A recent study indicated that 80% of organizations do not have an enterprise-wide plan for learning in place.  Most planning activities, to the extent that they occur at all, were found to be fragmented across different business units.  In addition, more than 75% do not believe that learning roles and responsibilities are optimally aligned within the organization.  Finally, 70% do not correlate employee productivity to learning.  Most measure little beyond the basics such as course enrollments, completions, and learner satisfaction rates. 

In order for Learning and Development departments to be taken seriously going forward, this situation must change.  There's no question that training really does add considerable value, but like advertising, it can be dificult to track the results (how do you quantify "Improved Organizational Performance"?).  However, without metrics, it is difficult to make a business case to justify additional investment - especially in times like these when everything is being scrutinized.

When it comes to Learning Analytics, here are some things that can be measured fairly easily:

-  Reduced or reassigned head count
-  Travel and accommodation cost reduction
-  Reduced training time and cost
-  Reduced printing and distribution cost
-  Improved employee retention and satisfaction
-  Enhanced customer satisfaction
-  Easier tracking and measurement of legal compliance
-  Increased revenue associated with enabling product to market faster

Whichever of these you choose to track, it's critical that senior management is made aware of the correlation between learning, and the positive results achieved.

Did you know that recent studies indicate 70-80% of all adult learning is done on an as-needed basis as opposed to being in a classroom setting?  That's especially true in a fast-paced, constantly-changing environment like hospitality or retail.  Everyone needs formalized training when starting a new job, learning a new system, or being introduced to new policies or procedures.  However, when an associate is standing in front of a customer, and they aren't sure how to proceed, it isn't the time or place to pull-out a paper manual, or fire-up an eLearning course.  This is where Just-in-Time (JIT) Training comes in.  These are enhanced help screens that can be accessed on-the-fly with minimal customer impact.  At the Venza Group, we call them "eGuides".  They can be developed very inexpensively, yet have a tremendous return on investment.

As you formulate an overall Technology-Based Training strategy going forward, consider having a mix of eGuides along with traditional eLearning courseware - especially for those job functions or system processes that are particularly problematic for associates (e.g. handling loyalty cards, etc.).

Having translated courseware into 8 different languages and counting, one of the things we've observed over time is that converting the text is a relatively small part of the overall challenge. In fact, there are a number of automated translation programs that can do this in a matter of minutes. However, that's where the real fun begins. The converted text needs to be reviewed by a native speaker to make sure that the sentences still make sense. In addition, it's essential to have someone with hospitality/retail industry experience and cultural knowledge involved. That's because the way that business is conducted in Russia or China, for instance, is far different than the way that it's done in the US. Consequently, a number of things that we take for granted make no sense elsewhere - especially in Eastern countries.

Many have tried to short-cut the process by relying too heavily on automation, or using a partner that has no industry experience and/or cultural sensitivity. Beware...when entering a new geography, you often just but one chance to get it right.

One of the things that has a tremendous amount of potential for technology-based training within Hospitality & Retail environments is a concept called "Content-as-a-Service" or CaaS. The basic idea is very similar to "Software-as-a-Service" or SaaS, but applied to eLearning content. Your Learning Management System (LMS) may be housed in your Corporate data Center, but the actual courseware could reside elsewhere - in the cloud. That way, it can be maintained externally, and dynamically loaded on an as-needed, real-time basis. The popularity and buzz around cloud computing has really taken off, but there are still some on-going concerns about entrusting a third-party with important or proprietary data. However, eLearning content is perfect for maintaining in the cloud because it's not mission-critical. When it's updated, the exact same content will be immediately available to anyone around the world. Plus, third party companies that provide CaaS can arguably do it better/cheaper/faster than your own IT department because that's their business, and they can apply economies of scale across multiple customers to reduce the cost.

Definitely something to consider...