Trends 2024: L&D as a Key Business Driver

TRENDS 2024

BUSINESS

PERSPECTIVES

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MANAGING

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TRAINING

With more business leaders seeing a clear link between training and business success, L&D is ripe with opportunity to create value for the business.

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TRENDS 2024 L&D as a Key Business Driver

By Ken Taylor and Michelle Eggleston Schwartz, CPTM Organizations have been under tremendous pressure to innovate and scale business operations in the face of increasing uncertainty.

The companies that have been the most successful have been those that have leveraged learning and development (L&D) to improve business performance.

L&D plays an essential role in supporting and empowering today’s workforce — from increasing employee engagement and talent retention to building an inclusive company culture and strong leadership pipelines. With more business leaders seeing a clear link between training and business success, L&D is ripe with opportunity to create value for the business — making it more important than ever for learning leaders to work together with senior leaders and stakeholders to establish a cohesive and unified vision for the future of the organization.

The key trends for 2024 reflect the growing prominence of L&D as a key business driver, helping organizations build the capabilities and skills needed to thrive in an increasingly complex market. These trends can help learning leaders maximize the impact of their training initiatives for years to come.

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Leveraging Learning to Improve Talent Retention Today’s employees want to learn and grow, and they want to work for organizations that invest in their development. If employees aren’t learning, they will inevitably leave the company to achieve growth elsewhere. With 93% of organizations concerned about employee retention, the No. 1 way organizations are working to improve retention is by providing learning opportunities, according to LinkedIn Learning’s 2023 Workplace Learning Report.

Learning opportunities are a clear way to support and retain talent, while also driving business goals.

However, delivering training for training’s sake has never been an effective strategy (and never will be).

L&D needs to connect employee learning to career growth, and this means delivering targeted learning opportunities. Employees need to understand the skills, capabilities and experiences that they need to make an upward or lateral career move in the company.

Leadership training is also needed to help managers better support their employees’ career development. Leaders need to be able to have meaningful career conversations with employees to understand their goals and connect them with the right learning opportunities. Having this support and an organizational culture that prioritizes learning can lead to a more engaged workforce.

L&D needs to connect employee learning with career growth.

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Employees must be trained to spot inaccurate information and uncover biased AI content.

AI’s Impact on L&D Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has arguably been the most talked about topic of the year — stemming from the release of ChatGPT last November. Within the first 60 days of its release, ChatGPT reached 100 million users, making it one of the fastest-growing consumer applications. At Training Industry, we saw this spike in interest firsthand, with our articles, webinars and virtual events focused on AI quickly outpacing any other topic.

While AI is certainly not new, the accessibility to this tool is new for many people, including learning leaders.

With 85% of organizations planning to increase adoption of frontier technologies over the next five years, organizations must understand the benefits and drawbacks of using AI in the workplace.

For L&D, the benefits are vast. AI can be used to produce course outlines and training materials, create training assessments, build competency models and curate personalized and adaptive content for learners. AI also has the potential to make coaching more accessible to employees through AI-based coaching, which can create more consistency across the employee experience.

As we know, AI also has its limitations, which include producing inaccurate and biased content. Users must understand how generative AI works to fully grasp its drawbacks. Generative AI collects information from the internet using generative models to give you an answer to a question. AI doesn’t review sources or carefully consider your question as a human would. In other words, AI is not a subject matter expert and should not replace or operate without human oversight.

With organizations planning to increase their adoption of AI tools, employees must be trained to spot inaccurate information and uncover biased content. Doing this work requires employees to also enhance their “human” skills, such as critical thinking, analytical thinking and emotional intelligence, to use AI more effectively and responsibly in their roles

Making Content Engaging Even for the Disengaged Employee A lack of employee engagement is a top concern for many organizations. With only 23% of employees engaged at work globally, coupled with the fact that employees want more development opportunities, L&D must ensure that their training programs are hitting the mark. Training is a key driver of employee engagement and retention, and L&D must ensure that their learning programs connect with employees.

What successful training looks like will differ from company to company. Learning leaders must understand the learning needs and preferences of their workforce to develop training that resonates with and engages them.

For instance, instructor-led training (ILT) may be a better fit for front-line workers at a manufacturing plant, whereas mobile learning and job aids may be a better fit for on-thego salespeople.

Learners need relevant content available when and where they need it most. So, understanding the content that learners need and delivering it in the most engaging and efficient way possible can increase their engagement and optimize the training’s success.

However, measuring learner engagement and tracking the success of training programs is not easy. Identifying key performance indicators to monitor before training is developed can help to inform the training content, including the learning’s associated activities, materials and delivery method. Identifying the behaviors, skills and capabilities that employees need to be successful in their role can help to guide the content development process.

Training is a key driver of employee engagement and retention.

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With the shelf life of skills shrinking, this puts pressure on L&D to deliver training to upskill and close skills gaps.

Upskilling and the Role of Competency Modeling Upskilling continues to be a top priority — and challenge — for organizations. According to LinkedIn data, skill sets for jobs have changed by around 25% since 2015 — and by 2027, that number is expected to double. The World Economic Forum is also reporting similar figures, predicting that 44% of workers’ core skills will be disrupted, between now and 2027.

With the shelf life of skills shrinking, this puts pressure on L&D to deliver training to upskill and close skills gaps. To accomplish this, organizations must put skills first and that means having a grasp on the skills needed to perform jobs successfully — now and in the future. Building competency models, or a framework to determine the skills and abilities necessary to be successful in a given role or function, is becoming more important, especially for roles that organizations identify as critical to business operations.

Outlining skills and abilities based on job roles allows learning leaders to assess skills gaps more accurately.

For instance, a competency model for an accountant may include skills related to specific accounting software, Excel spreadsheets, preparing financial statements or attention to detail. Learning leaders can use assessments to determine if an accounting employee is proficient in a specific skill like Excel.

If the assessment shows that an employee needs improvement, then learning leaders can develop and deliver relevant training to address those gaps.

Building competency models for specific job roles and functions can help organizations understand their current inventory of skills and where gaps exist, enabling L&D to adapt the program to the employees’ needs and more accurately predict the skills that the organization will need in the future.

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Reinvestment in Instructor-Led Training ILT has long been the preferred training delivery method for organizations — until the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. With forced business closures, the pandemic triggered a drastic shift from ILT to eLearning and other virtual delivery methods to train and connect a dispersed workforce. Now, three years later, we are starting to see organizations re-evaluate their training offerings, trying to find the right balance between inperson and virtual training options.

In retrospect, there was a forced over rotation to eLearning over the past few years out of necessity, and now, companies are looking to reinvest in ILT. According to Training Industry research, 34% of L&D professionals said that ILT is one of the top three areas that they would reinvest any uncovered budget savings.

While we’ve seen remarkable innovations in learning technologies and remote learning over the past few years, ILT is still a valuable training delivery option. The balance of training offerings will be different across companies and industries, so there is no specific ratio or formula for organizations to follow.

As we move forward, learning leaders must stay focused on determining the right training method for the training need at hand. Whether it’s a new skill, knowledge or behavior, training’s desired outcomes can help to guide learning leaders in selecting the right training method for their company.

Organizations are trying to find the right balance between in-person and virtual training options.

Market Outlook The training market has continued to rebound over the past few years.

Our research from a survey of over 500 L&D professionals suggests that we can expect to see an 8% increase in training budgets in 2024, with a strong focus on investing in leadership development and new learning technologies. Nearly a quarter of L&D professionals said that they would invest in upgrading learning technologies if they uncovered extra funds in their training budget.

Ken Taylor is the chief executive officer of Training Industry, Inc. Michelle Eggleston Schwartz, CPTM, is the editor in chief at Training Industry, Inc., and co-host of “The Business of Learning,” the Training Industry podcast. Email Ken and Michelle.

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