Measuring learning and performance outcomes with Action Learning

Catch up on our other chapters about Action Learning:

Action learning is all about using real-time projects with tangible outcomes to improve employee learning and performance. Rather than whisk employees away to completely separate training sessions, employers can use this process to achieve actionable goals for the business at the same time they level up their team members’ skill sets.

In other words, one of the key benefits of action learning is how well it increases performance. But that begs the question: how do you measure this sort of performance to make sure the process is working in the first place?

In today’s digital and optimized age, you deserve an all-in-one resource to automate and simplify this process as much as possible. With Totara’s suite of products, you’ll be able to set action learning goals for employees, facilitate the team building necessary to complete them, provide team members with additional resources for skill acquisition, and track their performance using simple yet thorough metrics

How can I track the efficacy of action learning?

Totara Perform allows you to assess action learning on both ends of the process. Up front, it can help you see where employees can improve. This allows you to bring together teams who might benefit from joint action learning initiatives on related issues. On the back end, it gives you an incisive look into how well the learning process boosted their abilities. Employees can track their progress every step of the way too!

In short, Totara Perform can make tracking action learning performance easier than you ever thought imaginable. It allows for a measurable, manageable process both employers and their team members can use to chart impact on business outcomes and personal development.

Building competencies with action learning

Both organizations and individuals want to be able to monitor and track the skills they have, and the skills they are developing. That’s where competencies come in. Combined with performance activities, competencies can provide a framework of skills to develop, with easy monitoring by both the team and the coach on an action learning project.

For example, action learning groups discuss projects or issues and, through questioning, discussion, and reflection, agree on appropriate actions. Regardless of the topic, this process develops individuals’ problem-solving skills. Peers within the action learning group could be invited to rate an individual’s problem-solving skills, and these competency ratings could then be discussed within a performance review with their coach in real time.

Helping coaches provide real-time insight to teams

Totara Perform allows action learning coaches to track how well each team member is exemplifying the core competencies highlighted by the project itself. This helps individuals view their performance over time and gives coaches and the wider organization visibility of the skills across teams and the business as a whole. Where appropriate, more formal learning interventions can also be identified. Totara Learn’s library of course content comes in handy here.

94% of employees prefer their managers to share feedback in real time, rather than waiting until the end of the year. Action learning coaches have this ability, offering real-time feedback employees crave to their team members. With Totara Perform, they can provide a formal structure to measure how they’re doing. This allows action learning teams to feel recognized, as well as to identify areas to grow. Coaches can then tie these growth areas to additional education opportunities in Totara Learn.

Allowing for 360-degree feedback

Totara Perform also has the functionality to help team members rate each other’s performance throughout a project. Action learning participants can use a change management competency framework to evaluate how much effort and skill their team members brought to the project, as well as how they may have improved. The same goes for evaluating their coach’s performance as a leader too.

This sort of 360-degree feedback ensures the performance evaluation process is as fair and exhaustive as it can possibly be. It provides the software necessary to take the process from the theoretical to the tangible. Action learning coaches and team members can use the platform to improve the process in real time. In other words, it takes a can-do, action learning approach to the process of evaluating the action learning itself.

How Totara brings action learning into the real world

Think of Totara’s suite of products as the bedrock for enabling and tracking action learning performance. It can provide a very stable foundation for your teams and coaches, but the process still needs to go offline to achieve its full potential.

Whether your team is in-office full-time, hybrid, or uses remote work technology from different corners of the globe, collaboration is essential to make the process function optimally. Luckily, even when it comes to face-to-face teamwork, Totara integrates with both Microsoft Teams and Zoom to simplify the path to collaboration.

Totara Learn, Engage, and Perform are all extremely valuable tools for the process given how well they accommodate it from beginning to end. Each facet of the Talent Experience Platform plays a key role in bringing action learning into the real world. It supplements the learning, facilitates engagement, and helps assess the performance of each team.

Interested in improving how you can improve performance tracking and measurement for action learning? See how you can support this pragmatic process with Totara’s suite of products by signing up for a Community account!

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