In this Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence at Work Podcast, Michael Rochelle, Chief Strategy Officer and Principal Analyst, engages in an insightful conversation with Aisling MacNamera, Director of Learning, Enablement, and Inclusion at LearnUpon. They explore the critical connection between employee development, engagement, and retention, revealing how learning strategies can become powerful retention tools when aligned adequately with organizational talent strategies.
Key Discussion Points:
- The Development-Retention Connection: Understanding why learning is a key driver of retention and how to bridge the gap between generic training programs and personalized development opportunities that employees actually value.
- Strategic Alignment: Breaking down organizational silos by ensuring L&D teams work closely with HR to understand talent strategy, retention metrics, and business objectives—moving beyond operating as isolated islands.
- Building a Learning Culture: Creating environments that support continuous learning through the 70-20-10 framework—emphasizing learning on the job, feedback from others, and formal training, rather than relying solely on traditional course-based approaches.
- Practical Implementation Framework: Establishing foundational elements including talent strategy alignment, skills and competencies mapping for current roles and future business needs, and designing engaging learning experiences that learners actually want to complete.
- Inclusion as a Retention Foundation: Recognizing that diversity, inclusion, and belonging are fundamental retention drivers that must be addressed before learning can effectively engage employees—creating safe spaces for employees to share authentic experiences.
- Technology’s Critical Role: Leveraging modern learning technology stacks to enable personalized development at scale, integrating performance data with learning systems, and creating seamless just-in-time learning experiences in the flow of work.
- Managing Expectations: Having realistic conversations about career progression and promotions, understanding that learning drives development but business need determines advancement opportunities.
The conversation emphasizes that effective retention through learning requires more than just offering courses—it demands strategic thinking, cross-functional collaboration, cultural commitment, and technology enablement to create development experiences that genuinely propel careers forward.
Social Media Handles
LearnUpon:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/learnupon
- Website: https://www.learnupon.com
Aisling:
