This week we’re talking about personnel learning and development strategies. As you know, one of my biggest passions is supporting leaders to grow into their full, unique potential. But because we’re so often stuck in a fixed mindset, growth can feel unnecessary or overwhelming.
To me, investing in leaders’ pursuit of strategic and intentional growth is the difference between a lasting organization and a fading one.
During my first supervisor role, I created L&D mandates that required my team to focus on one skill I chose and one they chose. We identified these in early 1:1s, did a quick assessment of where they were, and checked on progress during a mid-cycle evaluation. At our year-end meetings, everyone, including me, would show off how far we had come.
It was a thrill to celebrate their growth and self-awareness. Some skills I never thought they’d need turned out to be exactly what they had been quietly struggling with—stressing to keep things under control.
As our skills grew, the whole office improved: small kinks disappeared. Staff who had struggled to assert themselves began modeling new communication strategies that eased tension during conflicts. A pesky, hard-to-identify snag in our spreadsheets? Gone. Our operations team returned from a weeklong conference with a revamped records retention process, cutting what had been an hour-long task down to just ten minutes a week.
Prioritizing L&D creates a culture that fosters innovation, keeps the team ahead of industry standards, and ensures smoother succession planning. If your organization hasn’t embraced L&D yet, start by assessing your team’s needs. Send out an employee survey to understand how they prefer to learn—group sessions, one-on-ones, seminars, or online courses.
Next, develop your strategy. This takes some research, but you can tailor it to your team’s responses. Compile a list of local colleges offering relevant seminars, hire a consultant for targeted training, or curate a catalog of online courses. The key is providing layered, diverse learning opportunities while avoiding investments in methods your team won’t use. If it feels overwhelming, many L&D providers offer free consultations to help you think through potential strategies (At Sunlit Strategies, we do too—so feel free to get in touch!).
Once your plan is in place, assign someone to track progress and intentionally tie L&D goals to KPIs so you can celebrate your team’s learning. Track hours spent on L&D, identify trends in their progress, and encourage team members to share what they’ve learned. These moments of peer learning can even reveal potential in-house trainers.
Leaders often see L&D as a “nice-to-have” extra—an easy first-line budget cut when times get tough. But investing in your team’s development is actually your first-line defense against those cuts.
Enjoy learning,