Top 10 Challenges Faced By Learning & Development Professionals
Learning and development professionals are an asset to any organization. It is not an easy job as L&D professionals deal with the human resource of any organization and are responsible for shaping its professional capabilities for the future. The L&D industry, too, like any other fiercely competitive industry, has its fair share of challenges. Ten of the most serious challenges are as follows:
1.Restrained budget
Most professionals claim to be facing problems in their job due to a restrained budget of the organization. Budget limitations occur mostly due to budget cuts. Dealing with such unwelcomed changes and coping with these restrictions can hinder in the performance of L&D experts. However, they try to work their way around such issues and try to find other alternatives.
2.Engaging and motivating employees
Another major challenge faced by L&D experts is that of engaging employees and convincing them to participate in the learning and development programs. L&D professionals require great patience and impeccable communication skills to convey to disinterested employees about the significance of being actively involved in professional development activities.
L&D experts need to take care of each detail meticulously, be it the learners’ needs and professional requirements or their interests and proficiency levels. Using the right software for executing and managing the learning program is also of utmost importance.
Smartphones and other portable devices are mostly used to overcome such challenges as they increase learner engagement, convenience, accessibility, and level of interest.
3.Limited manpower
A constant complaint made by L&D personnel is about the lack of human resources and qualified staff to manage and execute L&D programs.
A full-fledged L&D team is required to run all learning and professional development activities, motivate learners to actively participate in those activities, and also to maintain learner engagement.
4.View and illustrate ROI to the organization
Calculating and justifying a certain training program’s implementation is quite often a tough nut to crack. To calculate and show the impact of any L&D program in black and white is not always considered to be a realistic goal. It is quite challenging to show clients or the management of how a training program can help the organization retain employees or make more capital. L&D experts also need to demonstrate how any training can help employees meet a particular business need.
5.Orient to Organizational goals
Orienting any training program according to an organization’s business goals is quite a challenging task for L&D staff. Learning and development professionals need to tailor the training courses according to the business requirements and the organization’s work philosophy. In order to do so, they need to thoroughly research and survey about learner’s needs, employees’ capabilities, and interests as well as the long-term and future short-term plans of the organization.
6.Educating learners about L&D training
One significant hindrance that L&D staff faces is the ongoing process of building awareness among employees and informing them about the advantages of L&D training. L&D staff realizes that employees can truly get involved in the development courses only if they are well-informed about the advantages of the training.
Learners need to see what perks a certain training can provide them, and it can be done through proper marketing and well-planned promotion, which can be quite a challenge.
7.Convincing executives about L&D training
Winning the approval of executives of an organization and gaining their confidence regarding running any development program has always been a challenging task for L&D professionals. It is important for L&D staff to constantly educate the executives about the positive outcomes and clients’ feedback on learning and development programs.
8.Ensuring knowledge retention
One challenge that is a major cause of concern for most L&D professionals is the retention of knowledge among learners. Most often, employees are found to be interested in enrolling for a particular development program and are willing to invest the time for it. But, L&D experts remain worried about the long-term retention of the knowledge gained through the training.
However, L&D experts try to tackle the issue by encouraging informal discussions with colleagues and making the process of learning as a shared process. Ongoing assessments and varied training techniques also are used by L&D staff to facilitate knowledge retention.
9.Analyzing and choosing effective solutions
A major hurdle faced by L&D experts is the unavailability of a profound system for assessing business solutions. This can help calculate ROI and make effective plans for future projects of the organization.
10.Dated course content
L&D staff finds it a challenge to execute any training program with old and dated course content. If the teaching material is not up-to-date, then the L&D programs cannot have positive outcomes.
Senior Manager, People & Culture at QuickStart
Sana Sardar
She is a result-driven and proactive HR professional with a diverse experience of 8+ years for working within the intricacies of People Management, optimizing HR operations and strategies to other business projects. An analytical problem-solver, with an EQ to coach, mentor, negotiate and resolve conflicts at any given time for her people, has been a part of QuickStart for more than 2 years.