Your L&D Strategy is Falling Apart. But Why?

One of the most important things HR can do to generate positive results for a business and its employees is to create a high-quality learning and development (L&D) strategy.

Effective L&D can unlock a wide range of benefits for the company and the workforce, such as:

• Higher productivity as people learn new skills and become better at their jobs
• Increased staff satisfaction, engagement and loyalty because the organization is investing in people's career development
• Reduced staff turnover, which means less disruption and lower recruitment costs
• Opportunities for the business to expand into new areas thanks to a more capable workforce

If you’ve continually struggled to implement a successful L&D program, it might be helpful to think about some of the most common pitfalls in this space, so you can be sure to avoid them.

L&D is out of sync with business goals

Workforce L&D can't exist in isolation; it has to be aligned with the goals, needs and ultimate priorities of the wider business. When creating or updating your strategy, it's vital to think about how your efforts to help people learn and develop will support the work of the organization as a whole.

Jonathan Kettleborough, founder of the TenCORE User Group and former chairman of the e-Learning Network, recommends starting from the outside in. That means basing your L&D activities on what the company requires and not becoming preoccupied with individual or departmental priorities.

It's also important to retain a focus on your 'core business' - the essential work that provides a large portion of the organization's income and helps you stay profitable. Making a direct connection between L&D and the core business will ensure your learning strategy always delivers results.

It's not seen as an ongoing process

To deliver the best results, an L&D strategy should be structured as an ongoing, constantly evolving process. One of the clearest reasons for this is that, if learning activities are delivered on a one-off basis, with no follow-up or reinforcement, people are likely to forget what they've learned.

L&D shouldn't be seen as a series of isolated training sessions or lessons, but as a consistent learning journey that can be tailored to the needs and preferences of individual participants or teams. This gives you a lot more scope to experiment with different methods and formats, increasing the likelihood that you’ll find an approach that delivers results.

Designing ongoing learning journeys could prove particularly valuable if the business is currently focused on addressing skills shortages by developing talent from within, rather than trying to acquire the capabilities you need through recruitment.

L&D is distinct from other HR processes

The value of your L&D activities will greatly increase if they’re closely integrated with other vital HR processes, such as:

• Recruitment
• Onboarding
• Performance management
• Succession planning

If you’ve invested a lot of time and effort into refining your L&D program, it makes sense to advertise and promote learning opportunities at every stage of the employee journey. According to McKinsey, the integration of L&D into the HR agenda is an area where many businesses are falling short.

You're not benefiting from technology

Modern technology offers enormous potential for you to optimize your L&D processes and ensure your work in this area is generating maximum value for the business and for your people.

Introducing virtual classrooms is one way that employers can leverage technology to make learning opportunities easily available to the entire workforce, regardless of where people are based or when they work. Organizations that have embraced this sort of flexibility will have found it particularly beneficial during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In a world where tech evolution is constantly accelerating and having a bigger impact with each passing year, businesses that fail to take advantage of the latest innovations are likely to find that their L&D activities soon become irrelevant and ineffective.