What could a post-COVID Learning & Development strategy look like?

This article looks at the exciting development of L&D (Learning and Development) post-pandemic, the challenge L&D professionals now face, and a possible solution.  

The landscape of L&D has shifted fast since the start of our Covid era.  

With lightning speed, L&D has launched from the periphery of HR right into the centre of core business strategy. As Linkedin's recent 2022 Workplace Learning Report puts it :

In their research they found demand for L&D specialists increased by 94% in July – September 2021, compared with April – June 2021. This is a colossal jump, never seen before in the L&D sector. 

But why now?  

Senior Management teams are searching for keys to transform the Great Resignation/Reshuffle into the Great Retention.

Like all mass trends, there is a combination of factors to consider, but the L&D sector is now being viewed as a core part of the solution. Senior Teams are recognising that L&D is not just an arm of HR but an invaluable part of their business strategy, as they look to attract, maintain, and develop the right people for the right positions in a transformed environment. 

A place has been laid at the senior table. 

L&D pros have been handed the mic to speak to business strategy with intelligent insights from a fresh perspective. Those at the helm are waiting to hear what they have to say.  

With this place at the senior table, the pressure is on for L&D pros to have plans for mass employee mobility and upskilling, and to link these to improved business performance in a changed working landscape.

No one is going to claim this is easy, but it is a creative challenge that could see answers emerging for important topics too long viewed just as 'HR issues' – employee engagement, mobility, satisfaction, diversity – topics now increasingly considered by senior management as vital to business strategy and performance where once they may have been in the background. 

The challenge: How to speak the 'language' of senior management. 

As experts in people, L&D pros know that learning and development lives in a world where primarily qualitative experiences have to be translated into quantifiable outcomes. This is not easy and the pathway to demonstrating the business impact of programs is not always clear. Transforming success stories, which tend to be more personal and anecdotal, into impact metrics is a challenge.

But it is precisely such quantifiable metrics that senior teams want to gauge impact in their business objectives and contribute insights to business strategy. 

The 2022 Linkedin Workplace Learning Report identifies one place to turn for a solution: