Learning and development (L&D) leaders face a persistent challenge: Demonstrating clear business value in an era where budget scrutiny intensifies and organizational priorities shift rapidly. The performance indicators that L&D professionals often default to measuring completion rates and learner satisfaction, fail to resonate with business leaders who operate in a world focussed on performance, productivity and bottom-line results.
Grabbing stakeholder attention for the right reasons involves adopting business-focused key performance indicators (KPIs) that show how well-designed learning initiatives can contribute to measurable organizational outcomes. Donald Taylor’s 2025 L&D Global Sentiment Survey shows “consulting more deeply with the business, showing value and performance support” rising for the first time in years, flagging that value measurement is back on the agenda of L&D professionals.
For high-performing L&D teams, measuring, tracking, and delivering business value has always been a priority.
The L&D Value Spectrum
How L&D professionals perceive their value focuses attention, affects what teams see (and don’t see) around them and influences actions. When it comes to L&D value measurement, most L&D professionals operate from the learning value end of the L&D Value Spectrum:
Those who focus on learning value celebrate completion rates, cost savings and learner satisfaction. Systems are designed to measure and track those metrics. The old saying of what gets measured gets managed often ignores the fact that not everything is useful to either manage or measure. Prioritizing learning value indicators means teams are always on the back foot when proving business value.
Many high-performing L&D teams operate more toward “Business Value” on the spectrum. They identify, celebrate and prioritize business value, positioning themselves to support organizational key performance indicators linked to output, speed, talent and culture (and in doing so also find ways to be more efficient). However, at the business value end of the spectrum, the KPI’s prioritized by the business and influenced by a myriad of other business decisions. Measurement is messy and not clear cut.
The Messy World of Business KPIs
The table below outlines just a few of the business KPIs that have influenced the design, approach and outcomes of successful learning teams.
| Finance | Customer | Operations | Agility and Innovation |
| Revenue per employee Cost per unit Process cycle times Error-related costs
| Sales conversion rates Time to first deal Deal size Customer satisfaction Retention rates First call resolution Complaint resolution | Defect rates Safety incidents On-time delivery Quality scores Compliance ratings
| Time to market Employee improvement ideas Change adoption rates Digital transformation milestones Talent mobility and succession |
Over the years, high-performing L&D teams have found ways to navigate the messy world of work to deliver results. Mindtools 2023 report, “Unlocking Excellence: The Strategic Business Alignment Blueprint for L&D,” indicates these teams are three times more likely to explore business indicators up front with business leaders and are more likely to work with line managers to ensure they are equipped to help their teams apply new learning, compared to their peers.
They do not dismiss learning value metrics as vanity metrics but instead, see them as leading indicators as they work with others to improve business challenges — a stepping stone that they can track internally as a team versus a mark of achievement that they share with others.
High-performing teams don’t prove value to business leaders — they improve value with business leaders. They co-create solutions to shared problems that others are already measuring rather than defending training efficiency.
From Proving to Improving: Partnering for Success
The fundamental shift isn’t just moving metrics to track KPIs — it’s changing the dynamic of your work relationships. High-performing L&D professionals don’t spend energy justifying their existence. They become business problem-solving partners. However, challenges exist: Lack of credibility and from business leaders can prevent teams from playing an active role.
According to Measuring the Business Impact of Learning 2024 by Watershed, conflicting priorities and a lack of time to follow measurement through to completion are commonly cited barriers to assessing business impact.
No matter where you are on your measurement maturity journey, there are always ways to align more closely with business goals and KPIs. Here’s how to shift your mindset and conversations based on your current stage:
New to L&D:
Shift from: “Let me prove training worked.”
To: “Let’s solve this performance challenge together.”
Start by asking your manager, “What business challenges is our training meant to address? How can we tackle this together?” This reframes you as a collaborative problem-solver, not just a training provider.
To Overcome Resistance:
Shift from: “Help me measure training impact.”
To: “Let’s improve this business metric together.”
Past efforts may have failed because they focused on validating L&D’s work. Instead, join your stakeholders’ problem-solving efforts: “Customer satisfaction is key. What if we worked together to boost it through capability building?”
For Measuring Sophisticated Metrics:
Shift from: “Here’s proof that training drives business results.”
To: “Here’s insight to optimize our shared outcomes.”
At this level, you’re not just proving value — you’re providing actionable intelligence. Use your data to guide strategic decisions and help the business gain a competitive edge.
The takeaway: Stop measuring what you delivered. Start measuring what needs to improve.
Embedding KPIs in 2025 and Beyond
Several practitioners and researchers have developed models for embedding business KPIs effectively. The work of Will Thalheimer, Kevin Yates, Jim Kirkpatrick, Robert Brinkerhof, and Jackv and Patti Phillips have all influenced modern measurement approaches. But knowing about how to measure what matters is one thing. Doing it is another.
2025 has brought a new era of urgency and opportunity:
- AI not only creates a need for change — it also brings new measurement opportunities. Modern platforms auto-connect learning to business systems, making correlation analysis easier than ever.
- Hybrid work creates new performance challenges that business leaders recognize. Remote productivity and digital skills are business problems crying out for learning solutions that contribute to growth.
- Economic pressure makes value urgent. When growth is a priority and budgets tighten, proving business impact isn’t nice-to-have — it’s survival.
The time has come to revisit the models of business measurement, but to make the most of them requires shifting perspective to a business value mindset. This means leaving behind the conviction that contribution isn’t possible without perfect attribution. High-performing teams demonstrate that genuine business curiosity + strong relationships + correlation + logic = a powerful force for good. Pick metrics someone else already owns. Talk about them regularly, share freely and use the data to learn together.
Looking Ahead
The resurgence of value focus in Donald Taylor’s sentiment survey reflects L&D’s awakening to measurement reality: the KPIs chosen to celebrate and pursue determine the conversations teams have, the actions they prioritize, who they collaborate with and what they try to measure. Learning metrics keep teams on the defensive. Business performance indicators create opportunities to become partners in solving organizational challenges.
Measuring L&D value isn’t about proving training works — it’s about improving how the business works. It demonstrates care about improving customer satisfaction, monitoring safety incidents and enhancing time-to-productivity.
By working with business on their KPIs, teams start to share the measurement responsibility and open opportunities to co-create solutions with the business versus for the business.
