Gone are the days of training departments where talent professionals primarily focused on the design, development, and delivery of training courses. L&D departments today have far surpassed that to provide services beyond the classroom that ensure retention, skill attainment, and actual performance improvement. As talent and learning professionals serving as business partners, we clearly understand that and have been expanding our work effort to support learners, enhance their performance, and, by extension, enhance the organization’s overall performance in the marketplace. However, this role shift is still not clear for many of the organizations we work for. Performance management is limited to the check-the-box annual HR process, and L&D departments are sometimes still seen as just training departments whose role ends when the learner leaves the classroom.

Will Thalheimer, founder of Work-Learning Research, is a thought leader who focuses on research-based practices for learning, work performance, and evaluations. He recently published “The CEO’s Guide to Training, eLearning & Work,” which examines empowering learning for organizational competitive advantage. In June 2024, Will joined the ATD Forum members in a conversation on activating the performance of employees and going beyond training.

During the discussion, Will referred to several CEO research studies conducted by PwC (Annual Global CEO Survey) and the Conference Board (C-Suite Outlook 2024), indicating that CEOs believe that unskilled employees and upskilling the workforce are among the top factors that can make or break a business in the upcoming years. Skill development is a core function of L&D departments, and Will emphasized the critical role that learning professionals can play within their organizations to create a competitive advantage through L&D.

Some of the approaches he believes constitute a competitive advantage in L&D include applying learning sciences to increase learning retention, building generative artificial intelligence (AI) into all learning programs to demonstrate the value of AI in practice, and improving the learning request process to consider solutions beyond training. He also discussed the advantages of using performance sciences (such as habits, nudges, growth mindset, and performance triggering) to reinforce learning. What resonated the most with me were the following three areas that learning leaders can build into their processes to help them create L&D competitive advantage:

Learning Evaluations—With better learning evaluations, learning professionals can make better-informed learning decisions. Instead of using the learning evaluation at the end of a training program, an effective learning evaluation tool like LTEM can be used at the very beginning of the learning design process to brainstorm meaningful metrics and inspire better learning designs. It allows learning designers and developers to “reverse engineer” by first thinking through what makes a learning program successful, then designing the evaluation objectives, and finally designing the learning objectives, which kicks off the learning design process. This case study provides another sample application for LTEM.

Workflow Learning—Will’s definition of workflow learning is “Learning as Work.” It is NOT learning on the job or brown bag lunches. It is a way to build and facilitate learning as part of the normal process of performing work activities. Forum members shared their own examples of workflow learning. The examples Will provided include:

• After Action Reviews—Building debriefs at the conclusion of a project to discuss lessons learned and ensure all team members are aware of the key takeaways.

• Premortems and Preventoriums—Imagining what the end of a project looks like at the beginning of the project and brainstorming what might have gone wrong or what was successful. This work activity could lead to valuable learning from the start.

• Wrangling and Dissent—Accepting different points of view and disagreements during work discussions opens the doors for diversity in thought, and ultimately a better work product.

• Guided Cognition—Structured brainstorming to help team members come up with new ideas that may be more relevant, practical, or diverse than they normally would have.

• Subconscious Learning—Acquiring knowledge without being consciously aware of doing so. This usually happens through repetition or by following social norms and practices within the team.

Managers and Learning—Learning leaders can play a crucial role and create a competitive advantage for their organizations by empowering managers to help their team members become effective learners. By learning to learn, those team members can be more productive, creative, and uplifting of others. In addition to encouraging their team members to complete available training, Will suggested that managers foster a learning culture within their teams by:

• Assigning tasks and roles to team members that align with their learning objectives, which helps them apply new skills in real time.

• Creating psychological safety by encouraging curiosity and open discussions during meetings, making it safe for employees to express their ideas and learn from failures.

• Conducting better meetings and presentations while enabling ECRA (Engagement, Comprehension, Remembering, Action) for those participating in the meeting. Run meetings to invite safety, curiosity, teamwork, and learning. Ask, “What can we do better?”

• Enhancing creativity during discussions through brainstorming and other techniques.

• Enabling a culture of curiosity and experimentation within the team.

• Coaching better by allowing team members to try things on their own first, followed by the manager’s feedback and guidance accordingly.

• Encouraging a growth mindset in discussions and avoiding pushing team members into a fixed mindset.

Forum members shared their own examples of encouraging managers to support their team in becoming better learners. These examples included asking team members to teach-back, leading by example, always looking at work through the lens of learning, and helping their team members see how learning aligns with their specific work activities.

It is imperative for learning leaders to always think beyond training and build services and processes to support continuous performance improvement. By doing so, they can create a competitive advantage for their organizations through L&D and address some of the problems that keep CEOs up at night head-on.