Building a Value Proposition for L&D Success: How to promote learning and development in your organisation 

Learning and development underpins organisational agility, resilient workforces and innovative cultures. Of course, all L&D professionals know this – but many report that their wider organisations don’t always understand the value learning and development creates.  

That must change. 

Earning that seat at the top table requires everyone from entry level to executive to understand why learning and development is important.  The L&D teams that do this best have a clear, coherent value proposition for learning and development that welds L&D to the business’ goals.

Traditionally a company’s value proposition has two aspects – the customer value proposition and the employee value proposition. 

• The customer value proposition relates to how the organisation creates value and solves pain points for its ideal customers and clients; 
• The employee value proposition (EVP) articulates why talent should join and stay in an organisation over choosing to work for a competitor. 

Astute organisations are already tapping L&D to contribute to their EVPs: LinkedIn’s Future of Recruiting report 2024 found that 85% of recruiters wanted to partner more closely with L&D. But citing learning and development as part of the EVP means nothing unless it is backed up by reality: today talent can verify employer branding in a couple of clicks.  

Being a learning organisation requires action as well as words, but the words of a value proposition are a good place to start inspiring action. That’s why L&D needs its own value proposition.   

Your L&D value proposition should clearly, concisely answer the question ‘if I engage with learning and development, what’s in it for me'?

Depending on which stakeholder you are talking to, the emphasis of the value proposition will differ.  Leaders want to know about ROI. Managers want to know how learning develops their team and impacts performance. Talent wants to hear about skills development and career progression.  

Ideally you want a succinct statement that resonates with all L&D’s stakeholders: the organisation, leadership, managers, employees and prospective candidates. 

When it comes to attracting talent, connecting the broader mission of the organisation with learning goals will suffice as long as there are proof points. But giving more detail about how you use learning to drive individual success clarifies what employees can expect.  

Naturally each person’s career goals will be different but there are common threads. Your L&D value proposition should include: 

• How you make sure training is relevant to learners 
• How your learning offerings bolster employees’ growth 
• How you help people upskill and reskill throughout their tenure 
• How L&D fosters career progression, internal talent mobility and achievement. 

Top tip: To avoid overwhelming talent with too much information, this level of detail could be included on your applicant tracking system and/or LMS. A higher level L&D value proposition will suffice when it is being used as part of the external-facing EVP.  

1. Re-position L&D as the strategic partner it is 

Previously L&D may have been seen as a service provider rather than a strategic partner. Managers and leaders might be used to engaging L&D reactively: for example, to respond to new regulations with compliance training or to help onboard new colleagues following a merger. Employees may only expect to hear from L&D when they need to complete mandatory training.  

These outdated perceptions must change. Today, learning and development needs to happen proactively throughout the employee lifecycle, to create a strong learning culture and a thriving, effective workforce. To do this L&D needs to get buy-in at all levels of the organisation.  

To alter historic perceptions, highlight L&D’s impact on the following business outcomes:  

• Equipping the organisation with future-ready skills, aiding strategic workforce planning; 
• Engaging employees and retaining talent via clear career pathways and upskilling; 
• Attracting top talent through an L&D-powered employee value proposition; 
• Helping the organisation leverage a skills-based hiring approach;
• Retaining institutional knowledge via reskilling people in roles at risk of being sunset; 
• Defusing people drag factors, such as competition for hard-to-find skills, or entering into talent bidding wars that push up the payroll bill;  
• Ultimately developing an agile, adaptive workforce. 

2. Prove the ROI of L&D  

Translating all the benefits L&D creates into value for the business is a key opportunity many L&D departments miss, according to the CIPD – only 16% assess the transfer of learning into the workplace, and therefore the tangible difference learning makes on business outcomes.  

Broadening the metrics L&D uses and quantifying the dividends of learning will help gain senior leadership’s attention. The trouble is that assigning a monetary value to each metric takes time. So, to get a faster start you could borrow metrics from other sources. For example, LinkedIn’s 2024 edition of their Workplace Learning Report showed how companies that score from moderate to highly against LinkedIn’s learning culture index enjoy: 

• An uplift of 8% and 7% in internal promotions (moderate learning culture and strong learning culture, respectively); 
• An uplift of 15% and 23% against internal mobility metrics (moderate learning culture and strong learning culture respectively); 
• An uplift in retention rate by 27% at companies with a moderately strong learning culture; and, 
• A leap in retention rate by 57% at companies with a strong learning culture. 

Your colleagues in Talent Acquisition can help fill in the blanks here. If they hold data on the average cost of recruiters’ fees and the opportunity cost of having roles open you can estimate the monetary value for increasing retention and internal mobility/promotion rates at your organisation.  

3. Getting organisation-wide buy-in for L&D  

The ultimate goal with changing historic perceptions of L&D and proving L&D’s ROI is gaining buy-in across the organisation. Aligning each audience around an L&D value proposition helps achieve:   

Define Your L&D goals: Define and state your L&D department's mission and objectives. These could include, for example: 

• Making our people stronger through continuous learning 
• Offering a first-class learning experience to create a first-class career experience  
• Delivering business growth by helping our people grow 

These goals can also be repurposed into L&D’s own value proposition and into the employee value proposition. In the next step we’ll align them to your organisation’s goals.   

What’s in it for them? Be clear on what matters to your audiences. What benefit do leaders, managers and learners get from L&D? Example points: 

• For leaders: the cost-effectiveness of upskilling and reskilling talent compared to relying on hiring and firing. 
• For managers: how offering continuous learning and development improves the skill levels and performance of their team, as well as boosting retention. 
• For individual learners: how completing learning programmes gives them the opportunity to grow their career as well as their skillsets.

How can L&D prove it helps meet its audiences’ needs? Back up your messaging with proof points. For example: 

• Identify key metrics tied to business objectives: Traditional L&D metrics such as participant satisfaction and completion rates do not connect with wider business goals. Collect more meaningful, actionable data such as impact of L&D programmes on employee satisfaction (related to Employee Experience), productivity (related to growth), and retention (related to business continuity). 
• Always, always communicate ROI: Relatedly, always share the expected ROI of any learning initiative, even if it’s an estimate. This helps L&D’s audiences get comfortable with their investment in learning – whether its senior leadership sponsoring a new LMS, managers putting forward their star performers for leadership fast-tracks or individuals taking the time to complete industry certifications.

Create a short, sharp L&D value proposition: Now you have the right ingredients for a compelling value proposition, it’s time to write it. Make it concise, easy to understand and memorable. Choose language that inspires and connects L&D to the big picture – for example, delivering measurable business growth by helping our people do the best work of their lives. 

How do other organisations ensure L&D is part of their employee value proposition to attract top talent? 

1. L’Oréal: One of the three pillars of L’Oréal’s EVP is its ‘school of excellence’ – they heavily promote the fact that when talent joins L’Oréal they’ll gain access to the best minds in the field. They back up this claim by sharing employee-generated video content on TikTok and Instagram.  
2. Shopify: Shopify weaves L&D throughout their EVP. Even though L&D isn’t specifically name-checked in the EVP the company’s commitment to learning is clear. Shopify offers mentorship and coaching programmes, tuition reimbursement, self-directed learning and individual development budgets. 
3. Apple: For an inspiring, different take on where L&D could sit in the employee value proposition, consider Apple. The tech giant announced a $50 million skills investment partnership with the International Labour Organisation, the International Organisation for Migration and global education experts – to upskill people across its global supply chain. That positions Apple as a good corporate citizen as well as making its core business (even more) attractive to talent. 

The battle for attention can be as fierce inside organisations as outside, especially if you are a large organisation with multiple programmes, business units and locations. So effectively communicating your L&D value proposition is crucial if you want to cut through the noise and make the desired impact.  

The aim of your L&D communication strategy is to promote learning and development within your organisation and boost engagement with your learning initiatives. Again, there are three audiences to engage: leaders, managers and employees. 

Consider the following tactics:

1. Executive Sponsorship: In the pandemic L&D had the ear of the C-Suite – now is time to capitalise on that. Seek support from senior leaders to visibly and regularly champion the importance of learning and development.  
2. Take marketing inspiration: Tailor your updates to your audience – always aim to answer the question ‘What’s in it for me?’. The goal is to deliver targeted, relevant learning experiences. Whether you achieve this through manual grouping and careful personal communications, or through advanced LMS features like segmentation and promotional tools to spark the interest of learners, the principle remains the same. 
3. Keep updates regular and omnichannel: Make updates on L&D initiatives regular (little and often is ideal) and omnichannel. People are busy – communicate via a specific L&D newsletter, a space on the LMS, internal company social media channels, or the organisation’s HR hub. The key here is to both push updates out to employees (through email newsletters or push notifications on company devices) and make it easy for them to find updates in a centralised place (intranet, LMS or HR hub). 
4. Use storytelling as social proof: Share internal success stories and testimonials to highlight the impact of your programmes and inspire other staff to explore L&D’s learning offer. Repurpose this content as part of your talent attraction strategy – there’s nothing more compelling than hearing authentic stories from real employees. 

Deciding how to promote learning and development in your organisation and putting it into action is easier if you start with a compelling L&D value proposition. 

Ultimately building a value proposition for L&D helps to: 

• Articulate why learning and development is important for all L&D’s stakeholders: learners, managers and leaders;  
• Communicate that L&D is a strategic value creator in the organisation, tying learning outcomes to business outcomes; 
• Encourage the organisation to commit effort and resources into fostering a culture of continuous learning; 
• Inspire internal talent to engage with L&D’s offer and use learning to grow their skills and careers; and, 
• Attract external talent with learning and career progression, a key pillar of the organisation’s EVP. 

All these benefits foster a culture of continuous learning, continuous growth and continued success – thanks to L&D.