Category: Uncategorized


Introduction:

In many organizations, Learning and Development (L&D) initiatives are often viewed as costs rather than investments by leadership. The primary reason behind this perception is the lack of a clear linkage between learning activities and tangible, measurable metrics such as revenue and employee retention. While completion rates, time spent, and quiz scores are essential metrics, they fall short of demonstrating the direct impact of L&D efforts on key business outcomes. This poses a significant challenge for L&D professionals who strive to showcase the value of the resources invested in employee development.

The Challenge:

The million-dollar question for L&D teams is how to establish a direct connection between learning activities and the metrics that leadership cares about, such as revenue and employee retention.
Current tools in the market predominantly focus on traditional metrics like completion rates and quiz scores, leaving a gap in demonstrating the correlation between learning initiatives and broader organizational success.

The Potential of Machine Learning:

One potential avenue for addressing this challenge lies in the realm of machine learning. By leveraging advanced analytics, organizations can explore correlations between completion rates, quiz scores, and key performance indicators (KPIs) that directly impact the bottom line. For instance, if a correlation can be established between completion rates and the sales team’s ability to close deals, then the impact of sales training on revenue becomes measurable.

Practical Examples:

Consider a scenario where the sales team completes a training program and achieves high quiz scores. By monitoring subsequent deal closing rates, organizations can directly measure the impact of the training on revenue generation. Similarly, in an industrial setting, linking safety training completion and scores to incident rates provides a clear correlation between training efforts and a safer workplace.

Data Interpretation:

The key lies not only in collecting data but also in interpreting it effectively. Machine learning algorithms can analyze vast datasets to identify patterns and correlations that might be overlooked using traditional methods. By understanding the relationship between learning activities and business outcomes, L&D professionals can provide evidence-backed insights to leadership.

Employee Satisfaction and Retention:

While completion rates and quiz scores are valuable, they may not directly address employee satisfaction, a metric closely tied to retention. Machine learning algorithms can delve into employee feedback, performance reviews, and engagement surveys to identify the impact of L&D initiatives on job satisfaction and retention rates.

Conclusion:

The challenge of demonstrating the business value of Learning and Development is real, but the solution may lie in harnessing the power of machine learning and advanced analytics. By establishing correlations between learning metrics and key business outcomes, L&D professionals can make a compelling case for the strategic importance of employee development. As the tools evolve to focus on interpreting data and showcasing the impact of L&D initiatives, organizations can position themselves to not only invest wisely in employee development but also reap the tangible benefits that contribute to overall organizational success.

What do we need to do to fix India’s education problem? Is it even a problem? India has 15 Lakhs schools both Govt and Private put together.

We have 24 crore students enrolled in these schools. That’s roughly 19% of our population! Which means a lot of future human resource in development.

Of this, 15.6 crore (that is 65%) is studying in government schools and remaining 35% in private schools.

Let’s focus on teachers now.

We have total 94 Lakhs teachers for these 24 crore students which makes our teacher to student ratio 1/25 which is NOT bad at all.

(We have more teachers than China if that comparison helps)

Then where is the problem?

The problem is not the number of teachers or for that matter school infrastructure. Indian government has done a fabulous job over last 20 years and created a school in every nook and corner of India with all basic facilities. The school will have all the required artifacts like flash cards, wooden educational toys etc.

How do I know all that? Well, because I taught in three government schools for 5 years from 2010-2015 (of course part time over weekends)

In my opinion our education problem is the quality of delivery. We need to make huge efforts in training our teachers. I am sure we have a lot of very good teachers even in government schools but that percentage may not be enough.

Teaching is one profession which requires special skills and more than skills a strong desire to impart that skill.

Based on my 5 years of interactions with teachers in some government schools, I feel we are missing that big time despite of them earning a decent salary.

Can we train our teachers overnight? We can but it will take another 20 years and still the gap in quality will be huge as private schools are becoming modern everyday.

So what’s the solution?

Digitization of content and remote delivery of teachers training is one solution so that our teachers are better prepared. We should start that on war footing. That’s one..

Two, The quality digital content should also make its way into our physical classrooms and the teacher in the classroom can become more of a coordinator or consultant. (someone who is available to clear doubts).

There are too many Edtech companies are trying exactly that but they are targeting a student population which is already spending 1 Lakh to 7 Lakhs per annum in their respective private schools.

Just think about this, the parents who are spending that much on school but still need to buy an Edtech tablet. What does it tell us? Even teachers in those private schools have gaps which Edtech is claiming to fill. Right?

Then just imagine the gaps in government schools and middle class private schools.

So digitization of education content and digital delivery is the only scalable solution for our education problem if we really want to solve this problem in the next decade.

-Nikesh Jain