Learning and development success stories inspire hope and enthusiasm about better business outcomes. If you’ve ever searched for a learning tech solution, chances are you’ve seen a lot of glowing testimonials from clients, partners and advocates of the platforms you’ve explored.
It’s easy to get swept up in hand-selected best-of-the-best stories, but what about average results experienced? For example, a company might have an engagement rate worth bragging about, but maybe time or money spent increased. Not every L&D initiative ends up being a top-tier case study.
This is why we commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct our Total Economic Impact study, which aggregates data from five current Degreed clients and turns it into a composite organization. According to the study, the composite organization is representative of the five decision-makers that Forrester interviewed and is used to present the aggregate financial analysis.
We know a 36-page study can be a lot to digest. With that in mind, we’ve pulled together some highlights, which we covered during Discover the Total Economic Impact of Degreed, a July 20 webinar that featured Matthew Carr, Consultant at Forrester Consulting, as a guest speaker.
More Efficient Onboarding
Using Degreed can make a new employee’s time-to-productivity 20% faster, according to the study. Financially, this can equate to $2.86 million in productive time earned over three years. Essentially, organizations are getting new employees up to speed on their role-based tasks faster and making them productive employees sooner, which can save the organization millions.
Employees who previously used a learning management system (LMS) for onboarding also noticed a difference when shifting to Degreed.
“When new employees engaged in independent learning with LMSs, that seemed to emphasize checking boxes more than gaining knowledge, as our customers explained it to us during the interviews,” Carr said.
While the study is anonymized, we understand it can still be helpful to hear how data plays out in the real world. Throughout the webinar, Linda Moeller, Key Account Director at Degreed, shared results from Degreed clients that we feel further illustrated the study’s findings.
TEKsystems is one key example of how Degreed can create more efficient onboarding. After implementing our platform, the IT service management company reduced the time-to-productivity of newly-hired recruiters by four weeks.
Better Retention in Key Roles
Degreed can decrease employee turnover rates from 10% to 2% for certain key roles. How?
“Prior to Degreed, long-term skill development was inconsistent, and guidance from mentors was lacking once that formal training period ended,” Carr said, noting this is what he heard during interviews with Degreed customers.
Turnover dropped most among people who’d recently taken a leadership role, he said. Once organizations began using Degreed, employees had more resources available to help them succeed.
“Interviewees said Degreed enabled ongoing mentorship and learning, which lowered turnover in key roles at their organizations,” Carr added.
Reduced turnover of this size can have a financial impact of $1.28 million in saved hiring costs.
Improved Employee Upskilling
Degreed can reduce the time trainers and learners spend upskilling. Using our platform, the average time to upskill employees can be reduced by 35%, which can result in $1.74 million in time saved from more efficient upskilling.
When Tata Communications implemented Degreed, it capitalized on efficient upskilling and drove tangible business value by encouraging certification completions in strategic skills, such as agility. In one fiscal year with Degreed, employees at the telecommunications company exceeded the targeted certification completion goal by 176%, Moeller noted.
“[The learning team] really helped their teams to focus, to reskill and upskill… They were able to support their employees in meeting their customer’s requirements much faster than they’d done in the past,” Moeller said.
Learning Content Savings
Degreed has an open ecosystem that provides access to premium content providers and can make third-party content subscriptions unnecessary. The financial savings from reducing content subscriptions can be $317,000.
Ericsson reduced its overall learning spend by 50% while increasing learning completions by 62%. Now, almost all workers (97%) at the telecommunications company have active Degreed profiles. It’s the definition of doing more for less.
Return on Investment (ROI)
ROI has been a hot topic in learning and development because it isn’t always easy to measure skill value. However, the Forrester study did calculate it, finding Degreed can create a 312% ROI. And with a payback period of fewer than six months, our platform can pay for itself quickly.
Beyond Numbers
Yes, statistics give concrete numbers you can point to, but it’s also worth noting many clients interviewed expressed immeasurable — yet valuable — benefits. Those included:
- Social and team learning that drive culture
- Better communication with employees
- Remote work made easier
- Democratization of learning
“Customers we talked to said Degreed allowed learning and upskilling to be available to more employees across regions, across languages and across employee roles,” Carr said.
The numbers in the Forrester study show how learning tech can have a tangible and quantifiable business impact. This is data you can confidently take to your managers and executives to show what Degreed can do to foster learning, growth and financial security across your organization.