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The latest content and resources on leading training and TD departments.

Managing the Learning Function

This comprehensive certificate course will prepare you to provide leadership in developing your organization’s people to execute organizational strategy.

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Certificate Program

Drive success for yourself, your team, and your organization by mastering the foundational skills and competencies of a new talent development manager.

Managing in Talent Development Certificate

Managing Learning Programs Certificate

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A weekly ATD newsletter, that brings you current research, big ideas, and helpful tips from the talent development industry.

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Talent Brief

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Transform Your Learning Programs From “Nice to Have” to “Must Have” 

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Why Talent Acquisition and L&D Must Work Together to Find Talent With Key Skills

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The ROI of Coaching: A CEO’s Perspective

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Through holistic research, your learning strategies can quickly adjust while maintaining an underlying structure of what is needed now and in the future. 

Adapting to Change: Holistic Research Can Future-Proof Leadership Development

Mid-sized companies are in a unique spot: big enough to need structure and scale, but often short on resources. You might support hundreds or thousands of employees across roles, regions, and business units—but your L&D team? Probably still small, juggling endless requests on a tight budget.Still, training doesn’t have to stall when things get busy. With the right strategy and tools, mid-market L&D leaders can drive real impact—without extra headcount or dollars.Here are five common challenges—and how to tackle them:1. The Bandwidth BottleneckL&D is rarely overstaffed. Requests pour in, but the team stays lean—sometimes even a team of one.Smart leaders don’t build everything alone. They tap internal champions to help with content and delivery, then centralize materials like Zoom recordings and job aids into a simple LMS.You don’t need 300 courses. You need the right courses that are organized, accessible, and easy to update.2. Budget PressuresAs your company grows, expectations rise—but your budget may not.Good news: you already have what you need. Record subject-matter experts walking through tasks or answering FAQs. Use short videos, screen shares, or walkthroughs that can be reused.Blended learning helps, too. Combine asynchronous content with live sessions to stretch your budget. Prioritize content that works across teams—from onboarding to ongoing development—for maximum ROI.3. Proving ROIIn a mid-sized company, every investment has to earn its place. That means training can’t be a black box.Go beyond completion rates. Are new hires getting productive faster? Are sales reps closing more deals? Are support tickets dropping?Soft metrics matter, too—like promotion rates and manager satisfaction. Visual dashboards and charts can turn your wins into stories that leadership can see and support.4. Outgrowing Legacy ToolsSpreadsheets and shared drives may have worked at 200 employees—but not at 1,000. A modern LMS changes that. It simplifies delivery, automates busywork (like reminders and tracking), and ensures consistency—especially in high-impact roles like managers or frontline staff. Scaling training doesn’t require complexity. It just requires smarter systems.5. Keeping Top Talent EngagedOne of the costliest challenges? Losing high-potential employees who don’t see a path forward.A clear training and development strategy helps retain them. When people see growth opportunities, they’re more likely to stay—and contribute more. You don’t need bureaucracy to build career paths. With the right culture and tools, you can offer meaningful development without overpromising promotions. That agility is your advantage.Where to Start: Make Onboarding Your LaunchpadIf you improve one thing this quarter, make it onboarding. It’s high visibility and high impact, influencing everything from productivity to retention.Use a simple 30-60-90 framework:Days 1–30: Orientation, culture, early wins Days 31–60: Role clarity, key tools, and systems Days 61–90: Independence, goal setting, and growth planning A good LMS can automate much of this and give you clear data on effectiveness and time-to-productivity.Looking Ahead: Train for AgilityMid-market L&D wins don’t come from formality—they come from flexibility. That means mapping skills (not just roles), running short upskilling sprints, and embedding learning into the flow of work.You don’t need to mimic enterprise strategies. You need to stay focused, fast, and aligned with your business goals. When training becomes a growth engine—not just a support function—you turn every challenge into an opportunity.

How Training Leaders Can Solve Their 5 Biggest Challenges—Without Adding Headcount or Blowing the Budget

At its core, modernized talent development in government must focus on equipping employees with the skills to thrive during unpredictable change. 

Modernizing Talent Development in the Public Sector

If you’re still treating learning as a box to check, it’s time to rethink your strategy. A smarter, more capable workforce isn’t built in a day—it’s built every day.

5 Ways to Transform Workplace Learning for Lasting Impact

April 2025 - TD Magazine

What an LMmess

As the ATD audience is keenly aware, merit-based strategies are skills-based. For those who are catching up to merit-based strategies, how are they similar to skills-based strategies? Skills and performance are key components of a merit-based system because they reflect the training, work, and contributions of employees. Unlike other methods of talent management that might prioritize seniority or educational background, a merit-based strategy centers around practical, demonstrable abilities that employees can apply day to day, as well as the upskilling or reskilling training needed to meet the changing needs necessary to have a positive impact on their organization.Heads of State have long looked at government-led skills and merit-based programs as key solutions to their region’s skill shortages, improving unemployment rates and transforming their local economies. England, India, Singapore, and more have key skills-based platforms to keep their constituency competitive in the global market. Nonprofit organizations such as Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation (AGF) launched a skill-based upskilling and job matching program aimed at connecting Emirati and Arab youth with career pathways and employment opportunities. And, in the private sector, DHL is saving millions in external recruiting costs by gaining visibility into skills gaps and enabling people to drive their own skills-first career growth with a career marketplace, and Roche shortened speed to competency from 1.5 years to 90 days with personalized skills-based learning.How can your organization develop a merit-based, skills-based people strategy? Start with three questions that we believe in our 25+ years in the workforce talent strategy industry are fundamental:What skills do we need to drive our business strategy and competitive advantage? This starts by reviewing your strategy for meeting goals and mandates. Assess challenges, opportunities, and threats. Understand what your leaders and people need to solve problems (skills) efficiently and effectively, and create value.What skills do we currently have in our workforce compared to the broader labor market? Whether you’re in the public or private sector, effective strategy and execution starts with measurement. Measure and validate skills through assessments. Benchmark against the overall skills supply and demand of the labor market and identify emerging gaps in meeting essential public service needs. Train your employees to efficiently and effectively fill those gaps. Create employee skill profiles, with AI making this process smarter, faster, and more efficient.What are the best ways to close identified skills gaps? Leveraging your skills and data, evaluate your “build, buy, borrow, or bot” strategy. Determine which skills to build internally, within the specific context of your organization, through training and development. Assess which skills are readily available on the open market and can be acquired through recruitment or outsourcing. Identify existing skills within your organization that can be re-deployed to more mission-critical areas.Skills are a key currency for global organizations and are essential in merit-based strategy, whether private or public sector. They are a shared language, understanding, and measurement for how to best collaborate to solve problems and create value for public constituencies, investors, and shareholders alike. This currency has dramatically risen in value in 2025. The time to wait for a skills-centric approach is over, with transformation enabled one use case at a time. Cornerstone has created a “Federal Guide to Workforce Agility,” which provides guidance on merit-based talent management and development for the federal workforce. You can find it on our resources page for the federal sector, where you can also access free learning courses on merit-based principles. 

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