Employee training is more crucial than ever. In 2019, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimated that advances in technology and automation would eliminate or radically transform 48% of all jobs globally. The entry of artificial intelligence (AI) into the marketplace has amplified that trend further, highlighting an increased need for soft skills.
As employers navigate these rapid technological advancements and jockey for competitive advantage, ensuring the workforce is equipped with the right skills is a must-have.
Yet, it's not just about conducting training programs. HR and L&D leaders must rigorously evaluate outcomes to align with organizational goals. This evaluation provides accountability, enhances future training, and facilitates budgeting by demonstrating business impact.
This factsheet explores the importance of measuring training outcomes, key metrics, and how digital badges can enhance the process, amplifying training impact.
Employee training fosters professional development, enhances employee performance, ensures that the workforce remains agile and adaptable, and strengthens retention and engagement.
However, to reap all these benefits, organizations must adopt a systematic approach to measure and demonstrate training outcomes. These not only validate training effectiveness, but also help focus and strengthen future training to better meet organizational objectives.
Altogether, these metrics allow L&D leaders to assess the impact of training on individuals while also measuring the value created for the company. But collecting this data is just the first step.
A comprehensive review of the impact of training involves more than just measuring engagement, completion and post-training metrics. Business leaders need to integrate that data with broader business insights to showcase the strategic value of training. According to Valamis, a successful data and information integration approach should provide management insights into:
Organizations can gain several benefits from a robust training measurement program. Measurement helps companies strengthen and improve the training programs themselves, satisfy regulators or compliance requirements, and demonstrate the bottom-line value of training.
Traditional data collection methods can be time-consuming and, worse yet, may not always lead to insights grounded in verifiable skills data. When skills are inferred, rather than based on credible learning experiences and backed up by digital credentials, employers may gain a distorted or overly rosy view of workforce skills.
Digital badges offer a solution. They reward employees with shareable credentials that indicate the verified skills each employee has. They also make data collection and tracking easier.
Digital badges enhance training programs by:
Providing Verifiable Credentials
Each badge contains metadata that verifies the skills and accomplishments of the badge earner.
Encouraging Engagement
The tangible reward of a badge motivates employees to complete training programs and achieve new milestones.
Facilitating Data-Driven Decisions
Analytics from badge data help organizations make informed decisions about future training investments and strategies.
Enhancing Advancement from Within
Employees can share badges on digital networks with colleagues, boosting their visibility and potentially leading to new career opportunities inside the organization — without the expense that external job searches typically bring for employers.
Measuring training outcomes ensures their effectiveness and business impact. By leveraging Credly, the world’s leading digital credentials platform, it provides built-in analytic tools that allow organizations to gather data on badge acceptance rates, share rates, and the skills employees have earned. Organizations can validate the impact of their training initiatives and make the business case for the further investments needed in a rapidly changing world.
Additionally, integrating Credly with learning management systems or other platforms can further streamline training progress and business outcomes are tracked.
Download our whitepaper below to discover how Credly’s digital badge platform can support your organization’s training and business needs.