10 challenges of L&D leaders - and what to do about them.

Over the past few years, we’ve collected around 14,000 individual challenges of learning leaders*.

In this edition of 'Involve Inform Inspire', we'll reveal the current top 10 challenges and suggest some practical steps on how to tackle them.

* How do we collect this data?

Every year, we ask attendees at LEARNING LIVE (the LPI’s annual conference for learning leaders) to reveal their current challenges. We use this data to build the conference agenda.

But we capture the responses as free text rather than multiple choice. This often triggers more emotive language from our subjects.

Smart AI tools then analyze the text to identify common themes and feelings.

The list below summarises feedback from about 800 learning leaders. Each person shared up to 5 challenges – a significant amount of data.

By the way, if you’re an LPI member, you get this data and much more in our quarterly L&D Dashboard!

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THE TOP 10 CHALLENGES OF LEARNING LEADERS

Giles Hearn FLPI, CMO, LPI

1. Democratising L&D/Building a Learning Culture

Sentiment: How can I shift mindsets across the organisation to embrace learning as the main driver of performance? How do I create an engaged culture that champions learning?

Let’s begin with why this is even important in the first place. Learning used to be centrally controlled by L&D with structured, classroom training. Now learners want to take charge of their own development. Does this make L&D irrelevant?

Not exactly. While it's true that employees no longer needed an internal course to learn how to use Excel – that ship sailed a long time ago – they still need L&D to provide industry- or company-specific learning, delivered in-house in the context of the workplace.

Nobody expects an NHS nurse to learn about patient care from watching a few YouTube videos!

So what’s the real issue?

This challenge tells us that employees need to take responsibility for adult learning - the kind that gives them a background competence in the workplace (e.g., how to use a computer, how to communicate effectively, time management, etc.). It’s also saying that employees need to feel they can grow and stretch into new areas, without being asked. And it’s saying that employees should help each other to learn; pushing forward their collective knowledge and skills in pursuit of higher performance at work.

If employees can collaborate through learning, their knowledge builds. This benefits the organisation.

L&D’s role is nurturing a growth mindset and grassroots sharing.

What can you do about it?

• Stories! People love a good story – so why not share stories of how learning has impacted innovation and results?
• Make space for peer sharing, coaching circles, and mentoring.
• Recognise those who achieve certifications and awards; gamify learning targets with leaderboards and badges.
• Enable people to easily create and share microlessons.
• Build grassroots programs allowing people to teach specialised skills.
• Use sentiment analysis to spot learning ambassadors and get them front-of-stage.

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2. AI and Automation / AI Skills

Sentiment: How can I use AI to improve learning and gain insights? What AI skills should I build into L&D and the workforce?

Looking at the challenges from last year's conference, AI was barely mentioned. Now it’s been catapulted into the L&D psyche like a flaming ball of cow-manure.

The challenge here is obvious. AI is developing so quickly, it’s hard for L&D leaders and teams to keep progress with what’s on offer. ?Never has technology outpaced itself to such an extent that you can implement an AI tool one week and see it become obsolete the next.

So, it's tempting to hang back until the dust settles before making a commitment to AI technologies or skills development. But is that a good idea when the horizon is red-shifting away from you?

AI will keep advancing, so L&D needs to remain agile.

We also need to remember that we're human, and balance the efficiencies of AI with the human needs and skills that contribute to effective L&D.

And we cannot lose sight of business goals. The most successful AI implementations take into account the unique capabilities of the technology and align them with desired L&D outcomes.

Right now, AI and human intelligence are complementary forces for progress. And who doesn’t want progress?

What can you do about it?

• Automate administrative tasks like course assignments, freeing up human focus for strategy and innovation.
• Use AI for pre/post assessments and predictive modelling of learner needs.
• Enable voice assistants and chatbots for queries and microlearning.
• Analyse engagement data and qualitative feedback to continuously optimise experiences.
• Provide ethical AI training to build understanding.
• Teach core skills like design thinking, computational logic, data literacy.

3. Learning in the Flow of Work

The sentiment: How do I engage people enough so that learning isn’t seen as an interruption? What’s the best way to motivate people to incorporate regular learning into their work routines?

This challenge hasn't been out of the top three for at least 4 years. It all stems from the fact that people who attend a course gradually forget what they’ve learned, especially if they don’t get the opportunity to put it into practice. So, one response is to provide bite-sized learning only at the point of need and not before.

You might be asking yourself, why is this challenging? Well, it’s because you need two precursors:

• knowing exactly what learners need in the moment
• knowing the right form of learning to deliver

According to Elon Musk's Neuralink, we’ll soon be able to read people’s minds - so the first challenge will be solved :) Until then, L&D must find ways to personalise the learning (in the hope that it will be relevant) or to simply let the learner choose what they need (assuming they can find it).

There's a lot riding on this challenge. Workplace learners demand utility and context, and by integrating learning seamlessly into work, knowledge builds incrementally like magic. A little applied knowledge here and there fuels the perpetual learning machine of our minds.

What can you do about it?

• Identify key tasks and decision points, embedding bite-sized learning at natural touchpoints.
• Prompt the application of learning with spaced reminders and celebratory cues.
• Leverage mobile for anytime, anywhere access.
• Build habits with microlessons between tasks or asynchronous opportunities like podcasts.
• Give people autonomy - let them choose modules relevant to current tasks and aligned to objectives.

4. Supporting Learning in a Hybrid Workforce

Sentiment: How can I ensure remote workers get a learning experience as good as onsite workers? What's the right mix of digital and in-person learning?

The arguments for and against working-from-home continue to rage, with some reports saying remote workers are more productive, and some saying the opposite.

But what is incontestable is the throbbing migraine that remote/hybrid working has caused L&D. Why?

Because:

• Remote/hybrid workers may have less access to stuff like coaching, mentoring, and networking compared to full-time onsite employees. Not good.
• They need higher levels of motivation to make time for learning and self-development.
• They are effectively disconnected; working with text or low-res video representations of their colleagues, bereft of the physical micro-expressions and biological signals that underpin human social interaction.
• They learn differently in remote vs. in-office settings.
• It's tougher to gauge learning transfer and impact for hybrid workers.

These barriers to communication, mentoring, and motivation can only be vaulted by taking a flexible, human-centric approach - using empathy, data, and technology to understand needs and create an inclusive learning culture across distributed workforces.

What can you do about it?

• Equity, not uniformity. Provide options based on needs – e.g., recorded videos with chat for remote learners, live sessions for in-office.
• Regularly sample sentiments from both groups and address the gaps.
• Blend online modules with periodic in-person workshops to reinforce connections.
• Consider using VR to enhance the remote experience.

5. Lack of Time

Sentiment: How can I make best use of my time? What should I focus on when there is so much pressure from competing demands?

From LPI research, we found that lack of time was the number one reason why employees don’t consume learning content. And this applies to in-house and remote workers.

We all have full work schedules, conflicting priorities, and increasing demands on us. Our days are fragmented by meetings, emails, messages, and other distractions. This limits time for focused work and learning.

Furthermore, some of us struggle to differentiate between the important and the urgent and fail to prioritise appropriately. Others get bogged down with manual and redundant tasks, taking take time away from more strategic efforts.

And then, there’s outside-of-work activities competing for any free time needed for learning and development.

It’s no wonder we look forward to our vacation time!

What can you do about it?

• Dust off that book on the Pareto principle. Analyse to identify the 20% of activities driving 80% of value.
• Automate repetitive tasks with AI.
• Protect and reserve time for strategic thinking and reflection.
• Build efficiencies through templates and shared practices.
• Take a portfolio view of time investment - quick wins plus long-term bets.
• Don’t measure how long you’ve worked – measure the quality of your outcomes.

6. ROI / Learning Impact / More with less

Sentiment: How do I measure and prove to the business that our L&D strategies are providing value? And how can I do this when budgets are being squeezed?

Let’s be honest – giving people less budget and asking them to do more is bull. So, the trick is to streamline and work more intelligently.

Job number one must be proving L&D value and impact, especially when budgets are tight. So, consider whether metrics like completion rates, test scores, participation rates etc. are going to cut it with your CEO, or whether they’re going to be happier with business impact measures like productivity gains, revenue increase, cost savings, faster ramp-up for new hires…

For example, if you offer a sales training course, measure the sales revenue before and after the course. Does it increase? If so, that's a compelling story for your CEO/CFO.

Proving L&D value through metrics allows you to showcase how developing people leads to developing the business. Even with squeezed budgets, targeted learning programs aligned to strategic goals can deliver significant organisational impact. The key is maintaining focus on true business results, not ‘bums on seats’.

What can you do about it?

• Focus on areas tied to top business goals.
• Pursue low-cost delivery methods like microlearning, online modules, and virtual instructor-led training.
• Be ruthless about programmes that are under-utilised or have low impact. Get rid of them.
• Form partnerships across the business to maximise available resources.
• Emphasise learning culture, coaching, and experiential development – get the company to work for you.

7. Leadership Development

Sentiment: How can I implement effective leadership training with technology, while ensuring executive buy-in, impact measurement, and succession planning?

Leadership training is one of the highest-impact investments an organisation can make, so L&D needs to step up to this challenge.

With a strong leadership development programme, everyone in the company reaps the benefits: more motivated and engaged team members, a more productive work culture, better employee retention, a fuller pipeline of qualified people for key roles…

The list goes on.

I’ve written before about the benefits of encouraging everyone to be a leader. Not in the sense of having a company full of 'managers', but in having everyone influential and confident enough to drive change through strategic thinking. In these times of rapid change, employees who can navigate uncertainty with alacrity are surely an advantage to any organisation.

For those employees who do progress to designated leadership positions, knowing that L&D is looking after their best interests will inspire them to thrive in their roles. As the saying goes, “it’s lonely at the top”. Nevertheless, L&D can provide vital support through continuous development.

What can you do about it?

• Start with feedback; an evidence-based approach. Assess leadership competencies and identify development needs through 360 reviews.
• Execs are usually out and about, so consider mobile-enabled learning over F2F.
• Create personalised learning pathways, with coaching circles for peer discussion.
• Invite executives to share stories that reinforce lessons.
• For succession planning, use AI to model future needs, match rising leaders to roles.
• Nurture growth through stretch assignments.

8. Pace of Change/VUCA

The sentiment: How do I become more agile and evolve my L&D function to deal with Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity? How do I successfully adapt to rapid change?

In 1964, Bob Dylan sang, “the times they are a changing”. He was right, in more ways than he could imagine. The times are not only changing, they are accelerating.

When Dylan uttered this line, new technologies would take months, even years, to become widespread. Fast forward 60 years and it takes only days for new technologies such as ChatGPT or Threads to reach millions of users.

We humans are hardwired to seek patterns, stability, and predictability. VUCA environments are the opposite, and the sheer volume and speed of change taxes our cognitive bandwidth and tricks us into making poor decisions. It's just hard for our brains to perceive complexity.

VUCA also makes it extremely challenging to control outcomes. Not good for L&D people whose primary reason for existence is to generate positive outcomes through the medium of learning!

Skills like systems thinking, scenario planning, and agile strategy are under-developed for navigating VUCA landscapes. We need time to collect and process information, identify patterns, and make the smart choices we need.

What can you do about it?

• Don’t rely on tradition, doing what you’ve always done. As conditions shift, regularly reassess development priorities.
• Convene agile, cross-functional teams to rapidly prototype and pilot solutions.
• Fail fast, learn faster. Set a compelling vision, then empower teams to find the route.
• Get intel from the frontline. Provide platforms for crowdsourcing insights.
• Don’t get myopic on skills. Build capabilities broadly to allow flexible redeployment of talent.
• Measure agility through speed of response and collective resilience.

9. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Sentiment: How do I ensure we have a culture of learning that supports the organisation’s diversity, equity, and inclusion goals, and caters for all employee needs?

It’s astonishing to realise that, only 50 years ago, there was virtually no concept of DEI in the workplace. Decades of campaigning and civil rights action, some of which still persists today, have been needed to open up opportunities for previously marginalised groups.

We have come a long way, but we are not there yet. What we do recognise is that a sense of belonging and psychological safety are powerful forces for employee engagement. Companies now expect executives to champion DEI and shareholders advocate for more representation at senior levels.

The evolution continues, as organisations recognise DEI as not just a programme but as a strategy requiring sustained leadership commitment, employee engagement, training, community partnership, measurement, and transparency. Put simply, DEI is both a moral and economic imperative.

What can you do about it?

• Train at all levels on mitigating unconscious bias and microaggressions.
• Make space for sharing real-life stories and experiences across groups.
• Offer self-paced options accommodating different accessibility needs.
• Build skills like active listening and conflict resolution.
• Recognise the contributions of diverse leaders.
• Foster belonging through communities of practice.
• Provide coaching and mentoring with demographic matching.

10. Engaging the Learner

Sentiment: How can I create motivating, personalised experiences that provide value to employees?

Learner engagement serves as a barometer for the health and impact of L&D programmes. Simply put – if employees are not using them, you should investigate why. Is it the instructional design? The platform? The facilitation? The content itself?

Do employees even know the learning is available? Is your internal marketing working??

There’s a lot to think about here. What we do know is that engaged learners are more likely to be energised, and more likely to recommend the learning to others. They’re more likely to be motivated to immediately apply skills and knowledge on the job. And they’re more likely to seek out self-guided learning beyond formal training.

Demonstrating high value engagement helps position L&D as a strategic business partner. And who doesn’t want that?

What can you do about it?

• Co-create content with employees, reflecting real challenges and interests.
• Provide choices in materials and assignments.
• Foster peer discussions and support.
• Share stories of positive impact that inspire.
• Build autonomy balanced with structure.
• Leverage technology for assessments, personalised recommendations, and microlearning.
• Make it easy to engage with your learning - anywhere, anytime.
• Monitor and respond to digital body language - where people spend time and what they interact with.

Key Takeaways

What do these 10 challenges reveal about the mindset of learning leaders today?

It would be easy to assume that they are demoralised; over-worked; fearful of the future. But this would be doing our leaders disservice.

What this list tells us is that L&D has a wonderful opportunity to make positive and long-lasting change to the delivery and consumption of workplace learning. There are solutions to all these problems. We just need to implement them.

To summarise:

Learning leaders see opportunities to:

• Create agile, personalised learning integrated into work.
• Use AI and analytics to scale development and optimise experiences, while keeping human connection integral to engagement.
• Champion growth mindsets and grassroots knowledge sharing.
• Foster inclusion, continuous learning, and empathy.
• Help learners to co-create solutions to real problems.
• Curate content less and facilitate experiences more.
• Bridge the distance to hybrid workers with creative digital tools.
• Maximise learning when time is scarce.
• Measure engagement, capabilities built, and workforce readiness.

So, help your leaders as they strive for a better organisational learning culture. Schedule a meeting to discuss this article with them. And let us know in the comments how it went!

That's all for now.

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