As we make our way through the second half of the calendar year, we wanted to check in with the L&D community. It’s a great time to pause, reflect, and assess the progress of your strategic plans and projects. People often take this time to re-evaluate plans as new priorities emerge, hit the reset button on a new fiscal year, or let well-deserved rest and relaxation take the front seat. Most importantly, revisiting goals can help you address new challenges and opportunities and clarify your priorities for the remainder of the year.

We reached out to L&D professionals to share what they’re focusing on for the next six months. Check out their replies below, and sign up for Talent Brief to get more insights like these in your inbox each week.

What Is Your Focus for the Next Six Months?

“The remainder of 2022 is about finalizing our internal learning operations while surgically improving two areas of employee experience: new hire and new leader. The first because what we can achieve is tied to how well we operate. The second addresses high-priority organizational needs we can solve in parallel to the first.”

—Christopher Lind, Vice President, Chief Learning Officer, ChenMed

“One area we’re specifically looking at is delivering personalized learning that is driven by skills proficiency assessments and machine learning to help our employees get connected with the most ideal training content offered to them as they seek to develop themselves.”

—Rob Hoitt, CPTD®, Senior Learning and Development Consultant, Leidos & West Virginia Chapter of ATD President

“Compliance training is a top priority right now. We have two inspections a year that are required by the federal government, where we evaluate more than 30 programs. Currently, we are at 50 percent capacity on our team, taking care of 600 personnel at a time and over 1500 students annually. We’re staying busy.”

—Jessica Roberts, Unit Program Coordinator, Department of US Air Force

“Measuring the impact of training and learning can be difficult but is absolutely possible. We need to be more transparent about challenges and opportunities for impact measurement. My work going forward is putting into action that which is possible for measuring impact while at the same time, managing expectations for what we cannot measure.”

—Kevin M. Yates, Learning Measurement Principal, Meta

“I’m taking ownership of setting accessibility expectations in my work. To ensure the final learning experience is accessible can require selling stakeholders on its importance and requesting a little more time for delivering the final experience, as you'll need to conduct QA testing with a screen reader. No more excuses. No more barriers. Let's set the expectation that all learning experiences are designed for all learners."

—Haley Shust, Learning Experience Design Analyst, Salesforce

“The last couple of years opened our eyes to the value of choice in our lives—from where we work to how we work. I’m focused on helping clients incorporate choice into their training development so that every opportunity we create reflects the learners who will benefit from it.

Hybrid learning and blended solutions meet learners where they physically and mentally are, satisfy their want for autonomy, and help us to keep inclusion at the forefront of every training effort. Gone are the days of static, one-size-fits-all training, which opens the door to talent development as a true strategic driver for every organization.”

—Stephanie Hubka, Managing Partner, Protos Learning & Past Metro DC Chapter of ATD President

“In the current climate, where recruitment is difficult ... Business leaders should be identifying their talent gaps and working to close them faster. To do this, not only do they need to listen to their people but take a proactive approach to upskilling.

I am working with enterprise organizations focused on deploying immersive training platforms to plug the skills gap as part of a hybrid approach to learning. Employees immersed in highly realistic simulated training scenarios can gain hands-on experience in a safe, controlled environment. Immersive learning also provides previously impossible methods of tracking and measuring employee performance.”

—Debbie Richards, Chief Technology Officer, Creative Interactive Ideas

What is your focus for the next six months? Share in the comments below!