What impact has Towards Maturity’s Health Check research had on Learning & Development?

Towards Maturity’s expert analysts have been championing the development of the L&D industry since 2003, driving insights that deliver real impact. To date over 6,500 learning leaders from around the globe have participated in their annual benchmark, now known as the Towards Maturity Health Check, which sees them contributing strategic intelligence to help analyse, activate and accelerate within organisations. This blog analyses the impact of Towards Maturity’s Health Check…

With 92% of participants stating the Health Check process gave them new ideas for improving their learning strategy, it’s fair to say Towards Maturity’s Health Check makes a big difference to key organisations.

Examples of participants from previous years include: AXA UK, Boots UK, Brambles, BT plc, Coca Cola Amatil, EON AG, Lloyds Banking Group, McDonald’s, River Island RMA Group, 33 councils and over 20 hospitals and NHS trusts.

When asked how their organisations benefited from the Health Check, Teresa Rose and Annett Irmer from EON replied, “Using the Health Check to benchmark is an invaluable process which allows us to hold a mirror up to our L&D strategy.  Being able to compare with so many peers gives clarity on how mature we are as a learning organisation, to see the progress we have made and the gaps still needing to be closed.”

Towards Maturity’s evidence shows that over 90% of organisations are not realising sustained impact from their learning and performance strategies.  By analysing why, they can share stories from top performers who are breaking through the barriers, helping everyone to transform better and faster.

Qantas Airways, the flag carrier airline of Australia and the region’s largest airline, have benchmarked their learning strategy with Towards Maturity since 2010.  Their priority is to train and develop their people, so they are compliant and safe in their roles.  By looking at what top performing L&D organisations are doing, they can inform their strategy to improve business performance and create a modern, engaging learning experience.

Eight of Qantas’ L&D teams completed the Health Check, allowing comparison across these teams in addition to comparing against the top performing organisations.  These comparisons highlighted strengths that they were able to leverage across their entire organisation and actions were able to take to further improve their impact.

Since learning these insights, Qantas have implemented changes in order for them to deliver more impact across their company.  These changes include expanding their use of technology-enabled learning (contributing to improved productivity and organisational revenue), an L&D capability development plan with priority on digital design and delivery, and providing their people with greater choice regarding where, when and how they learn.

Laura Overton, Founder and CEO of Towards Maturity commented, “In today’s fast-paced and technological world, L&D leaders are hungry for change but are overwhelmed and unsure where to start.  The Towards Maturity Health Check has been updated to provide direction tailored to each individual. We’re signposting where organisations need to focus and delivering the tools and tactics they need to unlock potential with a totally unique dashboard.”

In addition to personalised benchmark results, each year Towards Maturity use their Health Check research to produce an annual report, highlighting examples and characteristics of high performing organisations and useful insights and statistics to help teams and individuals to deliver impact in their own organisations.  The latest research, The Transformation Curve, is available for free on the Towards Maturity website.

Read more about what Qantas learnt from the Towards Maturity Health Check and take your own Health Check review through the Towards Maturity website.