CLO LIFT: From Time to Value
Reframing the Challenge of Organizational Learning
Leaders of learning and development (L&D) efforts in large organizations are often tempted to single out lack of time as the critical limiting factor.
Upskilling and reskilling are difficult and time-consuming. The enterprise needs to commit more learning hours for its employees. Chief Learning Officers (CLO) need to advocate for this. Top executives need to accept it as a business necessity in an age of disruptive technology. However, in exploring this issue, we have found that lack of time is not the most critical factor. The quality of learning has as much or more impact on performance as the quantity of designated time. Some organizations have found that they are already spending the time to raise their skills. In one major professional services firm, for example, an internal survey found that on average, across all levels, professionals spent 30% more time learning than the mandatory minimum - despite the pressures of client deliverables.
Instead of focusing on time, business leaders and L&D professionals need to think more about value. In CLO council dialogues convened by the Learning Forum, five key factors consistently stand out:
Strategic alignment: The entire body of work of the L&D function is in sync with the overall priorities of the company.
Relevance to the individual: The effort generates real-world skills that raise the
value of employee time, enhances their careers, and furthers their professional and personal objectives.
Quality of experience: The L&D approaches reflect evidence-based understanding of how people learn, and thus favor interactive exercises and more effective learning design rather than lectures.
Long-term continuity: Each learning experience is designed as part of a longer continuous developmental pattern, ensuring that employees keep gaining proficiency throughout their careers.
Breadth of opportunity: The learning opportunities are available to everyone in the organization who would benefit from them, regardless of status or position.
For an organization to realize the most value from its investment in learning, all five of these factors must be present, working together. Together, they represent an organizational learning philosophy: That a company's full-hearted investment in raising the real-world skills of its employees will be repaid, many times over, in the raised value of the enterprise.
A focus on time tends to distract us from the real benefits of L&D. That's because many of these benefits are unattributable. Attributable benefits are those which can be quantified, tracked, and evaluated relatively easily. Besides time spent learning, these include many KPIs related to return on learning investment such as sales productivity or customer satisfaction scores. They could also include overall measures like the number of certificates granted at the end of a program. Top leaders tend to focus on the attributable benefits because they are more apparent in aggregate, but most seasoned managers are skeptical. They know how easy it is to "tick the box" and complete the test without changing behavior or outcomes.
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Romero, M., & Barberà, E. (2011). Quality of e-learners' time and learning performance beyond quantitative time-on- task. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 12(5), 125-137. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v125.999
Unattributable benefits may seem more abstract and intangible, but they are often the most important outcomes, especially in the longer term. They include the capabilities of the organization's teams; its cultural resilience and enthusiasm for change; and the continuous advancement of existing employees into more advanced roles. When leaders and employees see tangible results from learning, in the form of higher performance and capability, then they are eager to make time.
The five key factors have always been important, but they are particularly critical today. The pace, scale and complexity of knowledge work is accelerating. The World Economic Forum (WEF) projects that by 2027, 44% of workers' core skills will be disrupted, 42% of business tasks will be automated, and 75% of business expect to adopt new technology. There's a tremendous call for upskilling and reskilling - for tech skills in generative Al, cloud software, cybersecurity, robotics, and biotechnology on one hand, and for human skills in team facilitation, emotional intelligence, and leadership on the other.
The field of corporate training is changing in response. Historically, the L&D function has been siloed and self-contained within most companies, delivering the programs that business leaders ask for explicitly, in an order-taking fashion. Now, the leaders are more open to ideas because they know they need a more skilled workforce. They also want a faster turnaround. Learners expect experiences with the convenience and engagement of an online learning platform.
The vendor landscape has responded with courses that offer many advantages. They manage the technology, elevate learner experience, and provide access to niche expertise.
At the same time, the downsides of off-the-shelf vendor offerings are becoming more apparent. The space is crowded with solutions. each its own system. These offerings increasingly deliver upskilling online without always considering the risks (for example, the risk of hallucinations or copyright infringement). The costs can add up, many programs fail to deliver results, the menu of courses is fragmented, there is little regard for fundamental principles, and - most importantly - the organization must adapt to what they offer, rather than the other way around. It's all too easy for decision-makers to be swayed by offerings that sound good in the sales pitch, but don't provide the best outcomes in the long run.
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Attilio Di Battista, Sam Grayling, Elselot Hasselaar, Till Leopold, Ricky Li, Mark Rayner, and Saadia Zahidi, World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report 2023, World Economic Forum, May 2023: https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF. Future_of Jobs 2023.pdf
If the history of L&D has taught us anything, it's that this function is most effective when it acts as a strategic partner with a comprehensive approach and as an enabler of long-term value. The L&D environment can be difficult to navigate; if decision-makers aren't grounded in strong learning principles, they can be swayed by approaches and technologies that don't provide best outcomes for the organization as a whole. That's why the five key factors of organizational learning are so important. They establish practices grounded in a solid understanding of what the organization needs and how to deliver it. When these factors are in place, they do more to generate true value than all the time in the world.
1. Strategic alignment
Even when Chief Learning Officers (CLOs) and L&D professionals gain a "seat at the table" with fellow executives, they often remain separate from the organizational strategy where their role matters most - at the line and functional levels. This lack of alignment often shows up as a disconnect between learning and doing. Business unit leaders might implement a new program - a new menu choice at a restaurant chain, or a robotic maintenance feature at a factory. They come to the CLO three weeks before the start date to place a training order. As a result, the L&D design is rushed, the implementation is inconsistent, and the results are frustrating.
The alternative is an ongoing operating model for strategic alignment. The business unit or function invites someone from L&D to be present during its regular strategic planning process. The learning experts are in the flow, interviewing people in the workforce, developing a much deeper understanding of employee needs. They can help identify the skills that underpin the desired transformation, and the gaps where other skills are needed. They may proactively notice areas of growth that require new skill- development resources and start setting them up.
In one instance, a global management consulting firm's CLO leads all learning and talent development projects, in partnership with line managers and HR professionals. These cross-functional partnerships ensure that L&D has a deep knowledge of business needs. It makes better use of the in-depth learner knowledge from groups like HR and talent and aligns projects with goals that further the business strategy.
Another organization, which conducts pharmaceutical research and development, uses KPIs to manage strategic alignment. The L&D leaders mapped correlations between learning and profitability. They also mapped skills to job objectives, so they can identify specific employees who need learning opportunities.
Effective communication is another critical aspect of strategic alignment. L&D may face challenges in overcoming outdated perceptions, particularly when it comes to digital learning- which many organizations associate with compliance training. Employees need to hear explicitly how a particular training or development option will help their team's purpose, role, or function - and how that will reverberate with corporate strategy and their own careers. Endorsements from relevant leaders, such as the head of sales for a sales training program or talent leaders for a management program, can significantly enhance the impact of learning initiatives.
In one professional services firm, the CLO created a development framework for the entire organization. It emphasized that learning was embedded throughout every aspect of daily work. This framework became the shared language of development planning, talent reviews, and leadership communication. Each function was held accountable for delivering against the framework in its own way. Throughout everything, L&D ensured that the whole enterprise moved together to create the conditions for development.
2. Relevance to the individual
Al learning efforts should create capabilities that transfer directly to the job. A new upskilling campaign might find initial success because of visible CEO sponsorship and efforts to motivate people. However, it will not take hold permanently unless employees can see results. Specifically, they need to see how those new skills will benefit them in their work.
The initiative must meet people halfway. It must challenge people enough to motivate them, but not so much that they are frustrated. They must help people overcome the inertia of previous post-program "vanity" metrics, which may have scored people high even if they couldn't demonstrate the needed skills.
In demonstrating relevance, L&D leaders must use a carrot and stick approach. On one hand, these new skills are intrinsically rewarding. There is power and joy in learning them. On the other hand, there is no choice. The world is changing, and the organization is under new stress. If employees' jobs are at risk unless they learn the new skills, they need to hear it directly.
One global convenience store chain with more than 120,000 employees accomplished all this. The top leaders understood that employee leadership in the stores was a major contributor to commercial and operational success. The L&D function conducted more than 60 interviews and a quantitative survey to identify the critical skills that the stores needed to thrive. The resulting leadership training simulation was rolled out to store managers, who found it keenly relevant. Internal champions at the corporate level followed up, supporting the implementation of optimal behaviors. The success of this leadership training was immediately apparent in decreased attrition and improved customer satisfaction.
3. Quality of instructional experience
The L&D profession has gained a great deal of insight into learning quality during the past 60 years. It can draw on a rich, varied body of research and practice. Developmental project staffing, performance support, coaching, internal mobility, apprenticeship, and digital learning have all been studied and prototyped.
The research and neuroscience have made it clear. People retain about 5% of what they hear in lectures and talks. They learn much more from teaching others, and still more from action: working on teams that explicitly put their new skills into play. Employees learn the most when they can act, reflect, redesign, and practice what they do.
To deliver initiatives with requisite quality, L&D professionals must be familiar with this research and know how to design their offerings accordingly. They and their audience must also have the motivation for this form of learning experience. Their internal client decision-makers must recognize the value of evidence-based experiential learning in the real world.
A professional services firm learned the value of learning quality the hard way. It built its own internal university: a classroom learning center capable of training 50,000 professionals in a year. The L&D group had trouble getting people to attend in person. When they did, the learners could not practice their skills as they would on the job at home.
The firm completely overhauled its learning strategy. Instead of faraway sessions, it offered three successive hours of team-based learning, led by local leaders. Graduates could then choose from more than 300 digital learning assets that popped up in the flow of work, and were continuously modified or replaced based on data, with new assets appearing regularly. None were more than 45 seconds long. They included videos, interactive media, voice memos, and library links, and many other modalities.
The professionals loved it; the material was succinct and available when it was needed most. Time out of market was greatly reduced. The L&D team could directly measure the impact on error and quality rates.
In a similar situation, a national healthcare provider turned to role-based simulation training to support a complete systems transformation. The organization's personnel needed to operate at faster speeds and be more responsive to patient needs. Instead of sitting in courses, employees took part in virtual-reality simulations on subjects like efficiency, coaching others, and managing privacy with medical data. In these simulations, their choices led to realistic consequences. The simulations were offered in several languages and tailored to varying cultural attitudes. This innovative method took the place of 50,000 hours of frontline managers' time per year, and it gave people the requisite capabilities. It also provided more visibility into the skill levels of people in different parts of the organization.
4. Long-term continuity
Enterprises with high-value skill development have created a cultural expectation for continuous learning. They recognize that people build capabilities throughout their careers, and that companies which encourage this reap rewards in reduced turnover and greater overall employee commitment.
Continuous learning requires its own form of instructional design. Instead of concentrating design in a few days or weeks, it takes place over years, embedded in teams, apprenticeships, and experiences. It combines in-person mentorship, digital courses, and on-the-job learning. It adapts its designs to different populations, and continually monitors their interests and capabilities.
Some organizations are prescriptive about continuous learning. They embed learning requirements in performance evaluations, ask senior leaders to role model learning, and use internal campaigns to communicate the rules. One multinational pharmaceutical corporation sets an aspirational standard of 100 hours of learning per year. A Fortune 500 technology consultancy asks all employees to commit 40 hours of learning time per year and makes learning a mandatory part of promotion eligibility. A global management consulting firm makes learning KPIs a part of the performance dialogue with every business unit leader. These structured accountability mechanisms send strong signals about the value.
Other companies have chosen a less prescriptive approach. A software company offers employees dedicated, discretionary tuition budgets they can use for learning opportunities. A global management consulting firm provides client-facing employees with charge codes for learning time. It also includes learning in its leadership growth plan, which employees write annually. They map out career aspirations and request opportunities for apprenticeships or on-the-job experience.
In all successful cases, there is a high level of transparency among individuals, staffing teams, and managers about what an employee needs to do to be successful. Some organizations also include other supports: individual and group coaching, tuition for outside courses, and after-action review dialogues in which teams consider the outcomes of a project and how they might operate differently next time.
5. Breadth of opportunity
Every employee will experience some level of disruption in the coming years and democratized development access is critical to ensuring the value of L&D. Access must be available, varied, and open to all - not just to high performers or knowledge workers, and not limited to special occasions. In our research, we discovered underserved populations within almost every organization.
Front-line workforces, where employees are typically paid by the hour or on contract, represent the greatest challenge- and opportunity. In financial, retail, and online businesses, along with government agencies, these are the people who meet customers and citizens. In manufacturing, their engagement can represent millions of dollars in productivity and savings. The organization's standing and reputation depends on its front-line skills and capabilities.
These employees are typically ignored by L&D initiatives. A recent McKinsey study found that 70 percent of front-line workers have applied to career advancement opportunities, but they simply are not getting the right resources or support to advance their careers." They have a high need for training for that reason, and because automated systems and other technological advances are poised to disrupt their work. Current market signals suggest these populations may experience even more inequitable access to L&D in the future.
Yet there are positive examples of major companies that have built their leading positions through L&D initiatives for all their people. One major consumer-packaged goods company uses internal learning as a talent pipeline. It has identified difficult-to- fill roles such as delivery drivers, maintenance mechanics, and data analysts, and set up internal mechanisms that reveal untapped talent pools. During the pandemic, this company rolled out in-depth learning programs to more than 100,000 U.S. employees.
The programs included tuition assistance, an academy for high-demand skills, certifications for skill validation, a talent marketplace for visibility into open roles and projects, and a technology platform that aligns employee skills with job opportunities.
The curriculum includes about 11,000 digital and in-person learning assets, most available on demand. It offers content tailored for employees who are already in technical roles and want to keep learning, as well as other courses and programs built for those who are not in technical roles, but regularly use digital tools in their work. The programs range from short how-to videos to in-depth boot camps in areas like data analytics, cloud computing, and business intelligence. People who thought they were stuck as administrative assistants or line operators are now becoming sales analysts and software engineers. The results are deeply valuable to the organization, precisely because it taps the engagement of all its people. Attributable indicators include lowered attrition rates and high promotion rates, and non-attributable indicators include a marked, wide uplift in the company's culture.
Other companies have achieved similar goals, with less comprehensive programs that still increase range of opportunity. A European pharmaceutical company instills learning into each product launch, making sure front-line employees learn the details of products, role-play important dialogues, and receiving feedback to refine their sales approaches. Another pharma company hosts an annual dedicated week of learning for all employees, including team exercises. An airline created an action-learning experiential system for its front-line employees, embedded in the work environment. In less than a year, 3,000 front-line managers were upskilled with practice, immediate feedback, and peer coaching, spending only 3 days away from their teams.
Where do we go from here?
These 5 factors - strategic alignment, relevance to the individual, quality of instructional design, long-term continuity, and breadth of opportunity - are well-recognized as foundational for gaining value. Nonetheless, many L&D functions ignore them. Instead, they experiment with shiny, new technology in isolation of busi ness strategy. They default to "telling" strategies with subject-matter experts. To be perceived as responsive, they sign on to the faddish recommendations of influential leaders or vendors.
To prioritize value, we need to start changing attitudes and behavior. In the L&D function, that requires three basic changes:
Investigate what the organization and its people need. Invest real time in understanding the strategic goals and gaps in learning. Cultivate relationships with business unit leaders, learner communities, and HR experts to get a better perspective.
Create an experiment inextricably linked to strategic needs. Find a specific outcomes-based goal with a tangible, measurable target (other than engagement time). For example, you might create a project to fill high-demand technical roles
with internal people who gained their skills from the L&D effort.
Improve the methods of impact measurement. Today's organizations possess rich
data landscapes, with details on work, performance, career path and progression, and employee attitudes. Work with analytics experts to interpret the data and
design accordingly.
People and organizations make time for what they value. L&D won't find a footing by advocating for more time. We must frame our work by clarifying the outcomes we are trying to achieve. These might include developing hidden talent pools, boosting retention, building employee resilience in uncertain markets, or sparking innovation in key business units. Time is an enabler. It isn't the goal.
It takes courage to shift from time to value as an objective. Unless L&D makes this shift first, no one else will. As we practice the shift, we'll find that it gets easier. Our own capabilities increase. The courage is rewarded with credibility. Most importantly, the people of the organization finally develop the skills they needed all along - enough to make the most of the time they spend working.
About the Authors
We extend our heartfelt gratitude to all the authors and thought partners for their invaluable contributions to this article. Their combined expertise and insights have been instrumental in shaping the content, providing readers with a comprehensive understanding of the benefits of adopting a skills accelerator approach and transforming the L&D function to deliver real-world capabilities.
The Learning Forum + CLO LIFT Leaders
Brian Hackett, Founder and CEO of The Learning Forum
Meighan Hackett Poritz, Co-founder and Managing Director, The Learning Forum
Noah G. Rabinowitz, CLO LIFT Leader and Candidate for CLO/Chief Talent Officer
Swathi Bhaskaran, Andrew Davis, Christophe Desbrière, and Sara Wasserteil,
"Bridging the Advancement Gap: What frontline employees want - and what employers think they want," McKinsey, July 21, 2022: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/bridging-the-advancement-gap- what-frontline-employees-want-and-what-employers-think-they-want