Data-driven behaviour design: how to uncover the real impact of your learning efforts
Data-driven behaviour design: how to uncover the real impact of your learning efforts
Measuring something is the key to understanding its success. But are you measuring the things that really matter? Can you see the real impact that your learning efforts are having across your organisation?
Using data from your learning platform and learning content could be the key to unlocking insights into the impact of your learning initiatives. Building in a data-driven measurement strategy to your learning initiatives can help you when assessing their impact.
What impact do you want to have?
Before you start thinking about the key messages of your learning, focus on defining your measures of success. Essentially, answer the question, ‘what impact are you aiming to create?’. Here are some common success measures we hear from customers:
- Higher engagement with content
- Real-world behaviour change
- Increased training completion
- Improved staff retention
- Reduction in onboarding time
- Improved user sentiment
Choosing your success criteria is like setting your compass for designing, developing, and launching your learning experience. It not only guides your intentions but also allows you to measure the true impact of your initiative once it’s out in the world. It’s a strategic move that ensures you stay on track and achieve meaningful results.
Real-world behaviour change.
When it comes to measuring success in terms of behaviour change, it’s crucial to have a deep understanding of why people are, or aren’t, doing what they should be doing. Instead of guessing, or making assumptions, it’s essential to ask people directly. By doing so, you can gain accurate insights into the problem and use systematic methods from behavioural science to design learning experiences that are more likely to drive behaviour change.
For a recent customer project, we ran a series of behavioural science-driven focus groups, followed by a wide-reaching survey to uncover the real needs and issues of employees at our customer’s organisation. We found that the focus groups and survey findings challenged the original assumptions made by management as to the real crux of the problem and informed our data-driven recommendations for the customer.
Our report combined the survey and focus group findings, along with relevant research and literature, to produce actionable recommendations for changing behaviour. Using this report, our customer could put real-world, measurable initiatives in place to solve their problem and negate the negative impact it was having on employees and customers alike.
Talk to learners.
Before implementing your learning initiative, engage learners in a survey or focus groups. Ask them thought-provoking questions that gather valuable feedback on the elements of the employee experience relevant to your learning initiative. To gather quantifiable data on behaviour, use questions that measure the extent or scale of relevant aspects like ‘to what extent is recycling facilitated in your workplace?’. For sentiment and satisfaction data, ask questions that delve into their thoughts and feelings like ‘how satisfied are you with the current onboarding experience?’.
To ensure a high response rate, keep surveys user-friendly and easily accessible. Make it quick and hassle-free to complete. Emphasize the importance of participation, highlighting how feedback will shape the learning experience for themselves or other employees. By making it clear that their input matters, you’ll encourage meaningful responses and valuable insights.
Gather quantitative data.
After launching your learning initiative, it’s time to dive into the data and see how users are engaging with your learning material or platform. Using an analytics tool you can track and analyse their interactions, giving you a clear picture of which elements of the experience are being utilised and which ones are being overlooked.
As time goes on you can analyse user trends from the captured data, allowing you to gain even deeper insight into the effectiveness of your learning. To get the most detailed understanding, look for analytics tools that let you configure data visualisations based on different groups such as: role, function, country, and manager status. This level of detail will provide you with rich insights into user engagement, sentiment, and behaviour.
Evidence-based insights reveal learning impact.
To really understand the impact of learning at an organisation, a measurement strategy needs to be established from the start. That way, the real-life impact can be tracked and analysed effectively.
An effective measurement strategy will show you if your organisation is driving the change intended, if your employee behaviour has changed as desired, and what your ROI for the learning project is. The outcomes don’t have to stop there. Use your findings to evolve your learning solution to meet the continually changing needs of your organisation and employees.
Our team at BAD creates learning experiences and tools that help you achieve your success measures. Get in touch to explore ways to help your employees to learn through immersive digital experiences.
