Training – The lack of effective metrics appeared to be a growing concern McKinsey finds

Executives around the world are striving to measure the impact of training and employee-learning programs on the performance of business. Half of those who responded to a McKinsey survey last year told us that they see organizational capability building as one of their top strategic priorities, but many said their companies could do better. When we asked respondents about their companies’ biggest challenge with training programs, we found that the lack of effective metrics appeared to be a growing concern.

The 2014 survey,1 analyzing the attitudes and experiences of more than 1,400 executives in all the main regions of the world, followed up a similar study on organizational capability building conducted in 2010. This time, roughly one-quarter of the respondents described their organizations’ capability-building programs as “very effective.” Slightly over half said that they were “somewhat effective.”

A preoccupation with metrics was one of the most striking changes between the two surveys: in 2014, a greater number of respondents said the lack of credible metrics was a business challenge (exhibit). Almost one-fifth said that their organizations did not attempt to measure the impact of training and learning programs at all; only 13 percent told us that these companies tried to quantify the financial return on their learning or training investments.

via Do your training efforts drive performance? | McKinsey & Company.