“When I started my career in L&D, I was overseeing my company's service training portfolio. I fell in love with L&D quickly and was anxious for the next opportunity to present itself. Originally part of our customer experience team, my role transitioned to our associate development team a few years back.

Excited over the new opportunity and wanting to find a way to carve out a niche with my new team, I proposed our first talent development scorecard.

“Not a numbers guy by any means, I dove in headfirst, trying to uncover any evidence supporting L&D’s impact on the company. As a secondary benefit, this research ended up uncovering a handful of opportunities to enhance corporate culture as well! Fast forward to the winter of 2018-2019, and we unveiled a brand-new service training model, implemented our first managerial onboarding program, and are offering a newly minted personal development and performance management tool for associates looking for formalized training in addition to the organization’s formal training tracks.

“My role as an L&D professional has completely shifted course from where I was a year ago, and I couldn’t feel more fulfilled and excited to continue down this path. And it’s all thanks to data!

I call myself a reluctant data nerd because, while I’m not a numbers guy, no one can debate the value metrics add to your work. It adds credibility to your gut instincts, authority to your facilitation, and a way to measure your impact far beyond participant satisfaction and knowledge retention!

“If you’re willing to invest the time and effort, it can even help drive your overall satisfaction with the work you get to do on a daily basis!”