According to a report from EY on the ever-growing importance of L&D on the future of work, “data can be a game changer within the functioning of corporate L&D and help the function earn their spot as a strategic partner.” 

Industry analyst Josh Bersin also speaks to the importance of reporting in L&D. In a research paper from 2020 on adaptive learning, Josh states “the depth and ability to continually assess, learn, and act changes the game for how learning departments will operate and make investment decisions. It allows the organization to make faster, better, and more effective decisions.”

If your company has a learning and development program in place, you’ll likely want to gauge the results of training efforts periodically or on an ongoing basis. Without the right data, it can be difficult or even impossible to determine if your company’s approach to learning and development is working. Robust reporting within a learning platform empowers L&D teams to gather data about things that truly matter to the business, such as how training improves performance and productivity. 

Here are some ways L&D teams can leverage reports:

Track Progress 

Reports help L&D teams automatically keep track of which employees have completed training, performance, and progress toward business objectives—and instantly access that information whenever needed. Admins and managers can create reports to track  status, performance, scores, registrations, results, and more for specific employees, groups of employees, or across the entire organization. 

Demonstrate Why Learning Matters 

Utilized correctly, reports can help L&D professionals illustrate why learning and development matters and optimize training across the board. A learning platform with robust reporting capabilities can help you uncover deeper analysis about your training efforts which truly matter to your business. 

If you’ll be sharing insights about your company’s training programs with HR, finance, sales, or other executives and stakeholders, you’ll want to provide meaningful data and metrics that showcase the value of your L&D efforts. For this level of analysis, a simple look into course completion rates likely won’t suffice—you’ll also want to share information about how training improved specific skill sets among employees, boosted operations, and impacted the bottom line. 

Improve L&D Strategy 

Reports about learning and development programs can help businesses identify what’s working and what isn’t, then adjust training programs to be more effective. For example, data might show that despite completing multiple hours of training on a particular topic, employees still fall short on certain required skills when observed. This might prompt an L&D team to consider how the training is delivered (live, in-person instruction or virtual courses) and the format of specific resources (perhaps videos would work better than written documents to demonstrate certain processes)—and make the necessary adjustments. 

The Schoox Difference 

The right learning platform will make it easy for L&D professionals to pull data about specific individuals, as well as at the team or organizational level. Without a built-in reporting function, some L&D teams resort to manual tracking or exporting user data into another tool to analyze results. This process is both time consuming and less effective than having the information consolidated and readily available within the platform itself. 

Some reports you can create in Schoox include the courses report, in-class training report, and members report. 

With Schoox, you can easily leverage pre-built reports or customize them to generate a consolidated view of information about courses or curricula, scores or training results, individual users, various groups of users, content, and more. Reports can be exported or set up as recurring, scheduled in advance, or created on an ad-hoc basis. Schoox seamlessly integrates with leading HRIS and other HR software platforms, so pertinent data about your users always remains in sync with the learning and performance metrics  gathered by Schoox. 

Some L&D professionals struggle with reports because their company’s learning platforms aren’t flexible enough to change how users, or different groups of users, are associated with one another. This leads to inaccurate or incomplete data which isn’t necessarily useful. Schoox can be configured to reflect the unique organizational structure of any business, and user permissions can be adjusted to ensure the right people have access to the information they need — which makes reporting much more effective overall.  

A regional training manager, for example, might need to access reports detailing which users are enrolled in which courses across multiple franchise locations while another may only need information about a specific group of learners. With Schoox, L&D teams can easily customize user permissions, compare metrics across different groups, and segment data in a way that makes sense for specific business units. 

What’s New in Q2 2022?

We recently simplified reporting in Schoox by migrating all reports — both scheduled and standalone — into Report Builder. Now admins and managers can access current and archived reports, as well as options to create new ones, all in one place. We also improved the backend engine that powers reports, making the function more efficient overall.

Admins and managers now have access to all recurring, scheduled, and ad-hoc reports in Report Builder.

Learn more about all the updates we made to the Schoox platform this quarter here. 

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How does your organization focus on or identify those high-performing employees? Do you focus solely on them, and if so, does that mean there is an imbalance in the organization?

It might seem like a no-brainer to spend more time and effort on high-performing workers. Many companies will have programs specifically in place to help elevate these people to senior positions. For example, there are often programs to take managers to director level.

However, a common mistake that organizations make is putting their whole focus on their high-performing workers. This means that most of the workforce is left without the support they need to succeed in their roles.

That’s what Matthew Brown talks about in this episode of The Learning Xchange podcast. Matthew, Schoox’s VP of Learning and Brand Success, shares his thoughts on supporting lower-performing members of staff to help them become more engaged.

Listen to the podcast below or keep reading.

The problem with focusing only on high performers

Focusing only on high-performing employees, those who surpass expectations, comes with some problems attached. For one, you’re not getting the most out of a big majority of your workforce. These people are known as the “steady contributors.”

Steady contributors are people who get the job done but perhaps don’t wow the managers. They may not have your attention as much as the high performers, but they make up around 70-80% of your workforce. Ignoring them could mean you miss out on the opportunity to turn them into high performers.

On top of that, you may have around 10% of the workforce you consider low performers. It’s important to assess why people may not be performing as well as expected or hoped. Some may be disengaged from the job, unhappy, or have other personal issues going on. Any good leader will want to get to the bottom of why people are underperforming. The worst thing you can do is simply ignore them.

In a lot of cases, underperforming staff are simply lacking support. This leads people to mentally “check out” of a job. So, what can you do? Every person matters in an organization. Everyone needs development, focus, and support to help them perform the job to the best of their ability.

What we can do to help low-performing employees

There are a few things you can do to better support employees. The main thing that needs to improve is communication, which goes for almost every organization out there.

You could design a program for the whole organization that allows people to share their career goals and aspirations. However, implementing a program isn’t the only thing you should do. You also need to create a safe working environment where people feel comfortable to express their opinions.

Many employees do not feel safe or free to talk because they fear the consequences or the perception of others.

They may wonder, “what happens if I tell them how I really feel? Will I look weak? Will I get fired?”

Giving people a safe space to talk about their own aspirations and goals could help them feel much more engaged. By working closely with the steady contributors and low performers, you can start turning them into higher-performing and happier employees.

How do you identify high performers?

What makes someone high-performing? How do you identify them?

Take some time to sit down and think carefully. Is it a gut feeling, their job role, skillset, or managerial style? Are they simply more efficient or experienced than others? Try to pinpoint the specifics.

Often, when organizations identify high performers, it’s rarely done in a data-driven way. It is sometimes a gut feeling or because they get along so well with the managers.

The problem with not being specific is that it’s not scalable. In other words, it’s harder to apply a method or winning formula to other workers. Without a clear way to identify high performers, it’s hard to know what steps to take to bring everyone up to the same level.

Ask yourself, what makes them so good at their job? Is it a particular skillset? Great, training might be the way forward for the organization. Alternatively, it could be a combination of skills or experience that you can work on.

Homing in on the specifics will empower you to make better choices for your team overall. Once you understand how people perform differently, especially in the same role, you can implement real changes to benefit everyone. With more focus, understanding, and support, you can improve your team’s morale, productivity, and performance across the board.

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