How to prove the ROI of your learning programs
Or, what L&D can learn from B2B marketing
By Robin Cangie, VP of Marketing for Jhana
What do L&D and B2B marketing have in common? Quite a bit, actually.
I began my B2B marketing career in 2007. This was right before the Great Recession and right as Web 2.0 (that’s what we called “social media” back then) and marketing automation were just starting to turn our lives upside down. The new technology alone was overwhelming, and the accompanying data onslaught even moreso.
For the first time ever, we possessed both the technological capability and — not coincidentally — the executive mandate to report on marketing’s business impact in exquisite detail. Marketers who got into the field because they liked the art of running creative programs and delighting the customer were suddenly asked to understand data analytics and calculate ROI. In other words, us creative thinkers and doers now had to do the maths. Wasn’t that for the CFO’s people? Couldn’t we just keep branding stuff in cool ways?
Then, the Great Recession hit, and unprepared marketing departments twisted ourselves in knots trying to prove to the C-Suite that marketing activities could lead to more revenue. Excel Hell is real, my friends, and it was the state of marketing almost everywhere circa 2009.
7 lessons to help L&D prove ROI
It’s been a decade since my first B2B marketing job, and in my current role of marketing to L&D leaders, I’m seeing the same sort of seismic shift happening in the talent development space. New learning technologies appear every day, each with its own siren song of unmet needs and promises. We can gather and analyze workforce data on an unprecedented scale. And now the C-Suite has come knocking on L&D’s door, too.
The number one challenge we hear from L&D leaders today is: “How do we measure learning’s impact? How do we quantify the seemingly unquantifiable? That’s not a rhetorical question; I need to tell my CFO by next Tuesday!”
Every time I hear these challenges, I nod along vigorously. And having survived and, eventually, thrived following a similarly painful transition in my own field, I’d like you to know that there is light at the end of this tunnel. In fact, I’m confident L&D will emerge from this transition better, stronger and firmly ensconced in a critical seat at the executive table. In the meantime, here are a few lessons I hope will help you on the journey:
1. Embrace the power that comes with data. L&D is swimming in data — usage data, employee data, surveys and analytics and competencies, oh my! While it often feels like a burden, this data is actually the key to your C-Suite’s ear. Learn what matters to your C-Suite and figure out how you can show L&D’s contribution to it.
For example, if retaining talent is a high priority, look at retention rates across different teams and compare them to manager effectiveness on each of those teams. One of our clients did this and learned that teams with better managers, as indicated by an engagement survey, had higher retention rates. By embracing the data she was already collecting, she was able to build a strong case for more manager training. The outcome may seem simple, but in an increasingly complex business environment, simple wins more than it loses.
2. Develop a measurement strategy for everything. For every initiative you launch, every class you host, every tool you purchase, ask yourself this question: “How will I know this effort was a success?” Determine what success looks like in detail, then work backwards to figure out how to measure it.
In the management training example above, our client would want to look at retention rates before and after the training program. She’d also want to look at learner engagement in her program. Did higher learner engagement (for example, higher eLearning usage and/or course attendance) also impact retention rates one way or the other? Once you learn how to start thinking this way, showing impact isn’t as difficult as it sounds.
3. Define “impact” or the C-Suite will do it for you. The challenge with vocabulary here is that oftentimes, C-Suite members think like this: “If we spent money on something and it helped us make more money, then it was impactful.” That’s true in many cases, but not everything is so cut and dry.
Sticking with the retention example, you could show year-over-year how many people are leaving, for what reasons, from what manager’s team, and what happened when trainings were initiated. Then, factoring in the costs of recruiting, the overall hiring process, on-boarding, and “ramp time”, you can show an executive that because 10 fewer people quit this year, you saved the company $. Now they see it in their terms and are more likely to see L&D as a “seat at the table” kind of department.
4. If you build it, they won’t come. Marketing learned this the hard way. Too many companies spent six- and even seven-figure sums on gorgeous, clever websites and thought the crowds would appear on command. It didn’t work for us then, and it won’t work for you now. The approach of, “Well, we sent them an onboarding email, so they’ll figure it out!” isn’t nearly good enough. Instead, you need to have empathy for how people want to use technology. Without that, you’ll take a huge ROI hit on the software purchase.
The other crucial factor here is framing L&D software in the context of how people move through their day. Most people, even if they did have three hours to sit through a course or lesson, would never do it — or never admit they had the three hours. People want to learn in “bite-sized” ways as they move between other tasks. As a result, we need L&D solutions geared towards “get in, get knowledge, get out, and it’s all actionable.”
5. Steal what’s working. If you remember just one thing from this article, let it be this: “Good artists borrow. Great artists steal.” We all want to be original, but true innovation includes the ability to spot and adapt what’s working for other people. If you find a program that’s succeeding at another company, a killer workshop format or even just a slide deck you especially like, steal it. Tweak it. Try it at your company.
Please don’t literally break any copyright laws, of course, but you shouldn’t have to come up with all the great ideas on your own. No one has time for that. If you have a problem, there’s a good chance that someone else has already found a clever way to solve it. Save yourself time and sanity. Learn from others’ successes and, for that matter, their failures.
6. Excel is a necessary evil. Until you get the hang of all the new reporting that’s available to you, and even afterward, Excel is one of your most powerful tools for crunching, analyzing and ultimately understanding the insights that are hidden in your newfound data. I recommend creating an Excel learning dashboard that displays all your key metrics from points #3 and #4 in one easy-to-understand, easy-to-share place. Fortunately for you and for me, you don’t have to be an Excel wizard to do this well. Learn the basic functions and look up the rest on YouTube.
7. Technology adds complexity always. This is one of the great misunderstandings of modern business. Lots of companies identify a pain point, find a vendor to get some tech for that pain point, and assume it’s bye-bye all pain points. No. Not even close. Any tech you bring in means new processes, new updates, means it has to work with your existing tech, means people need to understand how to use it effectively, means a new mobile app you probably need to check frequently, and so on down the line. Tech can be a great time-saver for people and organizations, but that road to efficiency is usually long and strewn with hassles, late-night emails and hours lost to tech support. Make sure it’s worth it.
The light at the end of the tunnel
Some of you will remember when B2B marketing was perceived as a dull, backwards department. We wrote boring sales collateral, trudged to the same events year after year and occasionally asked IT to update our website because we couldn’t do it ourselves. But the digital revolution gave us the chance to prove our worth, and now, the CMO is one of the most critical hires a company can make.
I predict the same thing for L&D. It may not seem like it right now, but the transformation in L&D is the opportunity you’ve been waiting for. It’s your chance to prove L&D’s importance to the business and gain a permanent seat at the executive table. Settle in, because it’s going to be a long and wild ride. But hang in there. I promise you, it’s worth it.
Jhana provides bite-sized learning for anyone who leads a team. “Bite-sized” means content aimed at making them more effective as managers, but presented logically within the scope and context of everything else they have to do. Learn more at our website.
