The CLO is Responsible for Business Results

Patti P. Phillips, Ph.D., CEO, ROI Institute, and Jack J. Phillips, Ph.D., Chairman, ROI Institute

In the past few decades, there have been paradigm shifts in learning and development and the profession has changed dramatically. Progress has been made in designing and delivering content in various innovative ways. But one problem continues to plague the learning and talent development field—showing its worth to the organization. A few years ago, Paula Ketter, editor of TD magazine, noted in her article celebrating 70 years of the magazine, “As we examined magazine issues published in the 1940s, we saw some of the same topics discussed then that are as relevant today. Proving training’s worth has been a constant pain point for industry professionals and, seven decades later, we are finally seeing training gaining steam in organizations.” 1 Although we have made progress, it’s very slow. Why does this problem persist?

We’ve taken many webinar polls during the last few years and have found that the learning and development teams admit that most of their training is wasted and that they don’t provide measurements that executives want. They have little data that shows they make a difference and suggest that executives see training as a cost—not an investment. These are candid, but disturbing, poll results. The consequence is obvious. The L&D budget is usually the first to be cut in a downturn and few chief learning officers have the budget they need.

Why is this so? First, we can say that it is not because there is a lack of books on evaluation. At last count, almost 100 books have been written on training evaluation. We wrote the first one, Handbook of Training Evaluation and Measurement Methods (Gulf Publishing, 1983), and perhaps, one of the most recent books, Proving the Value of Soft Skills: Measuring Impact and Calculating ROI (ATD, 2022). We don’t necessarily need additional case studies. ATD has published a dozen ROI case study books with two of them becoming best sellers. And we don’t necessarily need additional conference presentations on the issues. Evaluation continues to be an important part of the conference agenda.

We’ve identified three barriers to progress:

  1. Most trainers transfer into the learning space and do not receive formal education in L&D. They come from functional areas and cycle through L&D because of their expertise. Few professions have this same type of rotating process. These trainers are not prepared for, nor do they think about, showing the value of what they do.
  2. Most L&D professionals think evaluation is someone else’s responsibility, and whoever is responsible for evaluation should make sure it’s done.
  3. Most L&D professionals are not required to show the value from immediate leadership.

So, what is needed? For many decades, we’ve witnessed some organizations doing a tremendous job with evaluating programs, others that don’t, and a lot in between. The biggest factor is the leadership at the CLO level. Delivering impact and ROI for major learning programs requires a team effort. It’s not just measuring success but designing for the success you want at the impact level and delivering it. That involves every stakeholder. It’s a shift in responsibilities for every stakeholder. The only person who can bring this change to the entire team is the CLO.

Some CLOs have decided that they want to show the business contribution of what they do, and they do it. They have everyone involved, doing their part to make it work. Those CLOs are the most successful. When they are successful, good things happen.

Their teams work together to create change and add value, they connect learning to the business, and show success routinely through impact and ROI studies. They communicate results to executives, and executives clearly see the value of learning in terms that they appreciate and understand. Many of these CLOs have no problem obtaining learning budget approval.

But many others haven’t taken this approach, and they struggle. They continue to have learning perceived as something that is implemented when there is extra time and resources, or when it is required for compliance. Their learning budgets are usually the first to get cut when there is a downturn. We would argue, convincingly,  that the learning budget should increase in a downturn.

We encourage CLOs to take a fresh look at where they are with delivering results. You want your team to respond to these statements with a resounding “False.” 

  1. Most of learning and development is wasted (not used).
  2. You rarely measure the data that the executives want to see.
  3. You don’t have data that shows you make a difference.
  4. Top executives view learning as a cost.

Please contact us for a document, “Updating Your Evaluation Strategy.”

Reference:

  1. Ketter, Paula. “Celebrating 70 years of TD Magazine,” TD magazine, July 1, 2016.

This article was originally published on April 19, 2022, on ChiefLearningOfficer.com