In some ways, it’s surprising that learning and development (L&D) is such a large and fast-growing industry―to the tune of around $80 billion. We no longer live in an era of lifelong employee loyalty, so why are the most successful companies, from Defense Acquisition University to Pfizer, still spending so much on L&D? They know how to measure the business benefit of L&D spending. Using case studies from these and other top firms, Gene Pease, Bonnie Beresford, and Lew Walker walk you through how to ensure that your human capital dollars are well spent.

Developing Human Capital is one of the first works to explore learning and development from a data-driven, analytical standpoint. This text is remarkably comprehensive, explaining study design and alignment, measurement tools, and future analytics strategy. If you have no idea what to measure or how to measure it, this book is the perfect resource. Maybe you’ve been “building the business case” for training and other development for years, but without quantitative measurement, the business case is just marketing. This book explains why now is the time to develop a measurement strategy for your firm’s L&D investments.

To anyone in the HR or learning and development fields, it will come as no surprise that technology is central to developing human capital. Computer-based learning modalities, analytic software, and an overwhelming surplus of data are part of the new reality. The authors incisively add the generational shift and changing workplace to this mix, and the result is an enormous opportunity to gather information that will drive better human capital decisions. And by now it is so well known that it hardly bears repeating: in the 21^st century, optimized human capital investment is the permanent home of competitive advantage.

Quantify and predict the true business benefit of learning and development

For decades, human resource management was more of an art than a science. Now, Developing Human Capital is guiding the transition to “big data.” In today’s business environment, human capital is the golden ticket to competitive success, and we now have access to mountains of data to help make the right decisions to build performance. It’s time to quantify the impact of learning and development investment. In this excellent addition to the respected Wiley & SAS Business Series, you’ll learn what to measure, when to measure it, and what to do with the data once you have it.

This book shows that human capital analytics really works. Short case studies from heavy hitters across industries show how businesses are already going beyond ROI to measure the real impact of L&D investments. As you read through Developing Human Capital, you’ll acquire the knowledge you need to build a measurement plan and align it with strategic goals. Using advanced analytics tools, you’ll be able to dig down to the hard evidence that supports those crucial L&D expenditures.

You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again: predictive analytics and big data are the future of business. Why should human capital be any exception? It is now possible to measure nearly all aspects of the learning process. With the tools in Developing Human Capital, you can create a map to maximized potential for every employee. Read this book to learn the language of tech-driven, data-driven analytics, and translate that language into better human capital investments.