What employees do not like about L&D opportunities: and six learning strategies to win them back

Abstract

Purpose

To highlight six commonly cited employee criticism of learning and development initiatives in organisations and recommend six innovative learning and development strategies that counter the common criticisms.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is based on a finding of an international survey of 517 white-collar employees with regards to learning and development in their organizations.

Findings

Employees appear to have numerous complaints about the learning and development opportunities they experience at work. Often learning and development specialists may never know what these grievances are. There is a range of inexpensive and easy to implement alternate strategies that overcome the commonest complaints of employees as reflected in the survey.

Practical implications

The paper offers a description of six practical learning and development strategies that organizations can adopt to help develop their employees. The paper also provides practical advice on getting management support for these new initiatives. Organizations could save time, money and effort on the learning and development activities.

Originality/value

An important finding of a recently concluded international study of significant size is shared in the paper. The paper presents empirical evidence of an under-researched but important topic and also forwards several innovative suggestions to address the central concern of the paper's topic.

Citation

James Davis, P. (2014), "What employees do not like about L&D opportunities: and six learning strategies to win them back", Development and Learning in Organizations, Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 14-16. https://doi.org/10.1108/DLO-09-2013-0075