L&D is having a moment: 5 ways to follow the trend without breaking the bank

The workplace has had its share of trends over the last few years — quiet quitting, interesting Zoom backgrounds and “the new normal,” to name a few — but now a familiar favorite is stepping into the spotlight: learning and development.

A recent survey conducted by OverDrive and HR Dive shows that organizations are nearly unanimous in their belief in the value of learning and development (L&D), reflected by their rising budgets. Today, 94% of HR executives are optimistic about the future of L&D in their organizations, and 71% say their L&D budgets will increase over the next 12 months.

As thrilling as it is that L&D is finally having its moment, where does that leave HR leaders whose L&D budgets are stagnant? Or those whose budgets were approved but then got stalled for something seen as more pressing?

For HR leaders with limited budgets, there are plenty of ways to embrace the L&D trend without breaking the bank.

1. Promote knowledge sharing

You have a wealth of untapped knowledge at your disposal: your employees. Setting up knowledge-sharing opportunities between employees has numerous benefits. For one, it helps learners activate their skills. As Cortney Marchetti, director of talent management at OverDrive, explains, “If you learn something, and then you have to teach somebody else, it helps ingrain the learning in your brain.”

Knowledge sharing can also empower employees to lead by example. “It can be really validating and demonstrate to the rest of the team that it’s worth making time for,” adds Marchetti.

You can initiate knowledge-sharing experiences ad hoc (e.g., when a team member finishes a training or attends a conference), as a segue into team meetings, at a company town hall or even at lunch & learn sessions that feature employees as guest speakers.

2. Create a job-shadowing program

Create opportunities for employees to get hands-on learning experience by shadowing different roles or leaders. “If you know what skill(s) your team members are trying to grow, find opportunities to grow them in their day-to-day work, like shadowing others who are really good at it,” explains Marchetti.

Shadowing also creates an opportunity to involve leaders, which could be especially meaningful — the survey data shows that about one in three HR executives feel L&D participation would increase if employees had more encouragement from top management or supervisors.

Job rotations, where employees work in a different role for a pre-set period (typically 90 days), are another great option. SHRM suggests using behavioral assessments to identify what skills employees stand to gain by stepping into another position.

3. Organize team learning moments

Show your commitment to L&D by systemizing it. When asked what they would change if they could change one thing about how their organization approaches L&D, a number of HR leaders said they would set aside time for L&D during the work week. One respondent noted, “I would build in assumptions that 10% of an employee's time would be dedicated to L&D.”

Consider organizing dedicated learning times when the entire organization, or maybe a whole team, is engaged in learning so everyone feels empowered to participate. After all, 58% of middle managers say a lack of time is the main factor that stops them from taking advantage of training and development opportunities. You might even take inspiration from Spotify’s Wellness Week.

4. Host a company book club

Create connection and cohesion by hosting a company book club. To Marchetti, a book club gives teams a common language and a common experience. “After reading the same book, we get to engage in dialogue about our varying experiences, reinforcing and expanding that learning,” Marchetti explains.

This L&D approach benefits organizations looking to adopt specific communication styles or processes they want employees to build fluency in, be it the Scrum method or building a StoryBrand. Employee surveys provide another source of inspiration for book club selections. For example, maybe surveys show that employees are dissatisfied with meetings, so you read a book about improving how you gather, or employees report that they want to increase emotional intelligence.

No matter your situation, there’s likely a book about it. Coming together to talk about it is both a great skill-building practice and a great way to connect employees. Making the selected books available in audio and ebook formats can help engage more employees, both in terms of accessibility (employees can listen when and where it works for them, for instance) and the ability to take notes, highlight passages and look up terms while reading.

5. Encourage self-reflection

Time tends to fly, making it challenging to find time to reflect on where you’re going and what you need to do to get there. Create space for people in your organization to reflect on their competencies and opportunities, enabling them to build self-awareness and choose the skill sets they want to develop.

You can also do this by offering ebooks for self reflection, leveraging self-assessments that offer deeper behavioral insight, working with coaches or having managers send prompts such as:

What’s the main goal you’re working toward? What skill could help you get there?
What’s a challenge you recently faced? What skill would have helped you overcome it?

Trending forward

L&D might be a trend, but, as Marchetti says, this is one trend that isn’t going anywhere. With that in mind, it’s important to remember that your L&D efforts are a marathon, not a sprint. Nearly one in three survey respondents said continuous learning is poised to have the most significant impact on L&D. Work to ingrain L&D into your company’s practices. At OverDrive, for example, employees’ annual performance goals include professional development, setting L&D as an expectation for everyone.