Align Learning and Development to Business - Step 2: Assess Learning Alignment

This article is the third of a seven-part series on becoming a strategic partner by aligning learning and development with business objectives. In the previous article we discussed how to analyze and understand the competitive business environment and the company’s purpose, strategy and culture. In this step will look inward to the learning portfolio.

Any strategic initiative requires a rigorous assessment of the current situation. For our alignment project, we conduct a thorough review of current offerings and how they support business objectives.

NOTE: When we discuss tracking and analysis in this series, we talk about using simple spreadsheets. You may have a learning management system or sophisticated tools that contains all the information you need. You may already be doing many of the things we recommend. If so, chime in by commenting to share your experience and expertise.

Evaluate Direct Impact

The first group of programs you will want to assess will be those that have a direct impact on objectives or goals. You will evaluate indirect impact later in this step.

You are most likely accustomed to reporting training participation by listing training programs, the target audience, and the number of participants. No doubt you have a worksheet containing your program participation, or you can work one up quickly. You will have more detail, but this is the basic idea:

Developing an evaluation tool for business impact involves adding four items to the worksheet:

Rearrange your worksheet as a list of objectives. The result is the foundation for an analysis of the direct business impact of learning.
Don’t be concerned about being wrong in your estimates. You will work with goal sponsors to refine your estimates. What is most important at this point is that you identify the activities that have a direct impact.Impact on Goal is your estimate of the much the learning program contributes to the goal. For example, if the goal is a 10% increase and you estimate the learning has a 30% impact, you can estimate 3%. 

Evaluate Indirect Impact

Many of your programs may have an indirect impact on one or more goals, or they may support HR goals. They may be mandatory training, or they may have no impact at all.  A column labeled “supported goal” would suffice at this point. Use qualifiers that make sense to you, such as “goal,” “required,” and “none.”

Gap Analysis

Programs that are not required and do not support a goal either directly or indirectly may be considered by candidates for elimination.

Goals or objectives that do not have learning programs associated with them may be opportunities. If a learning intervention would help, these are items you may want to discuss with the sponsor.

Next Steps

In the next installment, we will discuss how to engage sponsors in evaluating their learning needs, leading learning initiatives, and owning the results.

Before you move on, take a moment to congratulate yourself. You are on the way to being at the leading edge of analytics in learning management.

Phenomecloud is a full-service technology company dedicated to helping clients solve business problems, improve the capability of their people, and achieve better results.