Employee training is an important part of any business. It can also be expensive, especially for small organizations with limited budgets. The average cost of training an employee in the United States is around $1,200.
Recent years have brought about a greater focus on online employee training, which offers an appealing balance between effectiveness and cost. Even with the benefits of eLearning, tracking is still necessary. Data is essential to get the highest return on your training investment.
If you aren’t sure where to begin, you can learn the 7 reasons why analytics are essential to a successful employee training program. You also need to make sure you are tracking the right data to measure results.
What Data Will Give Me the Best Insights into My Employee Training Program?
The best data to track for employee training insights will vary from one business to the next. The following list is only a starting point. Your business may require additional tracking.
For example, businesses that are beholden to government oversight will need to also track compliance. A healthcare provider may need to check data related to patient care or a tech company may need to track stats related to development.
This list is a starting point to help you learn more about the performance of your training program.
- Completion Rates
Completion rates refer to how many times a course is successfully completed. You should also review drop-off numbers, or how many times a course isn’t completed.
A course with a high number of drop-offs should be reviewed. Are there issues with the content or how it is delivered? Could it be presented in a clearer, more concise way? This is an indication that the course needs to be improved or replaced.
Courses that have high completion rates should be looked at for inspiration. These are likely utilizing training methods that work and could be applied to future content. Both stats provide valuable insight that will help you refine your training program.
- Training Duration
How long does it take to complete a course? Some topics will require more time, which isn’t inherently bad. But if you notice learners getting hung up on a specific course, this could indicate a problem.
Review the content and see if there are ways to streamline the information. Is there a better way to present the topic? Is the course too broad and needs to be broken into multiple courses to make the content easier to digest? Microlearning could be a good solution when learners struggle to complete a course in a reasonable timeframe.
- Assessment Results
Assessments will tell you a lot about knowledge retention. Review results to find out if your learners are truly absorbing the material. While an individual may struggle with a topic and require one-on-one attention, a trend of poor results across a training class could indicate a content issue.
Review and refine the content to improve knowledge retention which will produce more successful assessment completions. The more your learners know, the better equipped they will be to join your workforce and be productive members of your team.
- Learner Satisfaction Surveys
Learners can provide valuable insight into what it’s like to complete your training program. Many businesses send surveys after the completion of a course. These usually include scaled and open-ended questions to gather information on what the learner liked or disliked.
Ask questions like if the training was adequate, what the learner would change about the course, and what motivates them to continue learning.
You can also add questions that might be specific to your industry. The goal should be to gather feedback that will help you improve your course content.
- Performance Improvement
The goal of any employee training program is to produce workers who can perform well while on the job. You won’t know if this is working unless you track performance.
New hires won’t have any past performance stats to check, but you can see how well they perform coming into their job roles after training. Compare stats for existing employees who go through training to look for improvement. This could be related to productivity stats, revenue generated, or whatever is relevant to your operation and business goals.
A course that doesn’t influence performance when learners return to their job roles may need to be reviewed. Look for ways to improve how the information is delivered. Make sure that the course covers instruction and topics that are relevant to the role.
This is also where having job role- and goal-specific courses is helpful. These create a personalized experience for the learner and make them more adept at their specific job.
- Employee Retention Rates
Quality job candidates want to join companies that are invested in their career development. That means you need a solid training program that will offer the educational opportunities employees want. Doing so will boost employee retention rates.
If you have significant turnover, training could be an issue. Inadequately trained employees are more likely to leave. More training also means more opportunities to grow within a company, which is more motivation to stay.
Hiring new workers is expensive. Keeping employee retention rates up is a good way to lower costs and keep a team of hardworking, knowledgeable people.
- Cost Savings
Look at how your employee training program is lowering costs. Along with employee retention, training can also reduce the number of expensive errors that occur each year. Knowledgeable employees will be more efficient, productive, and capable of providing workable solutions when problems arise.
You should also find out how to use eLearning to strengthen your customer training program. This is another good way to cut costs and increase revenue.
How to Efficiently Track Employee Training Data
Tracking training data is easier now than it was decades ago. Companies that use eLearning can track and record data related to just about anything on an ongoing basis.
Most learning management systems will do all the heavy lifting for you and then provide report generation tools that let you filter the data. Learning more by reading LMS reviews will help you find a platform that has the tools you need.
