A study conducted by the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) proved the positive impact of employee training on the financial performance of businesses.
According to BusinessTrainingExperts.com,
“The new ASTD findings highlight the importance of acting now to give training its due. The message is clear: training pays off for businesses and investors alike, and rewards will come to those who pay more attention to the newly proven connection between training and bottom-line performance.”
A business can boost its financial performance consistently by launching a variety of employee training programs. But it cannot assess the impact of individual training programs on employees’ performance productivity, and efficiency without leveraging learning analytics.
EduTech Wiki defines learning analytics as
“Collection of methods that allow teachers and maybe the learners to understand what is going on. I.e. all sorts of data collection, transformation, analysis and visualization tools that allow to gain insight on participant’s behaviors and productions (including discussion and reflections).”
The new-age learning management systems help users to maximize employee performance and productivity by featuring built-in learning analytics. The learning managers can leverage the built-in learning analytics or LMS analytics to measure learners’ experience, predict learners’ performance, and predict learners’ knowledge retention rate. The LMS analytics help managers to make the training programs more impactful by providing actionable insights based on real-time learning data. They further drive a business’ financial performance by boosting employee performance in a number of ways.
How a Business can Use and Leverage LMS Analytics to Boost Employee Performance?
Evaluate Individual Training Programs
An organization can boost financial performance and sustain growth by investing in training initiatives. But every training initiative or training program will not contribute towards driving profitability and growth. Often businesses spend millions of dollars on ineffective training programs that do not boost financial profits.
The learning managers can use LMS analytics to identify and differentiate the ineffective training programs by evaluating the performance of individual courses or training programs. The actionable insights gained using LMS analytics will help managers to measure and monitor the performance of every training program based on preset objectives and using the appropriate learning and development (L&D) metrics.
Measure and Track Learner Engagement
Unlike college and university students, employees have to acquire knowledge and skill after working hours. The LMSs enable employees to learn at their own pace by accessing a variety of digital content on computers or mobile devices. But no organization can persuade and motivate employees to learn without keeping them engaged. In addition to creating engaging content, they have to measure and track learner engagement rates. LMS analytics make it easier for learning managers to measure learner engagement based on real-time data using important parameters like learner progress, assessments, time spent on learning, and feedback.
Implement Personalized Employee Training
According to Gartner.com,
“Expectations for training programs have shifted from simple content recommendations to new advanced and adaptive learning experiences, tailored to each individual employee. This requires personalization, and it will become a critical component in every enterprise’s ongoing L&D strategy.”
The sophisticated LMSs feature predictive analytics that helps the manager to deliver personalized training to every employee by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies. The predictive LMS analytics personalize the learning experience and facilitate knowledge retention by recommending and delivering content bases on the employee’s educational qualification, skill level, preferred language, geographic location, and personal preferences.
Use and Combine Relevant L&D Metrics
A manager can measure the performance of learners and training programs using a wide variety of L&D metrics. But it can gain the actionable insights required to personalize the learning experience and make training programs more impactful only by analyzing a large amount of real-time. The manager can use LMS analytics to analyze and evaluate real-time big data using the most relevant L&D metrics like participation rate, study time, course completion time, engagement level, knowledge retention rate, learner proficiency, and learner satisfaction.
Identify Areas of Improvement
The training programs will boost an organization’s operational efficiency and revenue only when the employees retain and transfer the knowledge successfully. That is why; managers use knowledge retention and learner proficiency as key metrics for measuring the performance of training programs. But the managers must identify and fix the issues or shortcomings in an employee training program that impact knowledge retention rate adversely. LMS analytics make it easier for managers to identify the issues or shortcomings that must be addressed to make employees retain and transfer knowledge.
Bridge Performance and Knowledge Gaps
Often the performance and productivity of employees do not increase, after getting relevant training, due to the knowledge gap. The knowledge gap makes it difficult for an employee to transfer and apply the knowledge effectively despite acquiring and retaining knowledge. LMS analytics help learning managers to boot employee performance by identifying and eliminating the knowledge gap efficiently. The LMS systems identify knowledge gaps by assessing both test results and employee input. They further provide actionable insights to the managers that help them understand if the employee needs specific skills, resources, assistance, or support to apply knowledge.
Generate Analytics Reports
In addition to automating learner data collection and processing, LMS analytics enable managers to get accurate and actionable insights on demand by generating a variety of reports. The managers can leverage the features provided by the LMS to monitor important employee training activities like learner enrollment, activities, and progress by generating relevant analytics reports based on the latest information and data. The insights gained by generating analytics reports help learning managers boost the performance of training programs by implementing changes and improvements consistently.
Businesses can boost their financial performance by focusing on and investing in employee training. But they can make the training programs effective in boosting employee performance only by leveraging LMS analytics. The learning managers must use the actionable insights gained using LMS analytics to predict and measure the learning experience, knowledge retention rate, and learning performance of individual employees without investing in extra time and resources. Also, the decision-makers must use learning analytics as a key parameter while comparing LMS systems for their business.
