While it’s been a tough few years for all of us, it’s been a strange ride for L&D and HR professionals around the world. We still may be in the midst of The Great Resignation, but at least at GrowthSpace we’re seeing more and more organizations jumping into the L&D waters for the first time or improving their current programs. Organizations are truly embracing the growth mindset and a culture of learning – which we recently discovered in our first official industry survey, which we turned into the 2022 L&D Industry Report.
We’ve highlighted the most important takeaways from the report in this post, and if you have the time, be sure to check out the full report here.
Buy-in Needs to Come from All Angles – Leadership, Managers, and Employees – are all Essential for a Successful L&D program
In order for an L&D program to be fully integrated into an organization’s culture, program buy-in needs to come from all levels, top-down and bottom-up. If any cohort: leadership, middle management, or individual contributors don’t participate or support the program’s initiatives, hitting program goals and a high success rate are unlikely. ROI is also at risk without total buy-in, especially if managers aren’t involved in their employee’s programs.
Managers play a crucial role in the employee development experience. By having their boss’s support during their coaching sessions or mentoring experience, employees will feel more confident in taking time out of work for the sessions and be excited to show their managers what they’ve learned by putting it into practice.
Measuring ROI Increases Budgets
L&D technology is changing the way HR and L&D teams can measure program and employee performance for the better. While feedback from coaches, participants, and their managers are incredibly valuable in gaining subjective results on things like if the coach’s approach worked, if and how the employee applied the skills learned, it doesn’t offer the concrete ROI that earns bigger budgets.
Being able to truly measure ROI by mapping business objectives to L&D program objectives and measuring the outcomes, we found that the chance of gaining budget the next year is higher. Using platform analytics and creating a way to calculate manager and employee feedback, as well as change in productivity, were the biggest indicators of a bigger 2022 L&D budget.
In the Near Future, the C-Suite Will Expect to See Real, Reliable Results from L&D Programs
Historically, L&D programs have been a black hole for HR budgets, with no objective way to measure results besides subjective feedback and actually seeing changes in employee performance. In the past year, one measurement has become employee retention and recruitment amidst The Great Resignation, but the bar can (and will) be set higher. As organizations start to understand the huge potential successful L&D programs can have when the programs are designed for business outcomes and the different use cases for any organizational challenge, it’s time to show value.
Rather than solely focusing on satisfaction, happiness, engagement, or skills, what about measuring the business outcomes created? Like we discussed above, mapping business KPIs to individual L&D programs enables better strategic alignment – and that requires L&D teams to work closer with leadership to collaborate on company strategy and how to fill the existing skill gaps needed to achieve the years’ business goals.
By working with leadership to do so, you’ll be better set up for program success. Not only does it require close collaboration with leadership, helping establish a strong relationship and garnering buy-in, it creates accountability on both sides.
We hope these tips gave you a bit of insight into what successful L&D programs look like, but we strongly recommend diving deeper into the data in the industry report.
