage of employees who have completed training modules or courses. Often a training module should result in Certification acquired by the employee on that topic (e.g. Number of employees trained versus Certified, Timeline to training completion (3 or 6 or 9 months, training session opened but module not completed)
Employee Engagement
A. Participation Rate: Measure employee participation rates in different skill development initiatives (i.e. in assigned pieces of training, custom learning paths, Business as usual training calendar events, technology, and soft skill webinars)
B. Feedback and Surveys: Employee feedback in designing and curating learning programs is key. This will help to identify improvements
Timeline to develop competency
Often employees need to master a skill set to be able to deliver to the customer. There has to be a measurement criterion to evaluate employee scale in the skill from Basic to Intermediate to Specialist to Expert. This scale should be in line with the learning program the employee is assigned to (e.g. Using a combination of Learning and project assignments to evaluate employee competency)
Productivity Metrics
There could be more than one way to do a job and often with the right and focused upskilling, employees can deliver more outcomes. Measuring changes in productivity and quality metrics associated with the role can be a good indicator of skill transformation (e.g. Using Knowledge tools to resolve issues, using ML to build solutions that produce repeatable outcomes for customers)
Leadership Development
Promotions: Having the right Leadership for business transformation is key and while the organization invests in Leadership Development programs, measuring leaders getting elevated to more senior or complex assignments or leaders moving across job levels would be a good indicator (e.g. Using Learnings from pieces of training to work on achieve program results)
Adopting new technologies
The digital revolution has brought up a plethora of new-age tools that help in collaboration, productivity, efficiency, etc. A good way to assess usage of these tools would be on adoption rates and what program outcomes are achieved using new age tools (e.g. Content development using Generative AI, reduction in email traffic since employees use Slack or MS Teams, Project schedules are managed more efficiently due to adoption of project management tools)
Efficiency in Investments
Drawing a correlation between Investments made in Learning and Development to improvement in customer confidence, productivity, and performance (e.g. more projects, customer confidence in delivering high-value projects, having ready resources on new services)
Talent Retention
Assess whether employees are more likely to stay with an organization if more learning and development opportunities are provided. (e.g. Quality of pieces of training programs, investments made in deep knowledge training curriculum or in specialized learning paths can be linked to voice of workforce scores)
Diversity and Inclusion
Track changes in diversity or differently abled people able to work on complex programs based taskbased skill transformation interventions (e.g. Number of diversity candidates completing learning paths, diversity-related promotions, employer of choice for diversity candidates)
Project Success Rates
Assess the success rate of employees working on customer-facing projects and who have undergone skill transformation programs (e.g. Customer Feedback, Quality of the outcome delivered on time and as per expectations, Value added benefit to the customer).
Regularly reviewing and analyzing these will provide insights into the overall effectiveness of your Enterprise Level Skill Transformation Program, enabling continuous improvement and adjustment as needed.