Today more than ever, learning organizations face a critical challenge: demonstrating tangible business impact while operating with limited resources.
The solution? Learning analytics — a powerful tool that showcases impact and unlocks insights into learner preferences and program effectiveness.
However, a puzzling gap exists. Brandon Hall Group™ research reveals that while 88% of organizations prioritize improving learning analytics as a top investment, only 23% said they have a consistent approach for measuring and analyzing the impact of learning on individual or organizational performance.
This disconnect highlights a significant opportunity for growth and innovation. To explore how leading companies are bridging this gap, I attended the Explorance World conference in Montreal. I had the privilege of interviewing users of Explorance’s Metrics That Matter (MTM) — an automated learning measurement platform that incorporates the power of AI to provide a comprehensive view of learning programs and their impact on business performance.
The success stories and enthusiasm shared by these customers demonstrated how leveraging the right technology can lead to remarkable improvements in learning and performance.
Here are highlights from these interviews, offering a glimpse into the exceptional results that can be achieved when effectively measuring learning and analyzing data with cutting-edge tools.
Enhancing Program Effectiveness and Resource Allocation
Charles Tomberlin, Learning and Talent Development Manager at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama, said MTM has allowed the L&D function to demonstrate its effectiveness and ability to adjust to the organization’s changing needs.
“We’re not wasting money, time and resources […] We’re able to focus on areas where we know we can make a significant impact. It’s allowed us to sunset certain classes and courses and continually seek improvement with some of the classes that we offer,” he said.
“Metrics That Matter has allowed us to show our value to the organization by actually being incorporated into the balanced scorecard with certain key performance indicators,” Tomberlin said. “With our blended learning module, we’re already starting to see dividends being paid as a result of being able to improve our training programs.”
Driving Real-Time Improvements and Stakeholder Engagement
Zachary Pfau, Head of Digital Learning and Change at Murex, a France-based financial services software company, told the story of a strategic leadership program his team simultaneously rolled out to 750 managers globally. Using MTM was critical because his team launched several surveys over a nine-month learning journey that featured 72 cohorts. That’s a lot of data to analyze.
“The key was the rapidity and the consistency with which we were able to do an exact level of reporting and actually educate our stakeholders on having different conversations about the learning going on in the organization,” he said. MTM allowed Murex to move toward “real conversations about how learners were starting to anticipate the likely business outcomes that were going to be achieved through their learning program.”
The MTM data analysis enabled Pfau’s team to provide immediate insights about the training from one day to the next, which drove significant improvements as the training journey evolved. The business school Pfau was working with “were absolutely thrilled to get real-time feedback on sessions held yesterday before their sessions with another cohort tomorrow.”
Informing Strategic Decision-Making
Learning analytics can also play a crucial role in shaping broader organizational strategies.
Kim Rihman is Talent Development Leader at Sysmex America, a global leader in healthcare diagnostic solutions. She shared how data insights led to the creation of a new curriculum.
“Our learning data helped us realize that our associates need to learn more about our internal business, so we created a curriculum called Sysmex Business Essentials to teach people how our business runs and how we recognize revenue,” Rihman said.
Leveraging the partnership with Explorance and MTM, Sysmex built a new management training program with 192 associates who will cycle through the organization in nine cohorts. Sysmex is working with MTM to ask very specific questions so the organization can evaluate behavior change impact with a very specific group of leaders.
“MTM is a great partner They’re extremely collaborative and they’re good at listening to what you’re trying to do,” Rihman said. “I’ll use the example of net promoter score. I was having a difficult time having my executives understand the real impact of that score, and MTM helped us understand how to tell that story.”
“They also helped us understand how this data can be presented in a way that not only helps us shape the technical basics of training and development, but also tell a really good story to our finance teams about ROI,” she said.
Creating a Data-Driven Learning Culture
Fostering a culture of continuous improvement and data-driven decision-making is a goal most learning organizations companies struggle to realize. Todd Harrison, Vice President of Global Leadership Academies at GE HealthCare, emphasizes the importance:
“The world is about data. MTM allows us to be a businessperson and talk like a businessperson and show that we deserve that seat at the table,” he said.
By embracing learning analytics, L&D professionals can position themselves as strategic partners in driving organizational success.
“Whenever you launch a training program, you’re using your best guess that it’s going to solve the issues you’re working on,” Harrison said. “When we get the data back from MTM, we’re able to say, yes, we solved that problem. We can show you how people are behaving differently because of what we trained them on, and the training worked.”
“Conversely, we can tell when something didn’t work right,” he added. The company was spending a lot of money on a reading club for leaders. “It was not resonating with anybody. So we were able to stop that and reinvest those monies in more important things. That builds credibility.”
Balancing High-Level Insights with Granular Analysis
Effective use of learning analytics requires the ability to analyze data at various levels.
Scott Esker, Instructional Design Manager at Heartland Dental, describes this approach:
“You really need to have that telescopic view of the organization’s big picture, how your courses interact and what the health of your courses is,” he said. “But then you also need to have a microscopic view of diving into an individual course to see how that is performing, how it is contributing back to the mission and vision of your organization. MTM is perfect for that. “
Esker said the educated use of data, guided by the MTM team, has elevated Heartland’s learning program.
“We started with MTM about seven years ago, and every year since, we’ve improved,” he explained. “I think that shows that we’re looking at the data and we’re really assessing how we can get better. How can we get to the next step? How can we get to that top five (percent) benchmark? And that’s what we’re talking about now — how we get to that top benchmark, how we become the best that we can be. And unless we look at that data, we don’t know.”
About Explorance
Explorance empowers organizations with next-generation feedback analytics to accelerate the insight-to-action cycle, encouraging the philosophy of “Feedback for the brave” to drive purpose, impact and growth.
Bringing 20 years of expertise, Explorance, a member of the World Economic Forum and a trusted partner for 35% of Fortune 100 companies and 25% of the world’s top higher education institutions, has influenced over 25 million individuals with award-winning solutions like Blue, Metrics That Matter and MLY.
Visit explorance.com or connect on LinkedIn and Twitter.
