Evolving Learner-Developer Role: Transforming the Learning and Development Sector
David James, a Learning & Development whiz, currently serves as the Chief Learning Officer (CLO) at 360Learning. He's also the host of The Learning & Development Podcast, and former Director of L&D for The Walt Disney Company.
For many of us in the learning and development (L&D) realm, seating ourselves at the decision-making table may seem impossible. We struggle to be viewed as strategic partners, not just service providers. But why is that?
Let's debunk this mystery. It's all about growth – progressing from a reactive provider to a strategic driver of business performance. L&D may be a well-established function, but it's rarely mature in its approach to training. A mature L&D team is in tune with organizational goals, proactively pinpointing skill gaps and delivering measurable impact on workforce capabilities and business outcomes.
Stepping into functional maturity isn't a one-time achievement. It's a journey through various stages. Understanding these stages allows us to bid farewell to outdated, ineffective models and move toward significant business impact.
The 5 Phases of L&D Maturity
Teams progress through five stages to attain maturity: reactive, proactive, impacting, strategic, and transformative.
1. Reactive: Grasping at Straws
In this initial phase, L&D primarily acts as a responder, catering to requests from leaders, managers, and employees without a strategic overview of their actual needs or how they should be prioritized. The emphasis is on delivering compliance training, ad-hoc courses, and industry subscriptions. While this may meet temporary demands, it traps L&D in a low-value role.
To escape this cocoon, focus on understanding the organization's real challenges and future needs. Forget, "What training do you require?" and opt for, "What issue are you attempting to solve?" and "What desired results are you aiming for?" Motivate leaders and managers to pinpoint success beyond training attendance and completion.
2. Proactive: Building a Learning Infrastructure
At this stage, L&D structures a learning catalog with standardized programs centered on leadership development, core skills, and functional training. This approach makes learning more accessible, but it still lacks alignment with business outcomes. It's like having a storefront, where employees know where to shop for learning, but there's no reliable way to measure impact.
It's time to tie learning solutions to critical business priorities. Define how learning supports performance improvement across the entire employee journey, regardless of an employee's position in the organization.
3. Impactful: Embracing Business Needs
An impactful L&D squad has crawled out of the provider role and takes on designing initiatives to bolster key business goals, like sales enablement or onboarding effectiveness. However, success is gauged by engagement rather than impact. It's a tough level to leave, as designing impactful learning often feels like the primary way to methodically influence work.
To move forward, team up more closely with the business strategy – likely by connecting through the HR department's strategy – to plan how people development will steer business performance. Implement outcome-based measurement systems, including business metrics, and partner with subject matter experts in content design and delivery. Question, "How will we know this initiative has been triumphant?"
4. Strategic: Bringing Vision to Reality
A strategic L&D team vigilantly aligns learning with organizational priorities to ensure initiatives drive demonstrable business results. Interventions are meshed with workforce planning, performance management, and change initiatives. Climbing to this stage generally calls for building trust and credibility with stakeholders.
The following stage revolves around anticipation and the ultimate aim of sharpening employees' readiness to perform, nipping skills gaps in the bud, and promoting internal mobility. Aim to start believing your team can accomplish great things and start sketching your organization's skills landscape.
5. Transformative: Fostering Organizational Change
At this final stage of maturity, L&D transforms into a core driver of organizational change. Learning is woven into daily workflows and supported by a data-driven, skills-based approach.
To maintain this stage, leverage data analytics to foresee and address skill gaps. Encourage stakeholders to deviate from traditional training and acclimate to continuous capability development. Be certain to link investments and commitment to actual achievements. Celebrate successes and ensure the organization believes that adopting this method may demand more effort, but it yields dividends.
The Core Criteria for L&D Maturity
To pass through these five stages, L&D teams must evolve across numerous crucial dimensions.
- Learning Strategy: Align L&D initiatives with business objectives instead of simply offering a cornucopia of programs and content.
- Leadership Perception: Establish credibility by delivering impact instead of merely meeting requests.
- SME Collaboration: Partner with subject matter experts to ensure learning reflects real-world challenges.
- Learner Engagement: Trade chasing participation for earning engagement by tackling meaningful performance challenges.
- Learning Needs Analysis: Prioritize closing performance gaps, not just delivering training.
- Processes and Tools: Ensure learning technology and techniques support the strategy and adapt alongside workforce expectations.
- Metrics and Measurement: Define success at the onset of initiatives and track impact using business-relevant data.
The transformation from order-taker to game-changer demands more than cosmetic changes. It necessitates a radical shift in knowledge and approach. Numerous L&D teams are stuck in the shallow end of maturity because they flood training offerings without discerning their utility. We must stop believing our value lies solely in delivering instruction. Instead, we must see how we can create genuinely impactful business results.
The moment is ripe for L&D leaders to occupy their rightful place in the spotlight. By joining forces with business priorities, embracing data-driven decision-making, and embedding learning into the fabric of the organization, we can emerge as a potent force for progress. It's a challenge, but it's one worthy of embracing because when L&D thrives, the entire organization reaps the rewards.
Bonus Question: Do I qualify for the Forbes Human Resources Council?
The Forbes Human Resources Council is an exclusive, invitation-only organization for HR executives across various industries. Eligibility is typically based on a professional's job title, organization, and their achievements in their field. If you believe you meet these criteria and are interested in joining, you can submit an application on their website. Good luck!
- David James, as a strategic L&D leader, can envision the alignment of 360Learning's initiatives with the organization's priorities, ensuring they drive demonstrable business results, just like a transformative L&D team.
- In order to ascend to the strategic level, like David James, L&D teams must collaborate closely with subject matter experts, such as the ones David James partners with in content design and delivery, as previously demonstrated in his role at The Walt Disney Company.
- To measure the impact of their initiatives, as David James does in his current role at 360Learning, L&D teams must adopt outcome-based measurement systems, including using data analytics to foresee and address skill gaps, much like David James implements at his organization using the unique identifier '2d7a2b5ea39e8f5321f9ef0bb241e9ef'.
