HR leaders can no longer lean on engagement scores and smile sheets to justify L&D spend
HR leaders can no longer rely on engagement scores and positive feedback to justify learning investments – they need hard evidence that training is lifting capability and driving business performance.
Speaking ahead of his session at the upcoming HRD National Summit, Acorn CEO and co-founder Blake Proberts said many organisations are still stuck measuring what’s easiest to capture rather than what matters most.
“Engagement metrics are great and super important, but actually our job is for people to do less learning,” he said. “We want to get them from point A to point B as quickly as possible.”
From ‘people liked it’ to ‘people got better’
Proberts argued that traditional learning measures – such as attendance, completion rates, time spent in training and satisfaction scores – only tell one part of the story.
“Where it falls down is: was it actually effective?” he said. “We spend X amount of dollars on a program – what did we actually get out of it? If all we have is the engagement metrics, we’re just getting one part of that puzzle.”
The shift he’ll be outlining at the summit is from tracking activity to tracking capability progress. Instead of simply reporting that employees completed a course, leading organisations are beginning to map where people start and where they end up in terms of proficiency.
“Once we get the foundation of those metrics and analytics in place, we can show it cost us X amount to run this program, and it got these people to this point in this amount of time. Then we can compare and contrast how to upskill people more efficiently and in a quicker way.” Proberts explained.
The payoff for the business isn’t more learning – it’s better performance with less disruption.
“When we understand capability before and after training, we can have people spending less time within a learning program and more time doing their actual core role,” he said.
Tech and AI: More data, new challenges
The rise of data, analytics and AI has made it easier to regularly map workforce capability – but it’s also created new complexity.
In the past, Proberts said, capability mapping projects were often large, manual and slow. Organisations might hire a consultancy, survey tens of thousands of employees, run workshops with subject matter experts and then spend months compiling results.
“At some of the bigger organisations we work with, those projects can take over a year,” he said. “By the time they’ve finished, the workforce has shifted and the data’s already out of date.”
Modern platforms and AI, he argued, can “empower the different subject matter experts within the organisation” to capture and update capability data more continuously, rather than relying on occasional, top-down projects.
But that power comes with a new problem: information overload.
“Because of all this tech, there’s so much data they can pull in,” Proberts said. “Actually turning it into something that matters – not just numbers on a spreadsheet or a screen – is a new challenge that’s emerged because now we have access to all this stuff.”
He believes the real value of AI in learning and HR is in providing “clear clarity for [people’s] role” and enabling faster, more relevant decision-making about where to focus development.
The pace of change in AI itself is a case in point. Proberts described how, even within Acorn’s own engineering teams, AI’s role has shifted dramatically in the space of a year.
Those rapid shifts, he warned, mean learning strategies can quickly become obsolete if they’re not being constantly reviewed and updated.
“It’s getting to the point where the rate of change is so quick that we really have to always be constantly reviewing and auditing what our people get and where the most effective thing is for them to engage with,” said Proberts.
Why foundations and peer learning matter
For HR leaders unsure where to start with data-driven capability building, Proberts said the first priority is building a clear, shared framework.
“Everybody at the moment feels like they’re a little bit behind. You see something on LinkedIn or read an article and think, ‘we really should be doing that’. But you need to get that foundation in place to be able to build and iterate.”
He said the organisations performing best in this space tend to have a standardised capability taxonomy, so they know “what’s relevant within your workforce” and a framework that HR provides to leaders and subject matter experts, who then own assessing and developing capability in their areas.
Rather than HR dictating capabilities from the outside, the most effective approach is “giving [leaders] the tools to actually do that themselves and then bringing that back to the HR team.”
Events like the HRD National Summit, he added, are crucial for HR leaders who feel like they’re playing catch-up.
“There are so many people in the room from all different industries. If you’re in manufacturing, you can pull something from ICT, telecommunications or healthcare. Maybe it’s not all applicable but just seeing how they’ve built those foundations and how they’re iterating is incredibly valuable,” Proberts added.
‘Role, goal, clarity’ for every employee
Ultimately, Proberts’ session will centre on turning strategy and frameworks into something that makes sense to each individual employee.
“Being able to take your job roles and turn that into clarity for somebody is the crux of what we’re going to be talking about,” he said.
Acorn’s mantra for that is simple: “role, goal, clarity”.
“What’s your role? What’s your goal and your purpose in the organisation? Bringing those things together gives the individual clarity, and we’ll be talking about how to provide that to employees,” Proberts concluded.
With C-suite HR leaders under mounting pressure to prove ROI, keep pace with AI and still deliver meaningful growth opportunities for employees, Proberts’ message is clear: start with capability, measure what matters, and empower your experts to lead the way.
To hear more, secure your ticket to the 2026 National HR Summit here.
