CANBERRA, Australia - AussieJournal -- While correlation is a useful statistical technique, it shouldn't be used to prove return on investment in L&D. That's according to Acorn subject matter experts, who believe there's no room for loose threads when showing impact and justifying decisions to executives. In their first opinion piece, the Acorn experts highlight the difference between correlation and causation, what executives really want to know, and the best way to solidify causation in L&D.

Correlation is a statistical relationship between two results that can be coincidental and unrelated, while causation is an undeniable event where one thing causes another. It's important to understand the difference because correlation can be exploited and doesn't always imply causation. Correlation can be used as a basis for testing hypotheses, but proving causation involves demonstrating a direct cause-and-effect relationship.

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Significant money is given to training and development meaning that L&D leaders know the need to justify spending. Yet to justify investment, L&D professionals consider traditional KPIs such as knowledge gain and time to proficiency when they should instead be focused on metrics business leaders care about such as performance and retention.

Failing to prove causation in L&D can lead to a correlation fallacy where training may not solve long-term business issues, and there's no way to replicate business improvements or trace the path to success. This can result in L&D activities not being prioritised by business impact and an inability to create a business case for the training budget.

"In our conversations with actual L&D professionals, it's the step before learning happens that makes it easier to prove causation after learning," Blake Proberts (CEO and Co-Founder). "Analyse business goals and capability gaps to really understand where L&D can have the most tangible strategic impact."

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You can read the Acorn experts' full article on Acorn Labs: https://hubs.ly/Q01Jklb80

Pursuit Technology is a fast growing HR technology company. Pursuit, via Acorn LMS, takes a different view to strategically enabling HR and L&D teams compared to traditional providers. Rather than focusing on analytics after learning experience, their products use workforce planning and capability frameworks prior to any learning. By linking to a company's strategy, Pursuit products can inform organisational capability gaps and suggest education, deliver this education, then measure the impact – proving business impact by the HR and L&D team in a quantifiable way.