From Activity to Impact: Establishing Meaningful KPIs

7:38PM Apr 25, 2025

Speakers:

Shannon Tipton

Laura

Jason

Erica

Victoria

Andrew

Keywords:

KPIs

business goals

learning and development

training impact

stakeholder relationships

performance measurement

business alignment

onboarding program

retention

cost effectiveness

project management

safety metrics

customer service

financial acumen

leadership development.

Hello everyone coming on in Happy Friday,

Hello Hello

Hello Hi, Dawn Hello how are you today I'm good how are you I am good I'm so Glad to be here glad that you're here too oops, yeah, let's get let me get my view up here we go, Hello, Stella Hi, yes, Friday, and as a preventative measurement. I turned on everything before I let people into the room this week, I thought, I'll just let the I'll just let the audio editor figure out what what's good, what's not good. I'll have it on, and that's what counts. Hello, everybody coming in. Happy Friday. Friday. Oh my gosh. It's the end of the month already. It's unbelievable how quickly this year has has flown by. I cannot believe that we're already in April. Where did January go? Where did February go? Okay, coming on in people, as always, if you want to turn on those mics, feel free. Or Yeah, turn on the mics. Feel free. Turn on the video. Feel free. I'd love to see your faces.

Got a few more minutes before we start? Actually, we're almost at the top of the hour here. Birdie. I guess I'll chance to run my camera on for a second thank you for doing that. Welcome everyone yes it is we're doing we're doing some video shooting this morning. So hence, we've got this background happening today, doing some training videos that went fabulously. And I said, What the heck let's leave this up let's make it look like I know what I'm doing for half a second. It feels like this is the intro to a very special episode of learning rebels, because say, you're taking me back to my TV days, right? Yeah, it was, it was great. We had we were doing some training videos this week of a variety of different things. So we got to pull out all the gadgets and all the equipment for under shots and overshots and wide shots and closed shots. And so it was. It was a busy week for the camera guys, like I said, I just said, Go ahead, CAT scan. This looks good. Like first to show up. Show up. The team at the hospital can use the ultrasound to set the IAB,

oh yeah on the 16. Oh

let me find to that point

to do it sooner, I think I might keep it where it's at

there we go found it

yes all right hello people coming on in today, depending on your world, KPIs may be an exciting thing, or it may be a WHAT THE HECK thing, or maybe it's a scary thing for you right? So everybody's got a different, you know, anxiety level around KPIs, which stands for key performance indicators, right? So every business has those key performance indicators, and that's our topic today. And as always, welcome everybody. I am Shannon Tipton, owner of learning rebels and the moderator of this crazy bunch, always happy to be here every other Friday for you all, and I would love for you in the chat to share with us whether this is your first time, whether it's been a while, it's okay if it's been a while too. So that way we can give you the warm welcome that you deserve, and we can say thank you for joining us, because I always do appreciate it. Aaron, welcome. Aaron, yeah, I know I noticed Jason's background too. That's really nice. Betsy, yes, it has been a while. Amy, welcome, the sole instructional designer at a credit union in Virginia. Well, you, I'm sure, are not the only sole person in this room today. We have a lot of independent contributors, so you are not alone that

way. The results are ready. Yeah. Okay, all right

now, here's my first question, what is your experience? So let's kind of level set right now is, what's your experience with business KPIs? And what I mean by that is, are you? Are you familiar with them? Do you are do you have insight into some of your business KPIs? The Are you even new to the term KPI? What's your level of experience? What is your level of understanding when it comes to KPIs in of themselves? Irby, I'm a little bored in retirement. Clearly, you're here. Well, I shouldn't say you're here because you're bored. You're here because you like our group. So Irby pops in and out. I'm always happy to see Irby here. I know the term. I have zero experience in making them or working with them. Okay, very little experience. Thank you, Betsy, I tried to understand the KPIs, the training I'm creating will relate and hopefully influence absolutely haven't had a KPI, and sometimes in training, KPIs generally, are key performance indicators. You know, for businesses as a whole, it's also for departments within certain businesses. A lot of training departments have KPIs associated with them. Others do not. So it's really sort of a hit and miss as to how KPIs are used within your organization? Yeah, there's a lot of talk about these things called KPIs, and very little connection to what matters, right? So I'm with you, Jason, for sure. You know learned about them through coursework. You don't use them in your department, and often the challenge is that KPIs are impacted by a lot of factors. Absolutely, you're, you're so on, on point with that. That is, that is true. So working in higher ed, it's higher, right? It's, it definitely higher. Harder to find a KPI in a higher ed although I hear this a lot, too in nonprofit, where they say, you know, KPIs are kind of hard to come by in nonprofit. But here's the thing, even with higher ed and even with nonprofit, you all have to have money coming in in order to keep you afloat, right? So whether that's through donations or grants, their money still has to come in to keep you in business, right? So then the KPI becomes, how do we get more donations? How do we get more successful grants, or larger grants, right? So the answer to those questions become KPIs in of themselves, right there. So there's always a goal somewhere to hit. And Elizabeth says she cannot hear me. So is everybody else. Can y'all hear me? Okay, good, good, good. All right. So Elizabeth, you may need to change the mic on your computer. Sometimes, that's what it is. Sometimes zoom in your computer, especially if you've just come off teams, sometimes they don't automatically transfer over, so you need to go back and recheck your settings. But she can't hear me, so I just said that to somebody who can't hear me, so you can tell I'm with. It today. Here we are. All right now, let me get myself organized a little bit. Here. Get some things. Here we go. All right. Now, I sent you the email yesterday, and the email yesterday had our impact tool attached to it, and that went out late yesterday, and I've been playing around with the email distribution. And interestingly enough, is that most of you seem to like getting the emails on Thursday afternoons, which is really surprising to me. I usually send them out Wednesday mornings, but I've been busy, and they've been going out lately on Thursday afternoons, and that just seems to be where people are opening them. They're commenting, they like it, so I'm seeing the engagement really go up on Thursday afternoon. So you just never know, right? So talk about a KPI, a key performance measurement of things like that, for me are whether or not you all interact with the material. And that's really what a KPI is for. A KPI is to measure some of the key performances that are happening within your business, the things that are important. Now, when you think about KPIs for business, usually that's attached to things like productivity, profit, it might be in terms like engagement, right? So those are the things that your organization is going to measure that's going to tell them whether or not they're running a successful business. Now for your department. Let's just talk about L, D, specifically. So taking that piece of information in mind, what do you what sort of performance indicators can we attach to learning and development itself to say whether or not we are successfully impacting a business. What are some ideas that you have?

How, excuse me, how well our learning strategy aligns with the overall business goals, or, I mean, are we translating businesses seeking out to do with, with what we're bringing to the table? Right,

right? And what might be an example of that Victoria. So sometimes, when we say we're going to align the the business strategy, which is a good thing to do, how do we know whether or not we're doing that.

I guess, taking a real example from my org, we have a goal for the next three years to increase, increase our growth by, I think, 5% and so I guess looking at that, it's like, do we have if we're looking to bring in other other lines of new business. Do our talent does our current talent pool? Do they have the skills necessary to to meet those new business avenues? Sorry, I've not had enough coffee yet. Apparently not. I was not articulating things at all, but I yeah, that's where, that's where my brain is headed,

for sure. I yeah, those are great connections. So when you think about because we often say that we want our strategy, our L and D strategy, to be aligned with whatever it is that the business is doing. Now, what does that mean in real language, right? So when you go to talk to a business stakeholder, and you say, well, we want to be sure that we're aligned. What exactly does that mean? It means that we're all headed in the same direction, right? And we're all trying to help each other achieve the goals that we're trying to achieve. So then, if a business is trying to achieve a goal around, we'll keep it easy. So a major KPI might be that they're trying to move customers through the sales funnel faster. So that could be a sales KPI, right? So that's something that's easy, that's something that's directly measurable. So then when you think about, how does L and D help that goal move, right? So now we're in alignment. So one of our goals is to help the sales department move people through the sales funnel faster. So what does that mean? How do we do that, right? So to give to to help it along, is a lot of times we have sales training. So we've got sales training in the in the pipeline, or sales training that's already been created. So we look at that sales training. Does that sales training help the sales department and their people move customers through? The sales pipeline faster. So then that means we have some sort of an alignment our training is helping the sales department reach a KPI goal if we don't. So if we don't have anything that helps sales people move their customers through the pipeline faster, then we have to sit back and go, Well, how can we do that? How can we help? And then those are conversations that we take to the director or VP of sales, or to whomever the stakeholder may be, right? So then you're having those very real conversations about now, how can we actually help you? And those are conversations that we all like to have with the business. We all want to have those conversations of, how can I help you, right? So, project management effectiveness, so I like that. Andrew, so the cost to serve or project project management effectiveness, right? So a lever here is to reduce this KPI. And sometimes it's it is about that, right? So if you do things well, then certain things become less, right? And then that's the measurement behind it. So, Andrew, do you want to talk to me a little bit more about this particular KPI?

Yes, sorry, I don't have my camera today, so, so I'll be audio only. Yeah, this was actually a departmental KPI that we're responsible for, and it often helped us make decisions about whether we're going to do something cool and innovative, and potentially we're going to do more of an agile approach, because we don't know what we're you know, we haven't done this before. Or would we solve the learning need with something we've built before, an E Learning Video, or potentially even a workshop that, you know, could be adapted from something that we've done for someone else, and we could actually hit the learning need and build it in a lower maybe to a lower quality, maybe not. But we are also, you know, responsible for how much it costs for us to create learning,

right, right? And so when you think about the cost to create learning, now that turns into an ROI, right? So that's your return on investment, which is a totally different topic, you know, but it's something that you need to really do. Keep in mind is that you don't want to, you know, start creating things that don't have a return on investments. And how that affects the KPI might be you are over here creating a bunch of stuff, but the business needs a bunch of stuff over here.

And sometimes they want the it's a higher priority for it to be creative and and more engaging and that kind of thing. So they're more willing to invest. They're like, that's not really a problem. And so the value of having innovative things that people are like, I totally want to take that, you know, learning would trump, you know, cost effectiveness. But sometimes you're like, we only have this budget. What can you help us out with? We're like, okay,

yeah. And you know what? That's okay too. Because then what happens is, you take the little bit of budget that you have and you do something really good with it, right? And then the odds become, well, then maybe they'll give you a little bit more budget to work on something else that's also going to lead them down and to help them meet their their KPIs,

or you can turn it around quickly, right? That might be another value, right, right. Absolutely. Repurpose this other course that we built for someone else, we'll just create change the case scenario and the content doesn't change something

like that. Yes, yeah. So, yeah, reusing learning objects. Absolutely reusable learning objects, you know, if you can find those, that helps with your return on investment as a department. But again, you want to make sure that anything that you're doing is really helping the business succeed. Now, here is, you know, here's the here's the key, right? So, Jason, how do you align when the only measure is profitability and there, I'm sure there's a lot of lot of you out there, if not 99.9% of you, you know where it's my business is all about profit. Well, every business is all about profit. You're not in business for very long if you're not making a profit. And so while that may be the bell ringing, you know, that's the one that they're always going to lean on. Then it becomes about figuring out, how does your company measure profit, you know, how does your company measure profit? What does profit mean to them, right? How does your company make money? Now, remember, now here's just kind of a business 101, for you all, there two numbers or two pieces of language float through your organization at any given time, and that is the words revenue and the words profit. And the two are different things. So when you hear your organization talk about the bottom line, that means they're talking about profit. When they're talking about costs that are above the line, they're usually talking about expenses or revenue, because those things haven't dropped yet. Those things don't technically count to what goes into the bank now. So then, when you think, how does you've got revenue, really simply, revenue minus expenses usually enter, you know, equal profit. So it's a lot of moving parts there. Now what we want to do is we want to help the businesses say, Okay, how much money are you taking to the bank? And how can we help you take that money to the bank? So if you've got an organization that is profit focused, then it's about, okay, how can we help you take money to the bank? That's the question. Excuse me. So what I'd like to know from you is, how then, in your world, think about the different programs that you have, or the different initiatives that you have that you think actually might be helping drive money to the bank.

What programs are you using right now? What do you have right now that's helping your business take money to the bank? If profitability is one of the main KPIs that your organization has. Organizations have a lot of other KPIs, but that might be, like I said, the bell, the bell ringer,

Erica,

although not directly involved with it, and it was something that I was thinking about writing because I was talking, what I was thinking about is like the other way to also look at this, I think, and this more squishy way, is like, what are pain points that are currently happening inside of your organization? And even though there's not a KPI directly attached to it, I think ultimately the KPI, just like you said, Shannon, is profitability. So one of the things that is happening right now, and a shift in the work that's going on with my department is that we have a hiring freeze, and so internally, the HR department has decided to create what they're calling a gig Project Opportunity. It's basically cross functional training, and it's to try to, you know, get people in certain departments, maybe their workload has been decreased because of what's going on in the university, and they're maybe trying to retain staff because they can't hire new folks, and they don't want to necessarily, maybe lay off people because there's still a business to run. But if you can cross train the bodies that you currently have, then maybe you can become more efficient, and that would help to bring more profit to the bank, because they don't have to hire more people to do the work that they might have identified gaps in.

Right? I love that. So you got one plus one equals two, and then it becomes the conversation around it. So I'm sure your HR department had a conversation with somebody that said, Okay, if we can do this, more likely we will see this happen. And this would be a benefit, because efficiencies usually lead to money savings, even though it's not, it's not laying off people, where we are helping reuse the knowledge that we have in different areas, right? And so then that becomes a, you know, knowledge profit, if you will. So I, I like that. Now I'm going to go to, I think I saw Andrew, and then I saw Sarah. So we'll go Andrew first,

an example of a program that I was a part of was an onboarding program for experienced hires. And we were able to work with the HR department. Their KPI was retention of experienced hires within one year. And so they were able to get a question on exit interviews. Of people who are leaving, saying, Did you attend the new experienced hire onboarding? Because it was voluntary, and there was a tendency that folks who did not attend tended to leave, and thought you tended to attend, tended to stay. And so that training pointed to savings, because it's very expensive to acquire experienced hires.

Yes, yes, exactly. And I'm I really love that you guys created that survey afterwards. We

just got one question on the exit interview that it was like, yes, no, did you and that was it. But it was cool that they were able to work with get that on there,

which is, I mean, that's an important question. Sometimes all it takes is one question to be able to really tell you where the skew is happening, right, and then that's going to give you some really good answers. Because I, I think we all know that hiring is one thing, onboarding is another, and appropriate onboarding is going to save you money in the long run, right? You know? So a

previous person said there are many variables that would make a person decide to leave. So, you know, just showing over time, over a large group of people, it was more of a tendency than a direct but hey, you know that's a win.

It is a win. It's absolutely a win. Sarah so as a little bit of background, I'm in accounting, and so in accounting, something that's very important is realization. So it's how much money you actually or the percentage of your build work that you actually collect as revenue. And so we, last year, adopted a new software and methodology for doing auditing, and so the business expected that our realization was going to be way down because of the impact of having to learn all of this. So last year, I took one of my team members and almost entirely changed her schedule, put her completely on this project, worked with our audit folks to create a ton of different ton of different pieces that all came together to support that program. We just heard back that we surpassed what they had expected in realization significantly. So it is hard to tell how much of it is what we did, how much is, how much of it is other things, but we did some really, really thoughtful work to put things into the flow of work and also have formalized training opportunities. So realization for us was a big thing. We were focused on there. They expected it to be awful this year, seeing that it actually didn't really take a dip at all. Was really meaningful to us to know that our training programs were helping people. That's fabulous. That makes me happy. It does, you know, because things like that really do have a snowball effect. You know, when you can make movement and show value in one area, then you can show movement and value in other areas, you know. So it's really important to do that, and I really appreciate, you know, those of you in the chat, and also Sarah saying, you know, sometimes the correlation, it's not a causation, you know, just because they participated in the onboarding program. It is not necessarily a causation behind it, right? But there could be a direct correlation behind it. And while those two terms, you know, are different, they're still useful. And then it's about, what is that correlation? And then does that correlation have a causation to it. Pardon me. Pardon me. So I know there's a lot of Asians in that sentence, but take into consideration about the different areas of impact that you really can align with and that you can then a fact, I think that's important, right? So, Laura,

yeah, just picking up on the Asians. So the so I think the correlation and the causation is really interesting. And I just wanted to share for our line managers. We have a managers Essentials program, and that's 10 modules, and we have linked that to tracking whether people in exit interviews are leaving because of the line manager. We've also and we've also tracked it to our HR business partner casework as well, to see that that has actually decreased in certain areas where the attendance is high. So again, I totally pick up the point about that may well be a correlation, but if you have a number of different points that you're measuring from different things. Things. And I think it can add up to that narrative that you tell to the senior management about why they should be supporting that, not just encouraging people to come along, but also to finance it.

Yes, yeah, absolutely. Um, and what? What Laura, the point that Laura was making is, I Laura's volume was a little low. Was that, for example, if you take that manager training, so we all know that's another thing that we all know, intuitively, those of us who've been around the block, is that line managers, line managers are the lever within the organization you got line managers that can stop training from happening, that can help training happen. They're the ones that, you know, make people stay, make people leave, you know. So there's a there's a lot riding on the manager shoulders, and so then, what is the correlation? Now, what Laura is suggesting, and I agree with, is that there are certain dot points within the data that tell a story that you can then bring to your stakeholders and say this dot point, there's there is commonality here. You know, in the data that we've gotten in the surveys that we've gotten that can directly go back to that particular dot point, or this dot point, and that's, that's the important, really, of data analysis which we've which we've got, I think, a coffee chat about that here and in later On in the quarter. But knowing your data and knowing how that data affects the business does affect the ultimate KPIs as well. You know, because it's about understanding where do you want to go? Your end point of measurement is x, right? That's where we're headed, and if you have not identified that at the very beginning of what you're doing, you can't go back and measure it. There's no backwards measurement here, right? So unless you start out saying, I'm going to affect management behavior because we know that management behavior is going right now, management behavior is causing people to leave causing people to leave means we have to spend more money on hiring which means we have to spend more money on training Where does that fit that means that's a revenue impactor, you know? So if you're spending money here, money's not going there. So those dots, those dots, all connect, right? And so I'm reading the comments here, right. Start with the end in mind for sure, and the tree is not so much about making the company profit from Wait, my training is not as much about making the company profit, but from losing money. Yes, so I did talk about touched earlier, that there are different sorts of KPIs, and I just kind of landed on revenue, because that's where we started, and that usually is a big driver for everybody now there are organizations where it's well our goal is not to lose money because maybe you're in insurance or what have you or maybe you are an organization where Safety is a big number, you know, so you're driven by safety matrix or sales matrix right? And this is why understanding your business becomes very important at this stage now, some of you may be in a position where you're thinking well, regardless of what I do, this is not my area of impact. That's true. To a certain extent. You might be there being the ones that's creating the programs, but ultimately that program is going to create something for your organization you want to be able to put your name behind that. And sometimes you have a choice, and sometimes you don't. I am so sorry. I've got my coffee is way over there, and I it's so I thought I had everything organized this morning. I had all of the recordings going, but lo and behold, I did not have my coffee in front of me, and I've got this cough that will not go away, so please forgive now. Would people leaving be a lagging indicator? It is a lagging indicator because and what we mean by lagging indicators as far as KPIs are going, meaning that by the time something by the time you've measured that. Thing, something else has happened. So that's a lagging indicator. So by the time you measure people leaving, it's too late, people are already out the door. So now what you need to do is fix that out the door component. So now I'm going to ask you to take a second and chat amongst each other while I go find my coffee or find my water so I can stop coughing in your ears. So do that now. Let's see Andrew talk to me about people leaving being a lagging indicator. So

a lagging indicator, like you said, Wouldn't indicate that a problem has already happened. We still need to address the problem to reduce the we need to address it to reduce the effect, which is that people have left whereas a leading indicator might be we can tell that managers don't know how to communicate with compassion or something along those lines, and that would be something we can address in a more proactive way. I'm not I'm trying to figure out how to frame that in a leading indicator, which is the other way, if this happened, then a problem will occur that we can resolve. But kind of thinking in terms of leading indicator and lagging indicator, leading being if this happens, then a problem will occur, lagging being like this has happened, fix the problem. Does that make sense?

I'm with you for sure. And so then it's then when we go back and we think about the topic for today. So today we're talking about KPIs, and how can we measure those, and how can we manage those? First, it's about discovering them. So now, if you've got these lagging indicators of WoW, things are already happening. How do we adjust for that? What do we do about that? Can I do anything about that? Well, maybe you are or maybe you aren't in a position to do something about that in particular, but what I would go back to say is, if you are a department of one, what can you do? Well, then you reach out and you start talking to people. And now this ties into our conversation, our last coffee chat conversation, which was about stakeholder relationships, right? So now that you've got these relationships set up with your stakeholders, now it becomes easier for you to have a conversation about some of the things that you need to measure and manage. So for example, if you already have opened up the doors with accounting, and you've talked to the stakeholders in accounting, now maybe you can go to them and say, Where do people seem to be struggling? So when you think about Miss Mr. Or miss accountant in your organization. If you think about financial planning or business acumen, what do you see? And then they may tell you certain things that they see. I wish that people would only understand the Chart of Accounts better, or people are putting things in the wrong columns, which generally mean that they don't understand the chart of accounts. Okay, so then, all right, then you can look back into your bag of tricks and say, Well, do we have a program for that? Do we need a program for that? How about if I created a job aid that I could send out to people to help them read the chart of accounts better? Would that help you in your job? Would that help them in their job. And ultimately, if we can clear up the lines of communication between the accounting process and what people are doing, would that impact a KPI, most likely it would notice, I say the word impact not necessarily improve an impact Erica

Don had put it in the chat earlier. And what this is tying back to is that idea between us maybe refocusing our lens of just accepting some sort of fate of being order takers, and US leaning into and figuring out how to embrace the idea of being a performance consultant, and so even if you try and it doesn't come out the way that you think, I think, you still improve the process. I attempted to do this in a project that I was working on with our Office for Institutional accessibility, because we need to improve the accessibility of the websites that the university has, and I tried to enter into a conversation with them and what the like, the starting pain point was. And although I went there and they. Expressed, like some some discomfort in like, talking about it in those terms, even though that was, like, really an immediate reason why they chose to do what they did. But a part of us having that conversation led me to better understand, you know, how they're looking at this, the lens in which we can look at this, and I think, really be able to create something for them that was going to be at a higher level than just what they brought into the intake process, which was like, well, here's a deck, and just make the deck into an E learning, you know. And then even in trying to be able to understand like, well, if what's the behavior change people don't know how to do manual testing for accessibility. You want them to become more confident to be able to do manual testing for accessibility. So it wasn't even going to be about like, Well, how do you, you know, I'm not going to make like a summative 10 multiple choice questions, because that's not helping them to feel confident in moving the Beatle and their abilities, their skills. So, you know, even within the confines that I was given, instead of just being like, Oh, well, these are the confines, and there's nothing else I can do about it. I still try to see where I was able to sort of push against the membrane of the confines, and realizing that sometimes the box isn't as rigid as we may initially think it is, and so sometimes the box is a little bit more permute, not permeable, but malleable, and that there's still an, you know, a lot that we can give when we change our mindset about how we're showing up. And I was linking that to like, the document that you gave us,

Shannon, and where this conversation is going. And like, again, how do we show up to these conversations, and what are we bringing to the conversations? Right absolutely and really the only way that we're going to be able to make some kind of impact or or or even have insight into what businesses are doing, what stakeholders are doing, and talking about is for us to be available for that. And this is all part of, really what we're talking about here over these last few weeks. You know, when we talk about building those stakeholder relationships, managing these KPIs, and then I think next week we're talking about making ourselves more visible. This all comes together, right? Because they don't happen in silos. You just don't, all of a sudden, hop into a business and say, Hey, I'm just going to start impacting things. It just doesn't work that way, right? So that means we have to work in tandem. We have to work in tandem with with what's happening or what is happening around us, and understanding what is happening around us. Now, the impact tool that I placed into the chat, hopefully you all will find that helpful. And then the other area, or the other tool here is the 50 tips for increasing led business value. Excuse me. Those both went out yesterday for people, for those of you keeping track. Now, this is because, again, one plus one equals two. And if we want to impact KPIs, we need to understand what those KPIs are we which means we have to understand what our business is. We have to understand who is, who is within that business, and what they do. So those things all go hand in hand, but then talking about KPIs in particular. Let me ask you this now. Where do you go to get this kind of information? I

the tool takes. The tool does take some time. It takes some working through. So it's not one of those tools that is, let me do this today, tool that this is a thinking tool. This is a planning tool for you to create impact on a larger scale within your organization. But I do believe that there are parts of it that you can find handy, you know. So it's about, there's a part in there about how to have a conversation, you know. So those are things that you can immediately do. You know what? It's about determining what different sorts of interventions. Interventions are appropriate, you know. So thinking about your KPIs. What is it that you hope to affect? What sort of intervention Do you really want to use? Do does it need a training program? Do you need to just have conversations? Does it just need a job aid? Does it need something large scale? What is it what? Yes. What is the strategic plan around it? Right? And so this is, this is an impact tool now, Erica, yes, back to my question, which was annual reports, state of the company, addresses, checking your PR bulletins. It's also those conversations that we talked about last time that we were together. It's also just, you know, paying attention. So if you have a budget, think about your own budget within your department. What are some of the goals for that budget? What was it that you were supposed to accomplish with the dollars that you had? So you can have budgetary conversations with the different departments, and go to them and say, Where do you have a budget shortfall? Or, how can we help you meet your budget? How can we help you advance your budget? How can we make those budget numbers come to light, right? So then it's a money conversation, for sure, but that doesn't mean that training can't impact that on some level. It's just a matter of thinking about it in a different way and shifting your paradigm with those conversations. And it's just listening if you are working in, if you're working in a place, let's just say a hospitality spot. You're in hospitality and having a conversation, maybe with line managers that say, Okay, your restaurant, how's your restaurant doing? What? What out of this training bucket that we have the ability to create videos, the ability to create handouts or job aids. How do you think that this can help you impact your budget, which is affected by customers coming in and customers being satisfied and people servicing those customers? How can we affect that so you're always tying it back to whether or not you can have an impact on what they see as success. And what was that? Eric, thank you for clicking that Erica,

but it might not be too visible, but it was at the top, right under your number one of start with clear business goals. So instead of focusing on standard learning objectives, like by the end of this course, employees will be able to navigate the software's main menu and complete basic data entry tasks. Try this create a performance outcome linked to the business results, such as, employees will be able to use software name as an example, to reduce manual processing time by 20% so that project delivery efficiency and customer response times improve.

Yeah, and so it's that. Thank you. Thank you for that. Erica, that is just a shift in dialog, isn't it? So rather than turning it turning to a learning goal. We're turning it to a business goal. And you've heard me talk about this before. And then if you can weave in that, that measurement goal, what is that important, performance measurement that your department or other departments are looking for? How can you weave that in in your conversations? I think people are going to be, well, it's not. I think I know people are going to be more related. They're going to understand that you really want to be that business partner for them, because you're using their language. And sometimes that's just a simple thing, you know. Now, what I'd like to know is, what are some of the questions that you still have? And I know it's hard to this is a difficult topic, and it's hard to don't know what I don't know right then, and a lot of you may be in that spot. So let me ask you, what questions do you have? And for those of you who are familiar, you know you've worked in this space and you are trying to measure impact through KPI, maybe you've got some additional resources. Is there a is there a book that you can share? Is there a person that they can follow. So we had, you know, we've got, we had Kevin Yates on here before. You know the L and D detective. You know who helps us, who has helped us in the past? He's got a new book out, by the way, if you go to his website, so it's not, yeah. I make it sound like it's a paid book. It's not. He's actually giving this stuff away for free. So he's got he revised his L and D detective. It's on his website, if I can find that real quick. The Kevin Yates, I send people there. Here he is, oh, he's got a new picture on this website. I'll put this into the chat for you guys. Yep, that's great. Thank you, Jason, here's also this. And so he writes some really good material around this, and it really is about and, and Kevin says it too. It's about asking the right questions of the right people at the right time. And it's really digging in and finding out what goals are important to your organization.

So Erica, I

just want to say, you know, you really

kind of messed with my fuzzy gray matter when you asked that question, Shannon, because I mean, and I'm sure there's folks here have been doing this longer, who could be able to rattle a lot of other folks off, but in my trajectory and journey, you know, you asked me this question of, like, what can we lean into? What are some resources? What are some suggestions? And I have this, like, I've just recognize when you ask that question, I have this huge cognitive dissonance that I've had language and I've had it like hammered into me that I have to make sure that I'm aligning to the business goals, and that I should know that, but then you've asked me, so what have been my resources? And I had cricket except being exposed to Kevin the two times that we've been exposed to him here in learning rebels. And again, I don't know if that's anybody else's experience in their journey, but then I'm sitting here and I'm like, I don't know where I've gone, I don't know what I've seen, who I've talked to, what I've leaned into, and it be like a good, normal conversation, like Kevin makes it very accessible. He speaks in plain language. He really just tries to communicate out without it sounding and becoming so arduous that then maybe folks in our industry just go, You know what? I'm tapped out. Never mind. And right, I don't know. I just, you just really maybe think and be like, I I'm coming up with nothing. So that was just really profound for me. Yeah, so Well, in some of the other areas that you might want to look into, like Ken Phillips, Ken and Patty Phillips, right? So they talk about learning impact, they talk about learning measurement and impact specifically, right?

So I would recommend anything by them. And then you also have the late Ken Phillips, you know, he wrote a lot about learning impact and about learning measurement, specifically around business performance. Now also, I would suggest that you think outside of the learning world, you know, read a good business book, you know. So thinking about, let's see there was, let me get that up. Let me get the link for that really quick before I say it.

So execution, the discipline of getting things done, which was by Ram Sharon, and that was a good book for understanding what execution looked like within organizations. So execution helping you understand how business execute their plans. Well, Shannon, what does that mean? That means that that gives you deeper insight as to how businesses are measuring their plans. If you understand how they set their plans, you can understand how they're how they are trying to complete them. Then that means, how can you find an place where you can have a conversation? So once again, it's, it's thinking more holistically about what you're trying to achieve within the within the business, and then connecting those dot points some of the other KPIs, like hiring, turnover, engagement, i. Um, customer service, NPS, scores, call center data. Those are, those are some pretty hard numbers, sales numbers, not just sales completion numbers, but sales pipeline, sales qualifying, sales closing. Let's think finance, finance, whether or not people are doing their expense reports, whether or not people understand Chart of Accounts, things that have to do with business acumen, because business acumen leads to business profit.

Okay, so that's within HR, that's within strategy, that's within sales, that's within call center. Let's think safety manufacturing, time off work, workers comp claims, general liability claims. How can you impact those OSHA reporting driving incidents? Those are all in that safety world. Those are all numbers that are measured by some sort of key performance indicator. Those have meaning within the business that can lead either to direct profit gain or direct profit loss. And if you can impact either one of those, then you've got something. So there I've given you probably what, 15 different areas for you to look at and something that might fit specifically within your world. And you're like, you maybe think, Oh, I write all those safety programs. Well, there you go. If you create safety programs within your organization, you are affecting some kind of performance number. There are you affecting the right performance numbers? That's the secondary part, right? So it's like, it's not just Ladder Safety. It's, how are you preventing them from or how are you helping them understand more about lips trips and falls. Or how are you helping them understand how to go home with all 10 fingers and all 10 toes, right? So that way people are coming to work when we need them to come to work. Or it's about if you've got people who are on disability, long term disability, this is an important matrix for your organizations, moving people off of long term disability into shorter term disability or temporary something that while I'm on long term disability or short term disability, is there something else that I could be doing? Right? Organizations Look at that. They look at that matrix. So then, how can you, how can you help with that? And that all starts with having those conversations with people and say, Here's my list of safety stuff. Now, beyond compliance, how is this helping have that conversation with your safety people, with your risk management people, how can we make it so it helps More?

So that little bit helpful?

All right, so in the chat, where we're almost at time, so in the chat, what? So, what sort of thoughts now, what sort of, what sort of thoughts do you have about what you can do after you get off of this call today? What's your I want to investigate this more moment. I want to learn more about this moment. What, what has bubbled up to you?

Well, I took this to a teaching place real quick, didn't I? Yeah. Download the detective you got even asking for your email address people. I gotta talk to him about that. He's just giving this stuff away for free. It's like, Kevin, you got your brain on a web page here. Now the. Had from leadership development programs. Laura, absolutely, because that's leadership development programs so nebulous, so big, so wide. How does it impact? It impact so many things on so many different levels. Then it's then it's okay. What are the things that we can really see happen. So with leadership development, to me, I've always put leadership development in that turnover bucket. So if you've got good leaders, the the the correlation is that you should see less turnover in certain areas. So to me, that was that was the easiest KPI to be able to correlate to when it came to leadership development programs, right? And then also you think about leadership development, you think about communication. Leadership leaders should communicate well. If they don't communicate well, then they're creating issues. Does that mean then that ethics complaints go up or down? Right? So think about that if, if this happens, then this happens, then this happens, then this happens. You know, try to create that flow chart for you. The other tools, I have, all of those tools that we're talking about there. Those are all of our emerging stronger tools. And if you are in the community, those tools are located in the library under Tools, so you'll find them there. And Andrew, I think that we've put you into that community so you'll be able to find it, but I'll probably be sending them out as time goes on. So now here we are at the top of the hour. Now the next our next one. For those of you who are new or haven't been with us for a while, don't forget that these chats happen every other week, so not next Friday, but the Friday after and our next Coffee Chat is all about now that we've we're talking to stakeholders, and we're learning more about KPIs, or trying to learn more about KPIs. How now do we make ourselves more visible? How do we get out of the dark corners of of the corporation and make people aware that we are here to help? How do we do that? So that's the conversation that we're having in two weeks, and I hope to see you all there. Also don't forget that you can you'll get these resources from Amanda here, usually on Monday the last one came out late because I forgot to record the coffee chat, so we had to pull some additional information together for you. So that was that. But usually they come out on Mondays, so you can expect to get those there also, just so you know that the audio from these coffee chats are turned into a podcast. What we do is we edit them down and we tighten up the language, and they become it's really entertaining to listen to. So you can find the learning rebels Coffee Chat podcast on any any of the normal platforms, and a lot majority of our coffee chats are already sitting there. So if you haven't listened to any of them, there's your opportunity to go back and have a listen to a shorter version of our coffee chats. So thank you, everybody, once again, happy Friday. Anybody doing anything fun this weekend? You are Jason, what are you doing?

I'm going to prom.

No, are you a chaperone? Yeah, that is, that's awesome. Oh, my God, what's the theme?

I have no idea. This is like I drug my girlfriend to the company party. Now she's dragging me to her works party, I guess.

So she's, she's, she's she's chaperoning.

I'm her plus one, and I get to sit there with all the teachers that are not doing anything

hilarious. Oh my. I cannot wait to learn more about that. The next time that we talk here in two weeks, we're going to have to expect an update on Jason's prom night. Yeah,

it's the second time I've gone with her so, oh

so complete with corsage and all the fun things. Oh no no. Oh, come on. No,

no. We're just like, okay, good dress to go. It's not making sure the kids don't destroy. Be the the venue.

Well, that nuts. I don't know about your prom, but mine were always about, how can we sneak the booze into the punch bowl? Prom?

Don't have a punch bowl. You know what? I mean? Yes, no. Walk around with a cup so they spit out their gum.

Oh, gum, really?

And they get checked when they come in, and anything that is forbidden to put in a paper bag with their name on it, and they can pick it up when they leave.

Oh, wow. Okay, yeah, I suppose so, yeah, especially if it's on, if it's in the like school area or whatever I get it, gum chewing hoodlums. Yeah, that's going to be the title of this one. Gum chewing hoodlums. Well, you own Jason's band. Oh, there we go. That's his next playlist. That's that's your next playlist. That's next playlist, okay, yeah, playlist. Gum chew and hoodlums. Thank you everybody. Festival books at USC, oh, festival books, though, that sounds like fun.

Oh, I would love to do something like that. Yeah, hopefully they're supposed to be a little bit of rain in the forecast for tomorrow, but hopefully it's like nominal, but just being able to walk around and be around a whole bunch of different books, you know, I have to curb myself from not buying all of them, but that's always the hard part, right? But it's just, it's a good time to meet, you know, emerging authors and see what's out there. And it's just a really nice time. It's great

fun. Jason, are you going to be at APD this year? Yes, I'll see you there. Okay, yeah, for sure. So we need to. We need to have another time, because I'll Are you going to go to networking night? Yes,

try not

to find each other at the end of the night and

earlier in the night. Yeah, try to find each other earlier in the night. That looks pretty serendipitous. But Oh, Irby, Irby, you're going to be there too. Oh, we should find, we should find time. I should probably post something. Maybe we can do a lunch while we're all there. That would be fun. Yeah, in DC, we'll, we'll see what it's we'll see how it all goes. I'm looking forward to a fun time. Alright, everybody, you all have a wonderful weekend. I look forward to seeing you. Yes, I love you all, you guys, too, for sure. Thank you. Yes. Let's see who's who do we have still left here with us? Betsy, thank you. Candice, thank you. Deb. Diana, Heather, thank you everybody for hanging with me. Look forward to seeing you all in two weeks. Bye, for now. Bye.