The value in employee training shows up in results. And to demonstrate results, you need data.
Learning management system analytics are your ally here. Your LMS collects a vast amount of data on learners and their activities. The LMS also makes it easy to configure data, create and schedule a variety of reports, create visualizations and more. These features provide valuable insights about the impact and effectiveness of your training—insights that can inform and improve strategic decision-making.
Automated reports with LMS analytics
It's easy to set up automated reporting of learner data. With weekly reports, managers can see which employees are progressing and who needs a nudge to get training done. Training administrators can regularly look at data on engagement, course completions and quiz scores to evaluate whether training is hitting the mark.
For example, if learners seem to be neglecting compliance training—or safety metrics are not improving—automated reports can quickly bring those issues to light. On the other hand, when the data shows full engagement and improved safety scores, the learning and development team can take a well-deserved victory lap.
Setting up a regular delivery schedule for reports that are customized for group leaders, section managers and training administrators ensures these leaders have the data they need at their fingertips.
Customized dashboards
Integrating your LMS with business intelligence or other business software enables you to maximize the benefits of LMS reporting and analytics capabilities. Business decisions are increasingly data-driven, and LMS analytics play an important role in delivering the data managers need to formulate strategy.
To make the most of the data your LMS collects, dive into features that allow you to create custom dashboards. Managers might want to see different data than training administrators, for example. And the key data points are likely to vary by department; sales executives are studying different metrics from the IT department, for example.
Learning and performance data are essential in talent management, as well, revealing employees' strengths and identifying potential leaders. Learning data can help managers identify top candidates for promotions, lateral moves that offer new opportunities or leadership roles in challenging projects throughout the organization. They can even measure performance and learning activity against key business indicators.
Managers and learning administrators can act on insights gleaned from LMS analytics to enroll learners in needed training and set reminders to check progress or follow up on earlier actions.
Visualize data for clear communication
A typical data set, with hundreds of lines of numbers, hides a tremendous amount of information. Visualizing the data—creating charts and graphs—can reveal trends, point out how results have changed over time, identify unusual events and uncover stories about training effectiveness and learner progress.
Tools built into your LMS make it easy to uncover those stories and figure out which divisions are excelling and which may be underperforming, which employees need more training, or how performance changed after a team got training.
All of this information feeds back into the L&D cycle, spurring improvements to existing training and the creation of new materials to fill any gaps identified. It also informs managers and executives, providing them a clear and more complete picture of how the business is doing.
Data drives better business decisions
Gathering, tailoring and analyzing LMS analytics data along with business intelligence data is the best way to plan a big-picture strategy. Data-driven decisions can help boost productivity and guide hiring and promotion choices. Your LMS is a great starting point for ensuring managers and executives have the data they need.
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