1. Optimizing L&D Contribution to Business Outcomes
Top Three Business Insights for Executive Conversations
1. Increase Application
Improve Results
Achieve Value
A Powerful Metric to Increase Business Impact and Improve the Function
When we talk about the areas where your business leaders want data, there is a powerful metric that most L&D organizations are overlooking entirely, and it specifically drives those 3 things – Applications Results and Value. That metric is: SCRAP LEARNING. Are you familiar with the concept of Scrap learning?
Simply defined, it is any learning that is delivered, or consumed, but not applied back on the job.
Think about recent training that you have gone through. Whether they were in the classroom or an eLearning courses, I guarantee that there were some minutes that ticked by where you weren’t learning new knowledge and skills that you could apply on the job. In the best classes, a large percentage of the learning delivered is applied. In the worst classes, 100% of what’s delivered can be scrap.
“Scrap” Learning
Learning that is delivered but not applied back on the job

2. Scrap Learning Root Causes
Direct L&D Control
Business Environment
Ineffective delivery
Content not directly relevant
Low learner motivation
Content quality issues
Wrong learners attend
No opportunity to apply
Examples don’t connect
Misalignment with priorities
Low organizational support
Insufficient practice
Delivered at wrong time
Insufficient time to apply
Inadequate support materials
Learners already know info
Lack of manager support
Now, there are a wide variety of causes for this. Some are within L&D’s direct span of control such as instructor performance and quality of content.
Many of the causes relate to the learners themselves: maybe they already knew most of the content, maybe it’s not specifically relevant to their role.
And then some of the causes relate to the business environment—things like manager support for learning and providing employees with enough time to practice and apply their new skills.
Now you don’t directly control all of these things, but you are on the hook for them. Because even if the business environment prevents learning from being applied, ultimately that learning program was unsuccessful.
As you look across this page, which items do you think are preventing your L&D investments from driving more value? For a lot of organizations, things like lack of manager support, insufficient time to apply, and low learner motivation top the list.
Are you measuring those factors?
You’re not alone in struggling with this. Let’s look at the pervasiveness of this problem and why making a change is urgent.

3. Scrap Learning: All Courses
Alternatively:
Use the Key Metrics Report
to locate Net Promoter or
Performance Improvement
concerns for a course.
Is our training working?
If not, what do we do to improve it?
How do we share results with our leaders?
© 2017 CEB. All rights reserved. CEB153724GD

4. © 2017 CEB. All rights reserved. CEB153724GD
Report Card: Course (Filtered to [Course Identified in Key Metrics Report])
We’ve isolated a course or event.
What is driving scrap?
Is this an outlier?
© 2017 CEB. All rights reserved. CEB153724GD

5. © 2017 CEB. All rights reserved. CEB153724GD
Data Explorer: Trend (Filtered to [Course Identified in Key Metrics Report])
Has this course maintained a similar performance trajectory?
Are their outliers in overall scores?
Has anything changed?
© 2017 CEB. All rights reserved. CEB153724GD

6. © 2017 CEB. All rights reserved. CEB153724GD
Data Explorer: Comments (Filtered to [Course Identified in Key Metrics Report])
Does this course accomplish the following?
Continuous Improvement
Linking Learning to Business Outcomes
Facilitating executive level conversations
A training like this (only once a year) doesn’t help me to remember anything
I was familiar with all the concepts presented… I didn't learn anything new
Less instructor talking and more hands on work would be better!
Class was too long. Why a whole day when this could have been covered before lunch?
Not really sure how this applies to my job
© 2017 CEB. All rights reserved. CEB153724GD

7. Reduce Scrap, Increase Performance
Minimizing wasted learning can help boost business outcomes.
= Learning Organization > 300 organizations > 18 million evaluations
40%
EXAMPLE COURSE % Scrap Learning 21.92% Performance Increase
Performance Gain Due to Learning
20%
Average Organization NOT Measuring 45% Scrap Learning 6% Performance Increase
In fact, that is what this scatter-gram of big data across hundreds of our clients who are actively measuring scrap learning and performance gains for learning demonstrates. There is a intuitive correlation between taking waste out of learning and driving higher levels of performance gains that can be attributed to learning.
First Build – what we see from clients who we are helping to measure their waste for the very first time is that they generally come in at about 45% scrap and 6% performance gains that can be attributed to learning. And when they start continuously measuring where learning is being applied and what the barriers are and make dynamic changes on a real-time basis, they see the numbers change
Plot your organization’s current scrap learning and performance gain to training - represented by the green dot on the graph. As you continue to reduce your scrap by even just a percent or two you will experience even more dramatic gains in performance improvement due to training. 0%
60%
30% 0%
Scrap Learning Rate
Source: CEB analysis.

8. Paying Big for Waste $320 Thousand $13.8 Million $413 Thousand
Annually for 1,000 employees [Update as needed based upon Course enrollments]:
Waste in Learning Budget Due to Scrap
Value of Performance Improvement Due to Learning
Example Course
Your Organization
$320 Thousand
25.6% scrap1 X $1,252 spend per learner2 X 1,000 employees
$13.8 Million
21.92% performance improvement3 X $63,076 average salary X 1,000 employees
Average Organization Measuring Scrap
$413 Thousand
33% scrap3 X $1,252 spend per learner2 X 1,000 employees
$6.9 Million
11% performance improvement3 X $63,076 average salary X 1,000 employees
For your organization / department of approximately XXX employees, the waste in the learning budget due to scrap equates to over $ XXX. If you are able to reduce your scrap to the MTM benchmark of XX% you will be able to reduce that waste by $XXX.
This could then act as expanded learning budget and be reapplied to drive performance improvement. The difference between your XX% performance improvement each year due to training and XX% performance improvement equates to $XXX for your company.
Or to put it another way, for every month that passes, in which <CLIENT> is failing to reduce scrap and increase learning impact, it’s costing <CLIENT> $XXX.
Have you looked at the potential return on your measurement efforts in this way before?
Unrealized Gains for Average Organization
$93 Thousand
in Waste
$6.9 Million
in Opportunity Costs
Next month, suboptimal learning will cost $583 thousand 1
CEB 2014 Training Effectiveness Dashboard. 2
ASTD 2016 State of the Industry Report. 3
CEB analysis.

9. Continuous Improvement Cycle
Solution:
Automation, insights, methodology with templates, and benchmarking provide the right measurement framework for effective collaboration with business stakeholders.
Is our training working?
If not, what do we do to improve it?
How do we share results with our leaders?
MTM answers 3 questions
1. Is training working? If not
2. What do we do to improve it?
3. How do we communicate this to our leaders once we have that information
So the solution that addresses these three needs includes automation, insights, standard methodology and benchmarks. These will assure you have the right measurement framework for collaboration with business stakeholders.
© 2015 CEB. All rights reserved. CEB153724GD 17