Learning & Development Speaks Out on How CEOs Could Help it Improve Training

In our newly published survey of 144 UK-based learning and development (L&D) professionals, the majority say their team is successful. Nearly seven in 10 respondents (67%) agree or strongly agree L&D at their organization is meeting its objectives.

If learning is a process of continuous improvement – then so too perhaps is the profession that facilitates learning in the workplace. To that end, the final question of the survey was open-ended and asked, “If you could make one recommendation to your CEO about improving L&D in your organisation, what would you say?”

Nearly 40% of respondents wrote to offer suggestions and below is a representative sample of their answers:

• Be more accommodating. “Allow employees to select the best time that suits them to attend training.”
• Use digitally immersive tools. “Go into virtual training.”
• Resources required. “That budget is needed to offer high-performance L&D.”
• Foster creativity. “Let them [L&D] be creative instead of using them like account managers.”
• Improve realism in training. “It’s too fluffy, the team gets all the nice fluffy stuff in training and when in the real world they cannot cope.”
• Maximize time and effort. “We need more support for our operational colleagues to access and attend workshops they've booked. Often places are cancelled last-minute or colleagues don't turn up, meaning we're not maximising our time and resources.”
• Mandate learning. “Make it a mandatory question to reflect and report on in PDRs [performance development reviews].”
• Manage expectations. “Making clear the difference between L&D and colleague engagement, whilst complementary a good L&D offer does not fix all colleague engagement, retention and culture woes.”
• Add better tech and outside talent. “Hire more leadership development consultants and L&D Admin support, buy in a new learning management system (LMS) that is integrated with HR policy/practices and our resourcing structure.”
• Strengthen executive support. “Make a stronger effort to promote L&D programs at the executive and VP level.”

There’s more detail in the full report which is available for download here:
The 2023 State of Learning and Development Report