Learning and development benchmarking organisation #towards maturity has launched its 2015 #benchmark which enables L&D teams to review their learning initiatives and compare them with their peers.
The benchmark, which is the largest independent study of corporate learning in Europe, is now in its 12th year. Organisations and L&D professionals have until the 31 July to complete their benchmark.
The study first started in 2003 and since then Towards Maturity has analysed data from more than 3,500 organisations and 16,000 learners around the globe. It helps organisations to reflect on issues that are relevant to delivering and designing a modernised learning strategy including:
- Aligning learning to business need and delivering business outcomes
- Understanding the modern day learner as customer
- Supporting workplace performance and collaboration
- Demonstrating value
- Harnessing technology to deliver results
Andy Lancaster, Head of Learning at the CIPD, said: “Benchmarking is an incredibly valuable process to go through. It enables L&D professionals to reflect on their activities and identify what learning initiatives are effective. It is a practical way to review your own current practices and identify how you could make improvements, based on what top performing organisations are doing.”
Learning and performance expert Charles Jennings, said: “Work is becoming more complex. We also work in teams and rely on others to get our work done more than ever before. Increasingly, research is demonstrating that experiential and social learning are extremely important elements in how high performance develops, which is why L&D professionals need new ways of understanding what works best in their organisation. The Towards Maturity Benchmark does just that by providing independent evidence on what works and what doesn’t. There is no doubt participating organisations will be better equipped to make the right decisions about future learning strategy and practices when they have the right data on which to act.”
“The benchmark provides evidence to improve practice. It also helps you influence stakeholders internally to enable you to change strategy and to gain resources for new initiatives.”
Laura Overton, Managing Director of Towards Maturity said: “In our agile and rapidly changing world, L&D professionals have to identify effective practice that works for them in their organisation.
“For too long, L&D professionals have reported very traditional benchmarks such as time, cost and completion rates, which do not position them as agile, flexible and truly supportive of business outcomes. That’s why over the last 12 years we have been establishing new, trusted benchmarks that will take L&D into the future instead of strangling them in the past.
“Benchmarking is about gathering the right evidence that enables you to make great decisions in a fast changing world for you, your team, your learners and your business.”
By taking part in this confidential study, participants will be sent a free Personalised Benchmark Report™ in September (value £300), which contains an in-depth analysis of their unique Towards Maturity Index™ – a measure of how the organisation is performing against others in the study. Evidence-based, personalised feedback will highlight priority action areas to support L&D strategy development.
L&D professionals can participate in the benchmark at: www.towardsmaturity.org/benchmark
