Dive Brief:

• When it comes to measuring the effectiveness of employee learning and development programs, organizations say they want data-driven evidence of how they affects the bottom line. In examining its offerings, Axonify found that, on average, 29% of client business outcomes could be attributed back to training programs it delivered, according to the company’s report released in January 2020. 
• Training was shown to have a 33% impact on sales and revenue, one of the most frequent key performance indicators (KPI) measured by companies using Axonify’s microlearning platform, the report said. Approximately 84% of the KPIs organizations measured were related to top-line revenue.
• More than half (52%) of the impact of training occurs because it is continually reinforced and always adapting, said the report that analyzed anonymous 2018 data points from over 260,000 frontline employees.

Dive Insight:

For HR leaders and L&D teams, it can be challenging to justify and establish training budgets without an obvious return on investment.

TrainingIndustry.com, which uses data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, found that organizations spent $366.2 billion globally on training in 2018. Training Industry estimates that "companies spend an average of 39% of their training budget on external (outsourced) suppliers, while approximately 61% of their budgets is spent on internal resources."

And, corporations in North America paid approximately $65.9 billion in 2018 in reimbursements for outsourced market for training services and tuition, "while the insourced spend for training activities was approximately $101.0 [billion] in 2018," according to the report.

L&D programs will need to leverage data that's meaningful to deliver relevant learning solutions, according to Kristen Fyfe-Mills, director of marketing and strategic communications at ATD.

"The future of work," Fyfe-Mills recently told HR Dive in an email, "demands a near constant cycle of upskilling and reskilling to keep employee knowledge and capabilities current and organizations competitive."

Randstad Sourceright's 2020 Talent Trends Report found that 66% of employers are planning to provide training and reskilling for artificial intelligence.

"Reskilling and upskilling are both effective ways to transition employees and their skill sets into new positions or allow them to grow in their current roles in the face of automation," Rebecca Henderson, CEO of Randstad global businesses and executive board member, told HR Dive in a January interview. "In fact, 48 percent of HR leaders in our research plan to upskill existing employees to help address talent scarcity in their organization."

Using data tying training directly to a quantifiable factor might be the best best in providing the justification needed for L&D programs.