Talent-based Learning: Goodbye To The Standalone LMS



Posted: Tuesday, April 27, 2010

by Steve Bonadio
SumTotal

Understanding the effectiveness of learning programs on workforce performance and the organization as a whole is what drives continuous improvement. Standalone learning management systems do little beyond automating training administration. This whitepaper describes how talent-based learning, by contrast, provides a framework to truly track effectiveness of learning management across an organization and integrate those findings to improve workforce performance and productivity.

Introduction

Talent-based learning evolves today's learning management paradigm bringing it from a standalone process to an integrated one that directly links learning management to organizational performance and goals. Talent-based learning further evolves the focus from tactical learning programs, such as desktop applications and basic compliance, to strategic programs targeted at improving business outcomes.

According to a Softscape survey of 300 HR leaders, this evolution can deliver several key organizational benefits:

As a result, organizations that execute on talent-based learning have a higher chance of being top performers relative to their industry peers.

The Challenge: Learning Management Not Aligned to the Business

Since the introduction of packaged learning management systems in the 1990s, a key objective has been to create, manage, and measure learning's effect on achieving the goals of the organization. However, there has often been a disconnect: While learning management systems have been effective at making the process of content creation and learning delivery more automated and streamlined, the actual measurement of how learning management affects the business and the workforce has not occurred.

The reasons are primarily technical and process-related. Most learning systems have been deployed as standalone stovepipes that do not integrate into broader talent management systems and processes. As a result, most learning management systems do not effectively measure the impact of learning programs on the organization.

The Right Time to Evolve Learning Management

Today, learning management professionals have a unique opportunity to evolve the practice of learning management to a new level. This evolution is being recognized by leading analysts and thought leaders, from articles in publications such as Chief Learning Officer (CLO) Magazine, to analysts such as Bersin and Associates, and by universities such as Harvard Business School.



Defining Talent-Based Learning

Talent-based learning is an evolution of the learning paradigm that aligns learning management activities and programs to desired business and talent management outcomes. Talent-based learning does this by linking and aligning all the key people management processes together, enabling managers and executives to directly measure how learning management affect their overall business objectives. This alignment is accomplished in two ways:

As a result of creating improved alignment and measuring the business impact of learning management programs, talent-based learning delivers numerous benefits, including:



Technology Requirements of Talent-Based Learning

Practicing effective talent-based learning requires technology to be aligned on a single platform that combines all key processes and data for learning and talent management. To achieve this objective, there are several underlying steps which need to be in place. These include:

Implementing these steps to create a single, unified platform enables effective achievement of a complete talent-based learning strategy. Executives and managers have one central place to manage all aspects of talent management and learning. They are better able to track progress toward goals and assign learning activities according to the development and performance needs of their employees and the organization as a whole.

Key Benefits of Talent-Based Learning

Talent-based learning delivers improved alignment to, and better measurement of, business results against an organization's overall learning management investments.

Indeed, Softscape's survey-based research reveals that by integrating learning to other elements of talent management (e.g., recruiting, performance, development), organizations report better performance on several key business and talent metrics versus organizations that use isolated, standalone learning systems. Several metrics showed large improvement by survey respondents, including:

A report by Bersin and Associates called "2009 Talent Management Factbook" [2] corroborates these benefits. The report compares the effect of having a mature talent management practice on several business and talent management metrics. The results showed that organizations with a mature practice report better performance on several key business metrics, including:

A few brief examples help demonstrate how talent-based learning helps to achieve the benefits stated above:



Measuring Results of Talent-Based Learning

Talent-based learning enables executives and managers to more easily measure the business results of learning programs and continuously improve upon them. Today, measuring results with a typical learning management system focuses largely on classic training metrics such as classroom attendance and test results. By contrast, talent-based learning is focused on metrics that are more directly related to the business. These include:

Softscape's 2010 State of Global People Management research reveals the key metrics that companies are tracking today, which they plan to track for 2010, and the resulting growth for 2010 (see Figure 1 http://www.softscape.com/pdf/us/whitepapers/Softscape_wp_talentbased_learning.pdf). Observe that two of the leading growth metrics in the chart are talent based-learning metrics.

As a demonstration of how to link learning outcomes to business results, consider a typical manufacturing organization. A key cost and quality objective in manufacturing is minimizing error rates during the manufacturing process. Measuring how learning management affects this objective is therefore key. With a talent-based learning system, measuring how learning management impacts this result is a simple process:

The result of this example is shown below as a bubble chart (see Figure 2 http://www.softscape.com/pdf/us/whitepapers/Softscape_wp_talentbased_learning.pdf). The bubble chart shows a distribution of employees mapped against two measures:

Each bubble has a number within it that shows how many employees possess the specific combination of test score average to goal achievement. This example highlights the ease of correlating training effectiveness to business outcomes in a talent-based learning system.

Further, by looking at this bubble chart, it is easy to show larger trends, such as the correlation between a specific test result and meeting or exceeding the goal. In the above example, 94% of the employees who achieved an average score of 80% or better on the training tests met or exceeded the targets on the organizational goal to reduce error rates.

Near-Term Tactics for Talent Based Learning

The key to short term success for talent-based learning is focus. Specifically, success in talent-based learning starts by focusing on current definable business goals that can translate to specific workforce development initiatives. By contrast, it can often be a temptation to make the initiative too broad, which is dangerous because it may directly increase the odds of project failure. Below are a few steps that HR and learning executives can use to keep their talent-based initiatives on-track:



Conclusion

Talent-based learning is an evolution to today's learning management paradigm. This paradigm shift moves learning management from a standalone process to an integrated part of a broader talent solution that enables organizations to directly measure the business impact of their learning management investments. To summarize the key take-aways:



[1] David Mallon et al., [2] Karen O'Leonard, http://www.sumtotalsystems.com/