5 Learning and Development KPIs You Should Be Tracking

Developing your people through learning programs is essential, but you’ll need to tie these efforts to broader organizational goals. Tracking learning and development KPIs (key performance indicators) can help you evaluate whether your programming is effective or if it needs realignment.

“Your learning and development program is effective when it supports people’s ability to perform and be effective in their jobs,” says Rebecca Taylor, CCO and Co-founder of SkillCycle.

Your learning and development strategy should enable your people’s growth in ways that support other key business priorities. Yet, according to McKinsey, only 40% of companies say they’ve managed to align their learning strategy with business goals.

Failure to align business goals with talent development initiatives can result in ineffective programs that frustrate employees and waste precious resources. KPIs provide a quantifiable measure of how well your programs support both employee needs and overarching organizational goals.

In this piece on which KPIs for learning and development are most important to track, we’ll explore:

• The top 5 organizational KPIs you should be tracking
• How companies can track learning and development KPIs effectively
• Ensuring the accuracy and reliability of your data tracking
• Common factors that could hinder your success in tracking KPIs

The top 5 organizational KPIs you should be tracking

Forty-one percent of HR leaders surveyed are planning to increase their budget for learning and development in the future, according to Gartner. Understanding the effectiveness of your talent development programs can help you direct resources in the most impactful ways.

However, keeping an eye on metrics means more than just ensuring employees hit defined numbers like sales goals. 

“In some cases, you’ll need to evaluate factors such as skill development and innovation to get a more well-rounded perspective,” says Taylor.

Here are five learning and development KPIs to monitor over time for ongoing evaluation of your learning programs.

1) Attainment or effectiveness in the role

Start by measuring how well employees perform in their roles. You can use metrics like quota attainment, sales conversions, or innovation in a role. Tracking this KPI helps demonstrate whether learning programs are enhancing employees’ skills and their ability to meet job expectations. 

2) Employee engagement

You can evaluate employee engagement through employee experience metrics such as surveys or observed behaviors. Monitor how employees apply what they’ve learned, step up to challenges, support one another, and invest in their own development. High engagement levels suggest that learning programs resonate with employees.

3) Employee retention

Tracking employee retention rates helps determine if the company is keeping the people it wants to keep. While some turnover is natural, particularly when employees outgrow their roles, this is rarely a loss as these employees often become advocates for the company. Overall, the ability to retain top talent is crucial to company growth. 

4) Promotion rates

Monitoring internal promotion rates will help you understand if development programs effectively prepare employees for advancement. When employees are promoted based on their new skills and knowledge, it demonstrates that learning and development initiatives successfully support career growth.

5) Talent mobility

Talent mobility includes both upward and lateral movements within a company, which effectively uses its internal talent pool. Encouraging lateral moves and cross-training helps retain valuable employees and reduces the costs associated with hiring externally. It also strengthens relationships and builds organizational knowledge and trust within your organization.

How companies can track learning and development KPIs effectively

As you implement systems to monitor KPIs and better evaluate your learning programs, ensure you’ve created a well-balanced approach to gathering data around how people deliver in their roles. 

“The most important step is to set goals first,” says Taylor. “You cannot begin evaluating success if people have no idea what you’re asking of them. 

Set goals that clarify expectations and the company’s standards to measure employee effectiveness. People need to know what they’re working toward before you can evaluate them. Employee engagement can be measured by conducting engagement surveys that help employees share important information about their experience in their roles. 

Other indicators can be monitored effectively in most HRIS, with these systems handily tracking employee retention, promotions, and movement within the organization. 

Ensuring the accuracy and reliability of your data tracking

When you gather and store metrics in a capable HRIS, the data will likely be reliable and accurate. However, moving into feedback gathering can open up the potential for bias or error. Remember that past experiences can impair your ability to gather useful insights today. 

“Employees need to trust their feedback will be heard,” says Taylor. “If they’ve answered surveys before to no response, they’re unlikely to be forthcoming in future surveys.”

Keep surveys anonymous and avoid leading questions to ensure data accuracy when measuring engagement. Be prepared to act on the feedback received, checking in with more engaged employees for additional insights. 

For engagement and attainment, use clear, consistent, and unbiased evaluation scales. Consider leveraging AI in your HR efforts to objectively analyze data and identify potential biases in promotions and evaluations.

Common factors that could hinder your success in tracking KPIs

While ongoing evaluation of learning makes sense, it’s not always easy to carry out across diverse teams and shifting priorities.

“One challenge stretches across all five KPIs you should be tracking, and that’s consistency,” says Taylor.

Frequent changes in how you collect and measure data can lead to unreliable results, making it difficult to track people’s progress. Commit to a consistent measurement process by ensuring that the same KPIs are tracked in the same way at regular intervals to provide accurate, comparable data over time.

Time-consuming data collection and analysis can hinder effective KPI tracking. If the process is too cumbersome, the data collected might be outdated or incomplete. Look for innovative ways to streamline data collection and reduce the burden on HR teams. 

Gaining employee buy-in can be difficult, especially if their past experiences with KPI tracking have felt ineffective or a waste of time. Communicate the benefits of KPI tracking for both the company and employees, and try not to let it interfere with workloads. 

Tracking KPIs for learning and development, such as performance against goals, employee experience metrics, and retention, provides useful data that improves decision-making. These insights can help you deliver impactful programs that drive meaningful organizational growth and performance. 

Ready to learn more about building an effective learning and development strategy for your team — and how to know when you’re getting it right? Schedule a demo today.