Learning and Performance Management Can’t Be Separated Any Longer—Here’s How You Link Them

This article first appeared on Acorn Labs in April 2024.

For a more in-depth look at learning and performance management, have a read of the full article.

Linking learning and performance management is the first step in creating a cohesive and effective employee development strategy. Businesses need to link learning and performance management, because:

• L&D is useless if it doesn’t drive performance uplift
• Performance management is pointless if it doesn’t lead to actionable development plans for employees.

Why it’s important to link learning and performance management

Only through linked learning and performance management can employees master the capabilities they require to make a business impact. Employee development improves the performance markers defined as necessary to your business strategy.

When you focus on developing capabilities to improve performance:

• There is better alignment between development and organizational goals
• Employees, teams, leaders, and stakeholders will be on the same page about performance expectations
• Ongoing organizational transformation becomes possible with an agile workforce
• Personalized development plans increase employee retention
• Performance data is better quality and reveals training ROI and learning effectiveness
• Talent development and recruitment improve.

How to align learning and performance

There are three crucial best practices to link learning and performance.

1. Define learning and performance objectives

Align your goals for learning and performance with your business mission, vision, and values. The best way to start is by defining workforce capabilities like:

• Strategic thinking and planning
• Risk management
• Quality service.

Not only do you have to define the goal, but you also need to outline the success metrics that make the destination measurable and achievable. This provides employees with a clear direction to work towards and a sense of how their work contributes value to the business.

2. Align learning and performance data

Embed learning in performance management. Unlike traditional performance management, which focuses on past performance and might provide relevant learning after, embedded performance management gives continuous feedback throughout the year rather than after the fact. It ensures that performance data is used to match employees with the right development opportunities.

A capability gap analysis can help here by measuring which capabilities your employees are competent in. High competence means employees are exceeding expectations, intermediate competence means expectations are met, and low competence means capabilities need to be further developed. This information can be used to assign targeted learning that will actually drive impact.

3. Leverage technology

Handling performance management manually or using independent learning technology (such as separate performance management and learning management systems) opens organizations up to human error and bias in the performance management and review process.

A performance learning management system (PLMS) helps to remove potential bias and human error by linking learning and performance together in the same system. It ensures that learning is designed and targeted towards the specific development needs of your organization and workforce.

The impact of siloed learning and performance management

Because capabilities are the powerhouse of learning and performance management, when they aren’t in conversation with each other then they’re both misaligned from organizational goals. This means:

• Business priorities aren’t being met due to capabilities not being developed
• Managers will lack the right criteria and KPIs needed to accurately measure employee performance
• Resources will be poorly utilized on learning initiatives that don’t yield measurable results
• Employees become demotivated and disengaged, increasing employee turnover
• Development opportunities will be missed, increasing capability gaps and preventing the training of your high-potential employees (and hindering effective succession planning).

Learning is useless if you can’t measure how it impacts performance, and performance management is useless if performance reviews can’t be utilized to assign tailored learning. When these topics act separately instead of in tandem, organizational capabilities aren’t being developed to drive business success.