Maybe you’ve heard this around the office lately: “Is this an HR issue, or for L&D?” This question is coming up more and more often as learning and development programs become a priority for successful companies. The increasing emphasis on learning can lead to confusion in terms of who is responsible for what–making it crucial for organizations to clarify where the boundaries lie.
Cooperation between HR and L&D is essential for the business to run smoothly. It’s a delicate dance, as there are times when they should work hand in hand and times when one should step back and let the other take the lead. How do companies strike this balance for the most effective results?
HR’s History in the Organization
The concept of human resources began during the Industrial Revolution when business leaders started to realize that a healthy, happy workforce is essential for good production. Fast forward to 2024, as HR department professionals are at the forefront of a new kind of revolution, with concepts like work from home, employee engagement, employee retention, and skill development becoming imperative.
L&D Enters the Picture
Another practice (that certainly predates the Industrial Revolution) is that of training in the workplace to obtain new skills. After all, recent hires at most jobs must first learn what to do. But, for various reasons, learning and development is starting to build a separate identity in many companies:
- A growing number of soft and hard skills that turn over quickly
- Learning technologies that provide effective and convenient training methods
- Higher rates of quitting that require companies to frequently train new employees
- Faster rates of innovation that demand continuous learning programs so that organizations can stay competitive
These factors have translated to a massive increase in L&D funding. For example, according to Statista, US corporate training expenditure almost doubled between 2013 and 2023 (USD 55 billion vs. USD 102 billion).
Will the L&D Trend Continue?
In 2016, the Walmart Academy opened. It is a program that trains employees for essentially every skill that they will need at Walmart. Since that time, other companies such as Amazon and Providence Healthcare have also begun their own academy initiatives.
The goal, in some ways, is to sidestep the college/university system that many people cannot afford. In addition, a general move away from recruitment based on degrees and towards skills-based hiring shows that many employers today are more interested in talent than formal education; according to TestGorilla, the increase in HR expenditure for skills-based hiring programs went from 39% in 2022 to 60% in 2023.
All of this means even more responsibility for the L&D department. For example, the inevitable skill gaps that result from hiring based on talent are often filled through technical and on-the-job training. In sum, practices such as corporate academies and skills-based hiring will lead to an even bigger budget for L&D.
Along with this growth comes a new set of pressures between HR and L&D functions. With a lot more money on the table, L&D managers have a greater ability to hire staff, expand programs, and purchase technologies. As described below, there are many areas where L&D and HR overlap. Ambitious leaders on both sides will want more of the pie for themselves. So who wins?
The Long-Term Case for HR-L&D Integration
It’s true that L&D has greatly expanded over the years – but many HR departments haven’t exactly been standing still either. According to a Josh Bersin study, HR teams tend to follow a pattern of maturity:
- Transactional (40% of companies) – A focus on “traditional” HR concepts, such as hiring, pay, and benefits. L&D remains separate.
- Efficient (30% of companies) – After a period of growth, many companies find that HR systems are inconsistent, so they create efficiency through a unified set of tools.
- Solution-Centric (21% of companies) – Companies begin to recognize that L&D functions are critical for success and get HR to start looking for solutions to create effective learning programs.
- Systemic (11% of companies) – HR teams work according to a strategy and their activities cover four functions: recruiting, training, L&D, and redesigning (analysis and new approaches to HR tasks).
Over the course of many years, learning and development gets combined with HR because learning programs require cooperation across departments. For example, an onboarding process might need contributions from L&D, the team that the worker joins, HR, IT, and facility management. It is simply more logical, especially for large companies, to have a department with a diverse number of functions to arrange for all of this.
Key Differences Between HR and L&D
However, as can be seen above, the vast majority of companies are not at the “systemic” stage, and they keep L&D and HR separate for practical reasons. Far from being synonymous, HR and L&D serve many separate needs. The HR department is in charge of employee administration with central functions that include payroll, worker relations, and recruiting.
In contrast, an L&Da learning and development department is all about professional growth and skill career development. L&D handles training programs, which involve eliminating skill gaps, evaluating high-potential employees, and creating voluntary learning program opportunities. There are many advantages for keeping L&D and HR as separate entities:
Specialization
If you’ve ever worked in an HR department, you’ll know that the sun never really sets. There are endless tasks to take care of, especially for large companies. So it makes sense to allow L&D to do its own thing instead of trying to cover all the bases with a limited team. Learning experts will be very busy identifying candidates, optimizing courses, assessing results, and sourcing experts, With the increasing importance of corporate learning, developing a competitive L&D department is a strategic asset.
Awareness
Workforce analytics has the ability to, for example, connect certain hiring practices with employee productivity. However, the widespread use of this technology is a long way off for many HR teams. Instead, a separate L&D department can report on the learning success rates for various employee profiles as part of their course evaluation process and link those to recruiting standards.
Innovation
Speaking of technology, L&D teams are more suited to experimenting with different learning systems and methods of instruction. It’s a good idea to allow HR to build expertise in their particular platforms and practices, while L&D can explore new concepts in their field of work.
The Advantages of Separate L&D
HR and L&D: Working Together
Still, the basic task of both HR and L&DHR and L&D is to serve the interests of employees, and there is significant overlap between the two departments. The common element for cooperation is tasks that cannot be limited to one department. Instead, they involve resources and attention across (at least) both teams. Here are just some of the activities that can fall under the purview of both HR and L&D:
- Change management
- Hybrid work skills
- Performance management
- Onboarding
- Talent recognition
- Job rotation
- Succession planning
When HR and L&D work together smoothly, these activities are performed much more efficiently, as opposed to the confusion and redundancy that can result when each operates independently.
For example, an onboarding process run by the HR department can involve training a new employee about the use of an internal database, which is a skill and so part of L&D. It makes sense for L&D to design and run the relevant learning program as HR coordinates the rest of the onboarding.
How HR Can Enable L&D Programs
The necessary areas of cooperation don’t end there. Identifying and eliminating skills gaps is vital to any organization that wishes to remain competitive. The HR department plays an important role at various stages of skill talent development program administration; and they would be wise to coordinate with L&D when it comes to tasks such as these:
- Recognizing skill requirements when filling vacancies
- Providing an opportunity for internal hiring through reskilling/upskilling
- Marketing L&D programs within the organization and ensuring the participation of management
- Aligning programs to eliminate overlaps
- Setting expectations between skill needs and professional development programs
- Participating in conversations between leadership and L&D when HR cooperation is required
In short, sometimes HR takes the lead on an issue with the assistance of L&D, for example, in an onboarding process. At other times, L&D is the main address for an activity, while HR acts in a supporting role.
Rules of the Road for HR + L&D Cooperation
No matter what activity is the focus of a joint HR/L&D effort, there are many ways in which both departments can make the process as smooth as possible.
Guidelines
What counts as an HR task, which ones are L&D only, and when is cooperation required? Obviously, there are responsibilities that are purely for each side. But, in the setup phase, it is critical to formally define when a joint effort is required, and who begins the teamwork process. For example, the need for succession planning is likely to start as an HR task once the department becomes aware of an employee who is leaving. On the other hand, when cross-training is needed, L&D will be the first to initiate contact.
Communication
HR and L&D need to build methods of communicating that are clear and simple, but getting started might be the hardest part. Who needs more emails? It might be a good idea to elect a representative from each department to read and send communications, just to eliminate redundant messages. In addition, you’ll need to decide when to hold periodic meetings so that both teams can comment on the quality of the process.
Strategy
A common situation is for L&D teams to plug skill gaps and prepare workers for more complex tasks without any idea of where the company as a whole is going. This might be because the workplace culture does not see L&D as vital, while even HR sometimes has difficulty “getting a seat at the table”. Regardless, the HR-L&D partnership must ensure that learning topics are forward-looking, and it’s usually the larger HR department that is updated on strategy by executives. HR should pass on the message for moves that will demand new kinds of upskilling.
Proactivity
After working together for a while, both HR and L&D departments will build a greater understanding of each other’s priorities and abilities. With this in mind, staffers from each team should promote the activities of the other. For instance, if a candidate at a leadership development course makes negative comments on a feedback form, that might be something for L&D to warn HR about, in case the employee is a flight risk, is being mismanaged, etc.
HR as Organizational L&D Experts
For some companies, there is little difference between HR and L&D departments. Smaller organizations often do not have the need to separate the functions because they have fewer employees who can be handled by a smaller staff.
However, this is becoming a greater challenge. The rapidity with which modern skills are changing which modern skills are changing means that employees need more courses, more often. In addition, the number of skills required for success is on the rise. The ‘one size fits all’ approach is going by the wayside as each employee needs the training specific for their position, abilities, and motivation.
Whereas small organizations could once make do with workshops and mentorships, they now require personalized development, along with learning professionals in the form of a coach or trainer.
Growthspace: The Scalable Solution
Since its earliest days, HR has been an integral part of effective organizations. Today, with the quick pace of changing skill sets, L&D is becoming just as important to growing companies. But some find it difficult to support an independent L&D team.
Growthspace’s L&D platform makes this issue a thing of the past. If you don’t yet have an L&D department, Growthspace can enable L&D programs–without a dedicated team–and yield similar results. And, for those organizations with existing L&D departments, Growthspace makes the creation and implementation of employee growth initiatives all the more effective. This ability is due to Growthspace technology, which permits scalable, employee-specific skill enhancement for companies of any size.
