The Corporate University: Measuring the Impact of Learning

KEY FINDINGS

• Needs assessments clarify the purpose of M&E activities and are critical to deliver a comprehensive program.
• Aligning the whole organization and building an appropriate support system will yield a comprehensive and effective evaluation program.
• Best-practice organizations maximize the use of automation to present different types of evaluation data to a variety of target audiences.
• Best-practice organizations recognize that although evaluation is a micro-level activity, there is a strong need to combine evaluation data to develop a macrolevel view of the impact on the corporate university.
• Best-practice organizations are moving up the corporate chain of impact to use the profit center to measure the contribution of the corporate university.
• Most best-practice organizations have made progress measuring the application and impact of learning but are struggling to find a consistent, routine process.
• Best-practice organizations continually benchmark internally and externally. Some organizations join communities of practice to monitor M&E development.
• Successful corporate universities use evaluation data in a variety of ways.
• Organizations want to use ROI but are struggling with how to calculate it and what to do with the results.
• Best-practice organizations commit significant resources to evaluation programs.
• A variety of skill sets and roles that complement evaluation teams are included in these resources.
• M&E programs must accommodate an organization's changing needs.
• Best-practice organizations continuously communicate the assessment activities and results to their constituents.
• Best-practice organizations have begun to shift toward performance consulting to identify skill gaps and find solutions to fill these gaps outside of the traditional training model.

• Arthur Andersen
• Bell Atlantic
• National Security Agency
• Sun Microsystems
• Tennessee Valley Authority