Stop reporting on outputs, start proving impact.

90% completions. 4.7 star ratings. 1,200 logins.

It looks good. It feels good. But it doesn’t mean much — not on its own.

Most People teams are stuck reporting what’s easy to measure, not what actually matters. We track what we can count instead of what the business cares about. And the result? A false sense of success, with zero evidence of behaviour change, capability growth, or business performance.

We need to address the disconnect between activity reporting and impact reporting, and why it’s keeping your People function stuck.

ACTIVITY ≠ IMPACT

Downloading a PDF on the company culture is not the same as believing in it. Completing a DEI course is not the same as creating an inclusive environment.
Attending a leadership workshop is not the same as becoming a better manager.

Just because someone attended a session, opened a resource, or “completed” a course doesn’t mean anything changed. Did it make a difference to their day-to-day lives? Did it make their team more effective? Did it move the dial on a business metric?

If you can’t answer those questions, you’re not measuring impact, you’re just tracking movement. The difference matters. Because if you're only measuring activity, you're not proving value, you're assuming it. And we all know what they say about assuming…

THE PROBLEM WITH OUTPUT METRICS

Output metrics are easy to quantify and measure. That’s why we cling to them: learning completions, pulse survey responses, event attendance numbers, downloads of internal PDFs or playbooks, and employee comms open rates… These metrics tell you what happened, but they don’t tell you what worked.

Worse, they can create the illusion of effectiveness — especially when the business is already sceptical about the value of L&D or HR. If your only evidence of success is “lots of people showed up,” it’s no wonder stakeholders aren’t convinced.

SO, WHAT SHOULD WE MEASURE INSTEAD?

To truly prove the impact of L&D, we need to look beyond output measurements. In his book ‘Learning at Speed’, Nelson Sivalingam recommends looking at three areas:

• Proof of knowledge

• Proof of skill

• Proof of performance

By grouping our measurements into these three categories, we look beyond smile sheets and bums on seats, and look at whether we’re actually making a business impact. So what metrics should we look at in these three areas?

PROOF OF KNOWLEDGE:

This is the area People functions are typically good at already. It’s measuring whether someone has absorbed some level of information, i.e., they’ve completed the course, watched the video or opened the email. They now have some level of knowledge on the topic, and we can prove that, but not much else.

PROOF OF SKILL:

This is when we demonstrate that our people can actually do something with the knowledge they’ve absorbed. For example:

• Can they actually lead better teams after completing your training programme?

• Is your new performance feedback model used consistently in team 1:1s?

• After unconscious bias training, do your managers run structured, inclusive hiring panels?

This data will prove we’ve gone beyond ticking a box.

PROOF OF PERFORMANCE:

And now we look at the area we should care about most: business impact. In this section we want to look at data that demonstrates our initiatives have had an impact on the wider business. For example:

• After revamping onboarding, new hires reach productivity milestones 20% faster.

• After a targeted, personalised approach to sales training, sales increased by 40%.

• Following structured goal-setting workshops, performance review quality and employee engagement increase.

HOW TO MAKE MEASUREMENT A CORE PART OF YOUR PEOPLE STRATEGY

So now we understand why we should focus on measurement, and what we should be measuring, let’s look at how to bake measurement into your overall People strategy.

1. DEFINE IMPACT MEASUREMENTS UP FRONT.
Don’t wait until the end of a project to decide what you need to measure. Define this at the start of the project. For example, if you’re launching Gen AI training across the organisation, maybe the metric you want to measure is productivity.

2. BE SPECIFIC.
When choosing what you’re going to measure, make sure you’re really specific. “Improve productivity” is too vague for proof of performance. Get detailed about how you’ll measure that.

3. INVOLVE THE BUSINESS.
People functions often work in silos, and that needn’t be the case. Partner with the wider business and look at the metrics they’re already tracking. Where can you link your work to their outcomes or KPIs?

4. USE MULTIPLE DATA SOURCES.
Don’t just rely on quantitative data to prove impact, leverage qualitative feedback too. Don’t just rely on your LMS data, couple it up with performance reviews. Use data from 360 feedback and all of your data sources. The important thing here is to not rely on one source to tell the whole story.

5. BUILD FEEDBACK LOOPS.
Review your own performance regularly. Not just when your initiative finishes, but as a living, evolving part of your People strategy. And act on it — there’s nothing that will break employee trust faster than feedback being ignored.

MEASUREMENT ISN’T THE END. IT’S THE ENGINE.

When done well, measurement doesn’t just prove value, it drives it. It tells you what’s working, what’s not, and where to double down. It makes your People function smarter, faster and more responsive. And it earns you the credibility you need to influence the business. Because nothing opens doors like business impact.

So if you’re still reporting on completions, opens and smile sheets, and hoping that counts as value — it’s time to rethink your approach. The People Impact Loop® gives you the structure to design for impact, not just delivery.

Measure what matters. Optimise what works. Ditch the vanity metrics. Then you’ll have the impact you deserve.