How to track your employees' progress in training? Your key to success.

Why is it important to track employee training progress?

Let’s start with a quote from Robin Sharma, one of the world’s top five leadership experts globally: “What gets measures, gets improved.” But this truism can be undermined by the phenomenon known as the Ringelmann effect [1]. Many organizations fall victim to it, but what is it exactly?

Have you ever heard people say that “shared responsibility is no responsibility”? Maximilien Ringelmann (1861–1931) found that individuals spend less effort as the number of people in a group increases. Thus, as a company hires more and more employees, each employee might become increasingly ineffective.

Tracking employee training can counter this effect! If you have tangible reports on the training progress of your employees, you can:

• Identify knowledge gaps.

• Improve your training materials.

• Provide insights to each employee on what they should improve, thus increasing each employee’s contribution.

• Calculate the return on investment. Should we continue our continuous education or try a different approach?

We believe that tracking your employees’ progress helps them reach their true potential!

Tracking your employees’ progress helps them reach their true potential

Tracking employee progress with “old-school” methods

The need to track employee progress is not new. Some “old-school” or traditional methods for measuring employee overall progress include:

• Annual reviews with HR. In this method, the employee and HR have a meeting to talk about the employee’s projects in the past year. It is an opportunity to discuss the employee’s most significant contributions, and what needs to be improved. One of the downsides of this method includes the fact that HR must rely mainly on what the employee has to say, which might not be accurate or verifiable.

• Checklists. These could be simple checklists of items that an employee must complete during a quarter or the year, for example. Having a list with most items checked off ✔ is a sign of progress. Checklists are a straightforward method that works best when combined with other methods, like the ones mentioned here.

• Peer-reviews. Some companies ask colleagues to rate each other in different areas, including performance, knowledge, and skills. This approach can work well if colleagues are willing to provide their unbiased judgment. Reviewing peers can be complicated since people tend to form allegiances at work. HR cannot be aware of all of these. Peer-review can also lead to unwanted scapegoating.

• Self-assessments. In this method, employees write what they think they did well and what they need to improve with a timeline. According to the Dunning-Kruger effect [2], self-assessments can be highly self-deceiving 😅, so they shouldn’t be the only way to measure an employee’s progress.

• Paper tests to measure knowledge. Industries and companies that need highly skilled personnel need to ensure they have sufficient skills to perform their jobs. Regular knowledge tests can solve that problem. They give employers and employees more insight into employee progress. This approach can lead to a lot of paperwork associated with grading and storing these tests.

• Psychometric tests. Some employers even use psychological testing to regularly find out more about their employees’ strengths and weaknesses. This knowledge helps them improve their placement of employees within the company. Many companies outsource this type of testing to specialized companies, which can be quite costly.

Learn more about employee training methods.

What metrics should you use to measure progress in training?

To track learning progress accurately, you should at least track the following metrics:

• Course progress. Where are your employees in the training program? Do they get stuck at some point? With this metric, you can estimate how much support is needed to finish the training.

• Completion rates. You need to know who has completed a Course or Exam to provide active guidance.

• Pass/fail rates. Has your staff managed to pass their training? Scores are, of course, a stronger indication of how much knowledge they retained. You can also crunch the individual numbers further. Which questions did most people answer incorrectly? This result could indicate that the question was too difficult, or the Course missed essential information.

• Average test scores. The average score gives you a hint of the general knowledge level of your staff. Viewing individual or group scores gives you more detail.

Track employee progress with a Learning Management System

An LMS can provide insightful reports on an individual and group basis

Employee training platforms provide robust reporting capabilities that help you effectively measure completion rates, knowledge retention, and placement level.
A learning management system (LMS) can replace or improve most of your outdated methods for tracking employee training with much better results.

You will have all your data in one place. An LMS can provide insightful reports on an individual and group basis. It also gives data on your training material, enabling you to evaluate your training program and improve it along the way.

Measure training progress with Easy LMS

Easy LMS provides tools for creating Exams and Courses for employee training and reporting options to help you track your employees’ progress:

• View real-time reports from your tests. Create and share tests with your audience, then keep an eye on their progress. You can see when people are taking a Course or an Exam in real-time. Easy LMS generates their grades automatically, so you can analyze individual results for Courses, Exams, or Assessments. Export everything to an Excel file, where you can create graphs or further analyze the numbers!

• View results per department in the Academy. Create your company’s branded portal with the Academy. Then, create groups of employees by department or level, for example. View the results per group and compare them to other groups. The progress report feature gives you an overview of who hasn’t completed their Course or Exam and sends them a reminder email.

• View all the results from a single employee. Get your employee ready for his annual review by downloading a report of all their activities completed during the year. Export everything to an Excel file and store it in the company records. You can also share it with compliance officers.

Do you want to know how clients of Easy LMS use the reporting tool? Read and watch the case study: Hal Aluminum México. IT Supervisor María de los Angeles Fuentes points out that measuring their training by completion rates and grades increased employee motivation.

Would you like to see it for yourself? Start a free trial!

Useful resources 

1. Wikipedia

2. TED.Ed