A Learning and Development (L&D) strategy is a plan that outlines how employee learning aligns with the broader goals of the business. It maps out the training and development that will give employees the skills, knowledge, and behaviours they need to perform effectively.
A strong L&D strategy helps businesses stay competitive by ensuring employees have the right skills, behaviours, and support to perform at their best. But to get this right, it has to start with understanding what’s happening in the organisation – where the business is heading, what the real needs are, and how learning can help support growth and success.
There are five key steps to consider when setting your L&D strategy:
1. Understand the Business Context
Before designing learning initiatives, you need to understand the bigger picture of the organisation to ensure L&D aligns with business priorities and long-term goals.
Start with the Business Strategy
A strong L&D strategy should be led by the company’s overall direction, not just training needs. Consider:
- Where is the company heading? What are its strategic objectives for the next few years?
- What challenges could prevent the company from achieving these goals?
- Where does people development fit into these priorities?
For example, if the organisation is going through a digital transformation, what does that mean for employees? Will they need new technical skills? Better change management capabilities? A shift in how they work and collaborate?
By understanding the business strategy first, you ensure that L&D is focused on what the company actually needs, rather than just rolling out training programmes that may not have a real impact.
Identify Challenges and Gaps
Once you understand the broader strategy, the next step is to look inside the business. Every organisation has its own unique challenges, shaped by its industry, workforce, and way of working. What are the pain points or issues you hear about in your organisation?
For example, it could be that your scientific organisation is moving towards more interdisciplinary collaboration, and as a result, teams from different specialisms are struggling to communicate and work effectively together, which is slowing down research progress.
Or perhaps your market research company is investing in automating reports, and rather than just generating reports as they do currently, researchers now need to learn how to interpret AI-driven insights and apply them effectively.
Alongside these business-specific challenges, there are some common people issues that often come up in different organisations. For example, often new managers have been promoted because they were good at their jobs, but once they take on management responsibilities, they struggle with the people leadership side of the role. They might find it difficult to give feedback, have difficult conversations, or support team members effectively.
It might be that there’s a lot of change happening in the organisation, and employees need to transition quickly, but many find it hard to do so without support.
It could be that managing hybrid or global teams is proving difficult, leading to misalignment, poor communication, and a lack of cohesion in how people work together.
Or it might be that people leaders are under pressure to drive high performance while also supporting their teams’ wellbeing. They feel caught between meeting business targets and looking after their team and need the skills to balance both effectively.
Sometimes the leadership team itself isn’t operating as effectively as the business needs in order to grow. There may be capability gaps at the top, leaving leaders unprepared for increasing demands.
When you identify both the unique operational challenges and broader people issues in your organisation, you can ensure that your L&D strategy is focused on real, high-impact learning priorities.
Assess External Factors Impacting the Business
As well as responding to internal challenges, it’s important to consider the external factors shaping the workplace. How is work changing?
Learning and development needs to support people in adapting to new ways of working, whether that’s automation changing job roles, an increase in remote collaboration, or shifting client expectations.
L&D professionals need to be aware of how work is evolving so they can ensure employees have the skills to succeed. A strong strategy looks not just at what people need now, but at what they’ll need to navigate the future of work.
2. Align L&D to Business Priorities
Once you have a clear understanding of the business context, you can align learning and development activities with business priorities. This ensures that the work you do is directly tied to business success and isn’t just a standalone function.
At its core, the key question to ask is simple: What do people need to be able to do?
When you look at the business strategy and the skills gaps you’ve identified, what are the capabilities, behaviours, and knowledge employees need to achieve those goals?
Framing L&D in this way has two big advantages:
- It makes learning more relevant to business leaders – By talking about business strategy and real problems, you’re speaking their language, which makes it easier to get buy-in.
- It ensures your L&D initiatives deliver real impact – Because everything is linked to what employees need to do to drive business success, rather than just what training courses are available.
This approach shifts L&D from being about delivering training programmes to being a strategic enabler of business performance.
3. Balance Immediate Priorities with Long-Term Development
When setting your L&D strategy, it’s important to balance three areas:
- Critical immediate needs – These are the urgent skill gaps or challenges affecting business performance right now.
- Long-term skills development – The capabilities employees will need for the future as the business evolves.
- Business expectations – Programmes or initiatives that key stakeholders expect to see continue, even if they weren’t originally part of your strategy.
Critical Immediate Needs
Some areas of learning can’t wait – if there’s a clear gap affecting performance, it needs to be addressed quickly. For example:
- New managers are struggling to lead their teams, which is causing frustration and higher turnover.
- A team is experiencing rapid change, and employees need support in navigating uncertainty and adapting to new ways of working.
- A key business area lacks commercial, technical, or strategic skills, which is slowing down progress.
Long-Term Skills Development
Beyond immediate priorities, organisations need to build long-term capability to stay competitive.
For example:
- If the company is moving towards AI and automation, employees will need to develop new analytical or decision-making skills.
- If the business is expanding internationally, cross-cultural collaboration or global leadership skills might become more important.
Business Expectations
In many organisations, there are existing L&D programmes that key stakeholders expect to continue. These might not be the top priorities in your strategy, but removing them could create resistance. For example:
- Longstanding leadership development initiatives may be valued by senior stakeholders.
- Compliance or onboarding training might be seen as a given, even if it hasn’t been formally prioritised.
- Some teams might have historical learning initiatives that they rely on, even if they need updating.
Balancing all three areas ensures your L&D strategy is practical and achievable, supporting both immediate business needs and long-term success, while maintaining credibility with key stakeholders.
4. Socialise the Plan and Get Buy-In
Once you have a clear direction, it’s important to socialise your plan and get input from key stakeholders. In L&D, it can be tempting to work in a bubble, but staying closely connected to the organisation ensures your plan is practical, relevant, and well-supported. Test and refine your plan by discussing it with:
- HR or talent teams – To make sure L&D is aligned with the broader people strategy, including initiatives like succession planning and career pathways.
- Senior leaders – To check that learning priorities align with business goals and organisational challenges.
Socialising your plan has two key benefits:
- Refining your approach – Getting input from key stakeholders helps ensure your plan is well thought out and aligned with what the organisation really needs.
- Securing buy-in – By involving the right people early, you build support and advocacy before rolling anything out, making it easier to implement successfully.
This step helps position L&D as a business function, not just a training provider, and ensures that when your strategy is launched, it already has the backing it needs to succeed.
5. Measure the Impact
Finally, think about how you’re going to measure the impact of the work you do. There’s been endless discussion in the L&D industry about how to measure the impact of training – and, heaven forbid, the ROI of training. But the real question isn’t about proving an exact financial return – it’s about understanding whether learning is making a difference in the business.
One of the most effective ways to do this is through alignment with business priorities from the start. If L&D is already tied to real business challenges, measuring its impact becomes much clearer.
At Willow & Puddifoot, we use our Intake, Insight, Impact model – the three I’s – to think about measurement:
- Intake – Who took what? This isn’t just about numbers, it’s about ensuring the right people are accessing the right learning.
- Insight – What did they learn? This can be gathered through post-course surveys, discussions, and focus groups to understand what resonated.
- Impact – What actually changed? Did people do what they needed to do differently, and how does that align with business objectives? This is where you focus on selective, meaningful measures rather than trying to track everything.
Measuring impact is about demonstrating how learning supports the business. By keeping L&D aligned with company goals and choosing a few key areas to track, you can clearly show how learning is making a difference where it matters most.
Final Thoughts
A strong L&D strategy starts with understanding what the business really needs and ensuring that learning is aligned with the business strategy, priorities, and challenges. It should strike the right balance between critical immediate needs and longer-term development, be socialised to get buy-in, and include a clear plan for measuring impact.
By taking this approach, you ensure that L&D is not just about delivering training but about driving real business success.
We’d Love to Help You
At Willow & Puddifoot, we’re passionate about helping businesses overcome your people challenges. Whether you’re looking to develop stronger leaders or strengthen team dynamics, we’re here to support you every step of the way.
Check out our website at willowandpuddifoot.com to explore how we can help your organisation thrive.
About the Author
Louise Puddifoot is the founder of Willow & Puddifoot, a training provider for those seeking transformative learning and development experiences. With a vibrant learning and development career spanning over two decades, Louise’s expertise lies in leadership and management development. She is passionate about enabling potential and catalysing growth in individuals and businesses alike.