A well-oiled learning and development (L&D) team can be an organization’s secret weapon. But what happens when your team of specialists lacks alignment? Siloed knowledge, redundant efforts and a disconnect from business goals become breeding grounds for frustration and wasted resources. The impact? Disjointed training programs with limited impact, disengaged learners and ultimately, a workforce that falls short of its full potential. This can translate directly to lost productivity, missed performance targets and a competitive disadvantage.
Aligning your L&D team fosters a collaborative environment where expertise is shared, programs are strategically targeted, and your organization unlocks the true power of learning and development. But where do you start? Let’s take a look at some of the proven methods that can help you create alignment among your team and better meet the training needs of your organization.
Step 1: Align on Your L&D Terminology
Before you can align on your methodology or communicate your needs and outcomes to the rest of the organization, you need to make sure that your L&D team is operating on a common vocabulary. This can be tricky, with L&D professionals coming to the industry from a wide variety of career paths — for example, someone with a background in K-12 education is going to describe training differently from someone who came from a corporate background; though both bring invaluable insights to the industry, it will be next to impossible for them to collaborate effectively without the right language.
Amy DuVernet, Ph.D., CPTM, the director of training and development at Training Industry, shared an anecdote from the Certified Professional in Training Management (CPTM) program that perfectly summed up this challenge: “We had learners who realized during collaboration that they had completely different definitions of the word ‘modality,’ and they weren’t able to progress in their assignment until they realized what was going on and aligned themselves with the same definition.”
You can find a variety of resources online to help you establish a common language for your team. Existing glossaries and wikis can enable you to familiarize yourself with the language and concepts used by your peers, and provide a solid starting place for developing your team’s language. A common language will provide a solid foundation for the development of your team and can greatly improve your ability to identify and close skills gaps.
Step 2: Align With Your Business
Like any business function, L&D can’t exist without funding. Securing funding for your department depends on your ability to measure and communicate the business impact of your training and development initiatives. But in order to do that reliably and effectively, you need to have a deep understanding of your business, as well as the broader industry context in which it operates. Strategically aligning your L&D efforts with the organization at large not only ensures that your training efforts are demonstrably contributing to the goals of the organization, but also that your training is relevant to your learners.
Laura Jarman, CPTM, a DuPont Tyvek® Unit Training Coordinator at the Spruance manufacturing site in Richmond, Virginia, said that the CPTM program helped her refine her approach to L&D: “Following what I learned about strategic alignment, I was able to perform a deep dive into our processes, content, training delivery, etc. to determine a path forward that ensured more consistency.” Jarman transformed her L&D function from the ground up, which caught the attention of organizational leaders, who wanted to learn more about her programs and leverage them in other areas of the business to further streamline operations.
Step 3: Assembling the Pieces — Building a Common Framework
Managing a learning organization is a complex and multifaceted process. It involves many moving pieces, which increases the potential for mistakes or oversights to happen. Once you’ve established a common terminology and developed a thorough understanding of your business and the niche it occupies, you’ll be in a great place to adopt a common framework.
One great place to start is the Training Process Framework; developed by Training Industry, this framework is designed to help training managers visualize and understand various processes that are essential to managing a successful training organization.
Frameworks are an essential way to define the scope of your projects. When outsourcing training services, for example, a framework will help you clarify which processes need to be managed internally and which should be handled by external suppliers. You can also use an L&D framework to streamline operations and improve efficiency by clearly defining and managing the various processes involved in training.
A More Unified L&D Team
The potential of a well-aligned L&D team is clear. By establishing a common language, aligning with business goals and adopting a shared framework, your team can function as a unified force, delivering impactful training programs that truly support the needs of the organization. When L&D operates as a cohesive unit, they can create strategic training initiatives that address critical skills gaps, fuel innovation and drive performance — ultimately propelling the entire organization toward success.
Discover team alignment through the Certified Professional in Training Management (CPTM™) program. Download the CPTM team brochure to learn more about research-based best practices that will transform how your organization manages corporate training.
