At the end of September, Pearson agreed to buy Workera, a company that tests whether employees can actually do their jobs. It measures skills through role-specific scenarios and simulations, and reports whether those skills improved after training (Pearson via Training Industry). Its customers include ServiceNow, Accenture and the U.S. Space Force.

I think that's a sign of what your clients will start asking for. If you sell training to companies, most of your reporting probably comes down to completions: who started, who finished, and when. Your client can see how many of their team finished the course. What they can't see is whether any of them could pass the exam or handle the situation the course was about.

What a completion rate tells you

A completion rate measures time and clicks. It tells you someone opened every lesson and reached the end. That's worth knowing, and in some regulated markets it's required.

It doesn't tell you what they took in. Someone can play every video in a background tab while they answer emails, click through the knowledge checks until they pass, and show up as 100% complete. Someone who already knows half the material looks exactly the same, except they wasted a few hours getting there.

The test I'd use is simple. If your client asks "is my team ready?", can your platform answer that? My guess is that on most LMSs, the best it can offer is a percentage of lessons finished. (We've written about the LMS reporting metrics worth tracking if you want the wider picture.)

What we built instead: a readiness score

We're building an exam-prep platform for a client. Learners have a short window to prepare for a professional exam, and they need to pass it. Nobody using it cares whether they've finished lesson 14. They care whether they'll pass.

So the dashboard shows readiness instead of a completion percentage. The course is split into sections, and each one has its own readiness score. That score comes from how the learner does in drills and mock exams for that section. It doesn't come from the lessons.

That last part was deliberate. If you already know a topic, you can take a short test at the start of a lesson and skip it with 70% or more. Skipping doesn't hurt your readiness, because readiness only moves when you answer questions under exam-like conditions. You still see a tick when a section is done, so there's a sense of progress, but the number that matters is the readiness score.

The mock exams are built to feel like the real thing, so the exam itself feels familiar on the day.

How to design for readiness in your own LMS

The first thing you need is your practice data in the same place as your course data. I recently spoke to a test-prep business whose course runs on one platform and whose practice exams run on another. They're joined by single sign-on, but each learner's results sit in two separate dashboards. You can't build a readiness score from that.

Next, decide what counts as evidence. For our client it's drills and mock exams, because those are closest to the real exam. For a compliance course it might be scenario questions, and for a sales course it might be a scored role-play. Whatever it is, it should look like the thing you're preparing people for.

Then make the score explainable. We spent a good part of one review making sure we could tell the client exactly how each section's number is worked out. If a learner sees 49% and asks why, someone needs to be able to answer.

There are trade-offs. Some regulators set a minimum amount of time on the course, so you may still need to track time and completion alongside readiness. A readiness score also takes more work to set up than a progress bar, because you need enough good questions per section for the number to mean something. I think it's worth it if your clients renew based on results, but it's more than a reporting tweak.

If you'd like to work out what readiness could look like on your platform, you can explore your options.

FAQ

What is competency-based training?

Competency-based training measures whether a learner can do something, rather than whether they finished the material. Progress depends on showing the skill, so people who already know a topic can move on faster.

What's the difference between completion and readiness?

Completion shows that a learner reached the end of the content. Readiness shows how likely they are to pass or perform, based on how they do in practice questions and assessments.

How is a readiness score calculated?

On the platform we're building, each section's score comes from the learner's results in drills and mock exams for that section. Lesson activity doesn't count towards it.

Do I still need to track completion?

Often, yes. Some regulated courses require a minimum time on the material, so you may need to report both.

Why did Pearson buy Workera?

Pearson said the ability to assess and develop skills will be key in the AI era. Workera measures proficiency through role-specific scenarios and reports whether skills improved.