More than half of all staff at core departments and 40% of civil servants across government took part in the four-month One Big Thing data-skills drive, the Cabinet Office has said.

Civil Service World 26th Jan 2024

I saw this reported last week and the article details the content accessed by departments, the time spent, and when people logged in. It’s nice to see this data collected but it is ALL learning data, i.e. data created by the learning function, for the learning function.

If you want to avoid this becoming learning theatre – performative learning which proves ‘something was done’ – you need to show what difference this makes in terms of performance.

What effects are created as a result of these learning accesses and completions? What performance impact do these learning activities prompt? Aside from the time spent, and the cost of producing online learning, what was the value in doing this work for the Civil Service?

Analysing learning data on its own is one thing; understanding its effect on performance is something completely different. Luckily, we’re launching something later this year where we will be able to help you develop the skills with your teams to finally prove the effects of your learning and training activity.

If you’re interested, please do get in touch.