The Point of Impact: Measuring the Real Effectiveness of Training Programs

The objective of any training program is to prove that the courses you’re offering learners will have a measurable impact. In the LMS space, some deliver that impact better than others.

Everyone learns very differently in terms of how you learn, how you apply that knowledge, how you absorb it, and how many times you need to refer back to the information. But no matter the variations in the learning process, you can always assess the impact of learning by asking, “What was the knowledge level before and after the training?&rdquo

With this in mind, how might you measure the impact of a large-scale training program?

At a business level, it’s not about whether or not an individual learned something from a course. In general, organizations do a very poor job of measuring their training programs. A company that measures effectiveness based on the number of credits taken assumes that you have a perfect organization if you take every credit possible, which may not be the case.

A better approach for measuring effectiveness than one based on credit taken would be to define the skills, performance metrics, and mix of talent required — which in turn forms the foundation for the entire organization.

What’s Effective to Measure and What Isn’t?

How do you begin to measure the effectiveness of your training program? Most organizations already have many business KPIs that drive their actions. The KPIs measure the effectiveness of their network, and those KPIs could refer to:

• Sales metrics
• Parts sold metrics
• Quality metrics for the entities within
• Warranty service claims and metrics
• Number of service orders complete
• Fixed first visit | or fixed right first time metrics
• Units sold

In essence, the way you prove value is to bring both training and a set of metrics together.

Training Meets Metrics

Now that we’ve outlined some of the different performance metrics you can consider, let’s bring metrics into your training program. You want to ensure that the individual and organizational metrics are baked in, with these metrics in the same place as the curriculum – what you will be learning.

You add and match KPIs with the curriculum so that you can determine what it takes for an individual to be a certified member of the network. You roll the same KPIs and curriculum into organizational components that make up the network of the dealership.

The primary goal should be to combine the metrics you naturally use to measure the performance of your network, bring them into a training program, and then find the places within that program where they link together. Over time, you can see if one location is underperforming or another is a high-performing organization’s model.

Bringing a Low-Performing Organization Back from the Edge

When dealing with a low-performing organization, you can refer to the metrics of a high-performing organization for guidance. But make no mistake: We are not saying, “You need to look more like this and do exactly what they do.” Instead, you want to show the path that the high-performing organization took in order to provide clarity.

One of the best ways to motivate change in low-performing environments is using scorecards. Scorecards convey how the organization stands against its peers. It also feeds information to the network operations management, the partner entity management (i.e. dealership management, and sales, service and parts management), and network organizations overall.

The secret to driving performance higher is the competition aspect between partner network entities, especially between dealerships with like-brands and size performance attributes. There’s even a competition aspect between service personnel within the same dealership. Who doesn’t want to see themselves as the best in their role?

Now you’re on your way to elevating performance.

If you approach the challenge of creating positive change in a low-performing organization, do it more holistically – using the measurements that already drive your network. Do you want to move more parts, get more repair orders, etc.? There is a metric for every one of those areas to measure who is helping you grow, who is treading water, and who is meeting your plans ahead.

In most cases, you have to leverage LMS data. You need all the training data, training history, and certification compliance data so you have a better sense of what the network looks like from a training perspective. You also want to integrate parts sales, unit sales, and repair order data.

You can drill down to view individual performance metrics at a granular level, such as the number of units sold this month. However, you still need to layer in the organizational unit and what you expect from it from a sales volume perspective.

When all of these elements combine, you can measure the effectiveness of your training program at both the individual and organizational levels.

That’s when you know if you’re successfully making a real impact.

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