Measuring the ROI of Online Training
Evaluating ROI is a challenging aspect of corporate online training initiatives. There are, however, effective methods of measuring their impact and determining if current programmes are worth the resources. Organisations are often interested in knowing if training has been successful, if learners were satisfied, or if there was a noticeable increase in sales or revenue.
Setting clear objectives
Learning and development teams must develop a training strategy and outline specific objectives before beginning an online training programme. Heads of all departments should be asked what they want to achieve from the training, and the metrics that should be measured.
This approach could apply to the creation of an onboarding training programme. Success in this case could be measured by comparing the amount of employee turnover observed over a period of time before and after the new onboarding training.
Tracking course completion
Course completion rates give a strong indication of the effectiveness of the digital learning. In this case, the number of employees that have been assigned the online training can be gauged against the number of employees who successfully completed it. High course completion rates indicate employees are motivated by the training. Lower rates indicate that employees are unmotivated by the online training modules.
If staff are not motivated to complete their assigned courses, the benefits will be low and the training programme can probably be deemed unsuccessful. In this case, employees needs must be re-evaluated so engaging e-learning courses can be designed.
Effective reporting for meaningful insights
Advanced reporting analytics built into learning management systems such as FUEL Learn provide valuable insights into learner behaviour. Insights can include success rates in progressing through learning pathways, assessment scores, and time taken to complete modules. This data helps measure the overall effectiveness of the online training programme.
Costs vs Performance
In calculating the ROI of the online training programme it is worth looking at the costs and outcomes or benefits. Costs can include LMS license fees, development, and implementation. Benefits could include increased productivity, growth in sales or revenue, reduced number of complaints and more. Consider the items that can be expressed in monetary terms which allows easy evaluation of the costs vs performance results. The resulting ratio reveals whether your online training was effective or not.
Measuring the effectiveness of a training academy is not always easy but online learning platforms and the detailed tracking and reporting functionalities make measuring ROI much more precise.
