It’s a chilling question. But it stimulates some reflection: What are we doing to convince executives that L&D is contributing to the organization’s success — not just in a logical or intuitive way, but with actual data from trusted resources?
by Patti P. Phillips, Jack J. Phillips
February 2, 2021
What would happen if we eliminated the formal learning and development department?
We hope most of you have never been asked this, but some have, and it’s a chilling question. This question is usually asked during downturns, budget cuts, periods of anxiety and uncertainty … pandemics … you get the picture. Sometimes it’s asked in a very purposeful way because executives think they no longer need a centralized learning function. After all, doesn’t most learning occur on the job?
This past year, amid the onslaught of COVID-19, one very prestigious nongovernmental organization was considering eliminating its talent development function. The L&D department was asked this dreadful question, and they asked us how they should respond. Our very quick response was, “If you have no future, then, probably yes, you should eliminate your L&D function. If you have a future, you need it.” However, it would be helpful to supplant that answer with data showing how the organization will have less growth, reduced productivity, lower quality, more turnover and even fewer clients.
In the past 10 months, this issue has been discussed with us by several individuals who have been asked this question. Some executives have casually asked the question, trying to more clearly understand the value that the formal and centralized L&D function provides. It’s as if they are curious about what would happen to the organization if L&D went away.
We know formal L&D is needed. But the question stimulates some reflection: What are we doing to convince executives that L&D is contributing to the organization’s success — not just in a logical or intuitive way, but with actual data from trusted resources? Here are two steps you can take to create and enhance the sense of L&D’s connection and contribution to your organization.
1. Adjust reaction data to include business linkage.
Think about classic feedback at Level 1, where we capture reaction. First, let’s acknowledge that there are business measures tracked by top executives of every organization. They are the key measures on their scorecard or dashboard. What data do they look at routinely? What’s most important to them? For a business, these measures may include sales growth, customer satisfaction, profits, job engagement and productivity. For a hospital, the top measures may be patient access, length of stay, cost control and patient satisfaction, among others. For universities, the measures will include graduation rates, time to graduation, placement rates, career satisfaction and alumni donations to the university. It doesn’t matter what type of organization; there are always measures that executives routinely monitor, and those are the important measures.
Let’s list those most important measures and ask participants at the end of each learning program, “To what extent will this program influence this measure?” Rate each measure on a scale of one to five, where one indicates no influence and five indicates a very significant influence. This data goes on your scorecard, showing how participants in your program see the alignment of programs to key organizational measures.
Participants can be very credible in this process. After all, they will be driving these impacts if they use what they learned. You will have 100 percent of coverage because you usually measure feedback 100 percent of the time. It’s revealing and powerful.
2. Seek planned action and impacts.
We need to take data collection beyond what participants have learned and focus on what they will do with what they have learned and the subsequent impact. Just a listing of potential impacts from participants in a major program can help to show business alignment. If participants cannot see this connection, there is a problem. Should we teach any program without an understanding of how it will help the organization? That’s a great question to debate. We think the leaders who provide the budget would say, “No, we should not.”
This effort is much easier with the addition of application objectives (what participants will do with what they learn) and impact objectives (the impact from the application). When those objectives are added to major programs, you will have focus, alignment and the connection you need.
These are just two simple steps to take to ensure your programs connect to the business. All of this is important when reevaluating your evaluation strategy, and maybe it is time to do this as we begin to emerge from the pandemic.