These metrics guidelines will act as a jumping off point for organizations that are looking for a way to efficiently measure how their workforce is learning.
by Elizabeth Loutfi-Hipchen
June 15, 2023
The learning and development industry will soon have a new resource for metrics.
Later this summer, the International Organization for Standardization will announce new metrics specifications — 52 recommended metrics for large organizations and 19 for small and mid-size organizations — that will help leaders better gauge L&D efficiency, effectiveness and impact.
Ideally, these metrics will act as a starting point for organizations that are looking for a way to efficiently measure how learning is provided to their workforce, says Dave Vance, executive director for the Center for Talent Reporting and lead author of ISO’s new L&D metrics standards.
“Standardization is the hallmark of maturity in any profession,” Vance says. For example, he adds, in biology, thousands of different living organisms are classified in systems of families and species. In chemistry, elements are organized by a periodic table. But when it comes to metrics and benchmarking, L&D is still the wild west. There is no “common language.”
In the ISO L&D metrics document — officially named ISO/TS 30437 — L&D leaders at all levels will find a variety of efficiency, effectiveness and outcome measures, as well as examples of scorecards and a chart of recommended metrics by organizational size to help guide and assess their L&D efforts, says Dr. William Heisler, professor and director of the MSHRM Program at Troy University.
Inside the document
The recommended metrics will have definitions, examples and formulas for how to use them. The broader framework of classifying the metrics is inspired by the Talent Development Reporting Principles, an industry-based initiative launched in 2010.
“Although the ISO committee did add a very important layer, and that’s the different types of users,” Vance says. The committee came up with a list and descriptions of five different types of users, which is the first section in the document.
“[The document will] very clearly lay out what type of metrics should be of interest to what sort of people within an organization,” says author and business consultant Nick Shepherd.
Once the document user selects the metrics they desire to measure, the next step — choosing how to report the data — is outlined for them too. “We also have four types of reports, which we tie back to the reason per measuring,” Vance says. “It’s a whole package to walk users through these important considerations.”
Standardization in business
Metrics are particularly important because they help organizations assess the efficiency and effectiveness of their HR programs, functions and processes to achieve improved performance and organizational outcomes, Heisler says.
“Earlier in my career, I was the head of a management training and development organization for a large government contractor,” he adds. “It would have been most helpful if I had the guidance provided by this document while serving in that role.”
With a background in finance, Shepherd became interested in quality management in the 1980s, which was his foray into becoming involved with ISO.
“I think metrics are a very important foundation to help people to sort of get an understanding around particular subject matter,” he says. But Shepherd also warns organizations against casting too wide of a net to gather data. The measures you adopt should be defined by your business model.
“You don’t start with measurement. Measurement is what you determine once you know what you’re trying to do as an organization,” he says. “It’s not something that stands alone. You have to look at it as a tool for assessing performance in an organization.”
Reporting human capital metrics
Vance, Shepherd and Heisler are all members of ISO member organizations, and they all work on various ISO committees, including the group overseeing the new L&D metrics guidelines, which is the U.S. Technical Assistance Group, or TAG, Working Group 2.
In fact, the new L&D metrics standards were Vance’s idea. He began drafting a new work item proposal in May of 2021 that stated the need for L&D metrics, and once it passed a global vote of ISO’s participating countries, worked within a subgroup to continue drafting the standard.
“After some initial discussions to determine the standard’s scope, the team developed multiple drafts and commented individually on each draft to improve its content, wording and applicability — sort of a continuous process improvement effort — until final consensus was reached,” Heisler says. “The final draft of the team was then sent out for review and comment by the entire ISO Technical Committee. Comments received from other member organizations were reviewed, discussed, and acted upon by the team. A final draft was then sent out for an up-or-down vote by the TC.”
This new specification for L&D is supplemental to another set of ISO guidelines from 2018, which covered reporting metrics in human capital areas such as compliance and ethics, diversity, leadership, organizational culture and productivity.
These guidelines were created in order for organizations to improve performance — but also with the focus of helping public organizations impacted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange’s 2020 requirement to report human capital information.
Once published, under the standards set by ISO, these L&D guidelines will be reviewed every three years.
“Whether you’re looking at the 2018 ISO standard with 60 measures across all of HR or this new one, [ISO] is a great place for your company to go to as you begin to think about what you want to measure and share both internally and publicly,” Vance says.
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