Editor’s Note: This article is part of our “L&D Reflections” series, where learning leaders share what they’ve learned over the past year and how those insights are shaping their work.

Here’s a 30-second recap of 2025: Budgets are tight; learning and development (L&D) teams are shrinking; and economic and business conditions change by the minute. Meanwhile, the need for training to help our people gain future-ready skills and develop the resilience to weather constant change is only mounting.

One tried-and-true way many L&D leaders have been managing these constant shifts is by controlling their fixed costs and leaning into variable costs. Though this is the stuff of Economics 101, the ways they’re managing it in 2026 are timely, fresh and creative.

Here are a few insights I’m carrying with me into the year to come.

Squad Goals: Right-Sizing L&D Teams and Investing in Talent

Let’s start with some good news: There’s a growing recognition across industries that the learning function requires knowledgeable, experienced professionals — and return on investment (ROI)-focused leaders and business partners understand the value of investing in high-performing L&D talent.

L&D leaders are meeting the business more than halfway, applying their specialized knowledge to navigate shifting budgets and drive targeted investments in talent. They’re demonstrating their value-consciousness with smart, strategic choices between building core in-house teams and engaging specialists for targeted, contingent needs.

With some learning initiatives, it’s difficult to predict at the outset which skills are needed, how involved the project will be or how long it will take. Given their reduced core teams, many L&D leaders have a trusted vendor partner on speed dial to support emerging talent needs. Because they have experience working with different industries, they’re well-equipped to help with scoping, estimating budgets and timelines, identifying talent needs, making the introductions and supporting both leader and talent over the course of a project.

When these relationships work, they help L&D leaders demonstrate their value by doing great work amid shifting budgets and business conditions. When they don’t, they contribute to the antiquated perception of L&D as a cost center.

Here’s a test for your partnership in 2026: Has your vendor partner ever recommended against additional products or services, or pointed out opportunities to economize? If their response is always to add another line item on your invoice, you can do better.

Change Hygiene, Capability and Capacity

The L&D function is a vital business partner, but learning isn’t all business. L&D leaders are, above all, advocates for people, and they recognize that the relentless pace of change in 2025 has taken its toll on their people.

Our people are overwhelmed by the stream of alerts, tasks and tools that interrupt them up to 275 times per day. Among those are grim headlines about the shrinking shelf life of their skills and doomsday prophecies about the future of work.

Meanwhile, they’ve been learning how to partner with AI to boost their productivity by as much as 80% while simultaneously worrying about being replaced by it.

Amid the upheaval that has been the norm this year, change has the potential to become a public health emergency for our people… if we let it.

L&D leaders are starting the new year on the right foot by joining forces with their colleagues in talent management and human resources (HR) to promote “change hygiene” in their organizations. Like any health initiative, it involves clear and compelling communications, best practice-building and plenty of manager and team support.

These cross-functional teams are also working to help their people build their capability and capacity for change. That involves modeling how to approach uncertainty with curiosity, balance the desire for planning with the agility to pivot and weather the change to come in 2026.

By staying close to their people and organizational needs, L&D and talent teams are reimagining their approach to career pathing and the employee lifecycle. From adding developmental supports into the flow of work and exploring nonlinear career progression, their efforts are boosting psychological safety and reinforcing a healthy employee journey.

Additive Learning: Tidings of Autonomy and Joy

2026 is all about giving back: Instead of demanding more attention or bandwidth from learners, L&D leaders are looking for opportunities to make learning additive.

They’re finding fresh ways to reach folks in the flow of work and invite them — often through embedded artificial intelligence (AI) tools — to level up without being intrusive. Instead of being herded through a generic eLearning module, learners interact with these flow-of-work solutions only as long as they need or are interested.

In addition to respecting learners as keepers of their own bandwidth, the most innovative L&D leaders are appealing to learners’ craving for novelty, fun and even humor. They’re challenging their teams and vendor partners to create high-value, flow-of-work experiences that bring learners the connection, anticipation, adventure and friendly competition they’ve been missing.

In the spirit of additive learning, L&D leaders are also reimagining a classic, transforming instructor-led training into more engaging, interactive live experiential learning (LEL) with exciting new elements like multi-user virtual reality (VR) simulations, team quests and gaming challenges, ceremonies and rites of passage to mark achievements, and you-had-to-be-there events that energize and inspire learners.

The surge in demand for LEL has ignited a corresponding surge in demand for professional facilitators. For a live learning event to land and achieve its desired outcome, it needs a great host to jump-start the group’s excitement and energy. A great facilitator knows how to engage a tough crowd and infuse joy into the processes of sharing space, trading experiences, bonding and tackling knotty challenges together.

Let’s close on that high note: As we enter 2026, let’s make a collective resolution to build more space for connection and joy.

As you reflect on your own learning journey, explore how the Certified Professional in Training Management (CPTM) program can help you grow the skills you need to lead training with confidence.