Using data to close performance gaps

- [Instructor] I work with a lot of clients in different industries, so let me give you an example that sheds light on some of the things I encounter when it comes to identifying learning gaps. A large hotel chain has an existing four week onboarding program for new employees. It is a blended approach using an app, e-learning, plus on the job observations and coaching. It's producing okay results, but it's still taking a lot of time until the average employee is proficient in their role. What data points did this company review to shed light on what they could do better? Well, the company started by reviewing their top performers. These are the people who are meeting or exceeding their key performance indicators, KPIs, and faster than others. As this is a hotel these KPIs might be customer satisfaction scores, or length of time to clean a room effectively. Then the company took a deep look at how their new employees engaged with the onboarding program to review. How they spent most of their time, and what content sections did they perhaps skim over. How they scored on quizzes, and did these quizzes correlate to good on the job performance. And they determined which employees had previous experience in the hotel industry. When you do such an analysis you too can discover patterns as to what content or exercises yield the best performance outcomes. For example, you might discover learners who viewed a video about hotel key security had fewer errors than those who opted to test out of the module. Likewise, if you can determine employees with experience excel quickly, your top performers, this is data you can share with stakeholders to build a more efficient onboarding for them. In addition to the top performers look at the digital patterns of the those who struggled. Did they struggle during onboarding? Were there consistent quiz questions they could not answer? If so, the problem might be with the design of the test rather than the content. You might also be able to identify early indicators of when an employee is not mastering the content. With this data you can build interventions into the program specifically for those situations. The goal is to use data analytics to determine exactly where your curricula is effective, where it has gaps, and where it can be trimmed. By performing this analysis you're maximizing efficiency and helping learners get to where they need to go quickly. The ability for an employee to upscale could mean the difference between being relevant or being made redundant. Rules are changing fast and it is a turbulent time to maintain skills in today's workplace. This is why it is our serious responsibility as learning professionals to build learning strategies to enable and empower our audiences whilst removing barriers. After all, we're there to serve the learner's success.