L&D: What Is Learning and Development?

Key takeaways

L&D is a continuous process that helps your employees improve their skills and provides them with opportunities for professional growth.

• In LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report, survey respondents reported that providing learning opportunities was the number one strategy for employee retention [1]. 

• Implementing learning and development programs can help you attract and retain skilled talent, boost employee motivation and engagement, increase team skills, and align culture and brand values.

• You can create an effective L&D strategy by considering your organization’s needs, setting strong learning goals, determining what and how your team will learn, and measuring progress.

Explore the meaning of L&D programs, how they can benefit your company, and how you can create an effective L&D strategy for your organization. As you invest in employee learning and development, consider Coursera for Business to provide your workforce with flexible learning opportunities, including expert-led courses, Guided Projects, and Professional Certificates designed to help employees develop in-demand technical and workplace skills.

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What is L&D?

L&D, or learning and development, is a continuous process that helps your employees improve their skills and provides them with opportunities for professional growth. Learning involves gaining knowledge and skills that enhance job performance, while development deepens knowledge to support long-term career goals. A robust L&D strategy can help you reduce turnover while cultivating a more skilled workforce and strengthening a value-based company culture. 

Learning and development programs often start with onboarding and new hire programs and include all other ongoing skills training or professional development offered to staff. L&D can help your staff strengthen their interpersonal skills, learn new skills specific to their profession, and develop the capability to drive success at an organizational level. 

Read more: Unlocking Success through Employee Development: An In-Depth Guide

Types of learning and development 

Learning and development can take many forms, including: 

• On-the-job training: This kind of learning and development offers your employees the skills they need for essential tasks they will complete in their role while they’re doing their job. On-the-job training can also be a part of the onboarding and orientation process.

• Mentorship: Learning and development can happen in one-on-one settings or coaching or mentoring relationships, where employees receive personalized guidance from a senior leader or experienced colleague.

• Formal training: This L&D category refers to structured classes where learners are often eligible for a credential or certificate after completion. A subject-matter expert might lead online or in-person classes or lectures that have well-defined learning objectives.

An L&D strategy can also incorporate different training categories, such as training on new products and services, safety training, skill-building, and team training.

L&D core objectives and benefits

Employee development programs and training your employees through L&D initiatives offer at least four main benefits: attracting and retaining a skilled workforce, increasing employee engagement, providing your workforce with additional skills to close skill gaps, and developing a value-based culture and brand. Examine how a learning and development strategy encourages these core objectives that can benefit your organization.

Attract and retain a skilled workforce.

Globally, companies need help retaining a workforce amid an increasing talent shortage. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects labor force participation to fall by roughly 1.5 percent between 2024 and 2034 [2]. In an increasingly competitive environment, offering a learning and development program can help you stand out as a company that people want to work for. Today’s workforce typically takes learning and development into their own hands and leverages it into better positions elsewhere. By offering built-in L&D opportunities, you can help your employees grow where they are.

Boost team motivation and engagement.

In LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report, survey respondents revealed that providing learning opportunities was the number one strategy for employee retention [1]. Additionally, the report noted that upskilling and learning helped employees feel valued and engaged, and motivated them to stay with their company longer.

LinkedIn also reported that employee engagement was the most common way for learning and development leaders to measure the impact of career development initiatives [1]. Offering a robust learning and development strategy can help your employees feel valued, productive, and satisfied, increasing their engagement and motivation for success.

Increase team skills and close skills gaps.

Learning and development initiatives enable you to help your team improve and add to their skills. Your employees are one of your company’s greatest assets, and investing time and resources into their capabilities will typically yield a return in time. Investing in your employees' abilities to do their work more effectively makes sense. However, L&D can also help you prepare employees to take leadership roles or earn promotions into more skilled positions. 

Additionally, L&D can help your company keep pace with technological advancements and dynamic business landscapes. Upskilling employees in critical technical and workplace skills can help them adapt to future organizational needs and close skills gaps.

Above the work your employees complete, L&D can provide resources for developing workplace and interpersonal skills and increasing harmony and collaboration among staff. A robust learning and development strategy can also improve your employees’ mental well-being and happiness, which often directly impacts the results they deliver.

Align culture and brand with values.

L&D programs help create a sense of community within your workplace. Culture starts from leadership and works its way down to all levels of an organization. When your company makes learning and development a priority, you can demonstrate the values that are most important to your company and that you're willing to invest in your employees, thus attracting skilled talent.

How to create an effective L&D strategy

An effective learning and development strategy is tailored to your workforce's specific needs, with clear and measurable objectives that you can adapt over time as the needs of your employees change. According to the 25 Best Practices in Learning and Talent Development by Nick van Dam, you can outline this process in several steps [2]:

Understand your organization’s needs, values, and strategies.

The first step in crafting an L&D strategy is to look at what your workplace currently needs. Consider what your company’s goals and objectives are. Evaluate the skills represented in your workforce and look for gaps. Look for ways to strengthen and reinforce the values most important to your company. Careful analysis in this first step can help you focus on what learning and development initiatives will have the most impact for the time and money you'll invest in them.

Set strong goals for learning.

In this step, you will determine learning objectives. What outcome do you want your L&D to have? What will success look like after implementing L&D? Make sure you set SMART goals: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.

Determine what and how your team will learn.

Consider what content your organization will learn, and how they will engage with it. This could include creating materials or selecting pre-created materials. Additionally, create learner profiles for different staff positions to help you better understand how your employees prefer to obtain information. Examples of learning methods include lectures, seminars, workshops, case studies, games, and coaching.

Measure progress and gather feedback.

After a learning session, evaluate your results and compare them to your goals. Determine what worked well and what needs improvement for the next learning session. After this step, you will return to step one and reevaluate your staff to look for subsequent learning and development opportunities.

Upskill your team with Coursera

With Coursera for Business, your employees will gain access to content from 350+ leading universities and industry partners, where they can build real-world experience with innovative skills, tools, and technologies while earning globally recognized credentials. Our customizable, scalable learning solutions balance workplace and technical skills training in diverse formats, from video clips to Guided Projects and Professional Certificates.

• Success Stories: Hear from business leaders and Enterprise learners about Coursera’s impact on career outcomes.

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• Coursera for Teams: Training a smaller team? Explore Coursera for Teams, designed to meet the needs of teams with five to 125 employees.

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