Talent Development, and most of HR in general, has been long-challenged with demonstrating how their solutions impact the business. This isn't a new problem. Although some organizations have started to really advance what they do with management reporting, some of the same basic struggles exist that did years ago in terms of communicating value.
There is no one-size fits all solution, but there are a few things you can start doing to build this capability in your organization. The points below help provide a foundation; however, we'll be blogging about other ways you can advance your management reporting in the future too:
Start Small and Start Simple. If your first instinct is that you need to pull in sales data, customer data, or some other business data in order to produce effective management reporting - stop there! Having that data and connecting it with your Effectiveness and People data is great, but it's more challenging and there are a number of other factors to consider. Instead, start with an individual program, curriculum, audience, or something on a smaller scale where you can focus on the story of impact using the data you have available to you.
Define Your Outcomes. Business leaders don't speak HR lingo, so why continue to push it? Starting with your 'target' program, or whatever you've chosen to focus on, consider what Talent Outcomes (e.g. Engagement, Culture, Leadership Competency, Time to Productivity) and Business Outcomes (e.g. Productivity, Customer Service Ratings, Sales, Employee Retention, etc.) should be impacted.
Validate Your Outcomes. If you can't get the business data for these outcomes, which is common, validate them with the leader. Ask them a question like, "We know specifically we want Customer Service ratings to improve, but what specifically are you expecting to see improvements on to get there?" They might respond something like, "We need them to provide the right answer the first time." Now you have something to work with and consider adding a question to your evaluations specific to this outcome. Then, after data is collected, you can come back to the leader and say something like "80% of the people participating felt the training was high impact related to their ability to resolve customer inquiries the first time."
Performitiv is committed to helping to advance management reporting in the Talent Development space. As such, we've hired Chris LeBrun as our Director of Professional Services. Chris has 15 years in the industry helping organizations do this very thing and the best part is - he wants to hear from you! If you are open to having a discussion around what your organization is doing for management reporting, have questions, or just want to hear more about his approach - reach out to him at christopher.lebrun@performitiv.com. Let's help to collectively move the industry forward!
Thank you,
The Performitiv Team
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