What are the Top Priorities for Chief Learning and Talent Officers in the First Half of 2024?

iVentiv has spent the first six months of 2024 asking Global Heads of Learning, Talent, and Leadership to share the top priorities and challenges for their function right now.

In this blog, we explore the results, with some preliminary exploration of what the figures tell us about the work of L&D teams across the world right now.

What are the Top Priorities for Learning and Talent Right Now?

At the end of 2023, the most popular area highlighted by respondents was Leadership and Executive Development. So far in 2024, more than 300 C-suite executives, all leading L&D and Talent functions for Global organisations, have responded. We can now reveal that the top priorities for the year to date (with changes since the start of the year) are:

Biggest priorities for Learning and Talent leaders on a bar chart

  • Leadership and Executive Development: 62% (+6) 
  • Reskilling and Upskilling: 50% (+5) 
  • Learning Culture: 38% (-1) 
  • Artificial Intelligence: 38% (+11) 
  • People Data/Insights, Measurement and ROI: 35% (+8) 

Leadership and Executive Development remains the most selected topic, as it has been since iVentiv started tracking these numbers in 2022. Along with Reskilling and Upskilling, the percentage of respondents selecting Leadership has only risen since the start of the year.

Learning Culture remains the third most selected topic, with the proportion largely unchanged, ahead of Artificial Intelligence. AI was previously included with ‘Learning Technologies’ including LXPs and Virtual Reality. We made it a standalone category this year and the growth in interest reflects that methodological change, though an 11-percentage point rise is still striking. People Data/Insights, Measurement, and ROI drop from fourth to fifth position, but the percentage itself is still up significantly.

Why Isn’t AI Top?

Several surveys of L&D professionals have put AI as the runaway top topic of interest. In that sense, this survey is an outlier. The difference likely lies in the question and the sample. On the one hand, this survey asks for current top priorities. Others ask respondents to predict the biggest trends, a no less valid question to ask. Nonetheless, by asking about current priorities, this survey is more likely to focus attention on the actual work being done.

The seniority of respondents may also play a role. Leadership, skills, and culture, notably, are top-level strategic questions. AI, arguably, will impact junior colleagues’ work more directly, thus broader surveys of L&D professionals (as opposed to leaders) are more likely to capture AI users rather than strategic leaders. 

That is reflected in the discrepancy between L&D leaders and Executive Development/Talent Management leaders:

A graph showing that only 30% of Exec Development and 35% of Talent Management leaders highlighted AI as a priority, compared to 43% in L&D

Whereas L&D specialists are concerned about the applications for both the business broadly and the Learning function more specifically, when it comes to HiPo and Executive Development those concerns are less acute. Learning leaders reference using “generative AI for better learning solutions” and “leveraging artificial intelligence to harvest knowledge from communities of practice for basic e-learning.” These are clearly Learning goals rather than business-level priorities.

Leadership, Culture, Skills and Tech Go Hand-in-Hand

AI for AI’s sake may not be a priority, therefore, but new technology is still a key factor behind the leadership and skills agenda. Respondents report working to help “end users adopt new technologies and ways of working”, with leaders needing to be role models for “culture change” in the “conversion to a skills-based organisation.”

Change, even when putting technology aside, is a recurring theme. Change Management has itself been the sixth most selected subject so far this year. For some, that is about internal factors such as a "planned conversion to a skills-based organisation.” For others, it is about external factors in a VUCA world, with more than one respondent referencing “difficult external headwinds” including the “election year” and “global context.” 

Building agility by creating a “culture of lifelong learning” has therefore been top of the agenda for Learning executives. Business leaders set the culture, the culture drives continuous skills improvement, and the role of technology is to enable that. Put another way, skills are the What, AI is the How.

Good Data Enables L&D to Solve Business Problems

Data is the fifth of our five focus topics in this blog, but the importance of “People Data/Insights, Measurement and ROI” has seen significant growth (eight percentage points) in the past six months. The combination of AI and the scramble for “skills-based” solutions means that Learning teams are seeking out high-quality data to support “skills mapping” and “Talent Marketplace solutions” for more effective “skills identification and assessment.”

While some still ask “should organisations move to a skills-based [approach],” others are proceeding with more certainty. Establishing “metrics” to feed those initiatives, “measure success,” and “make it work beyond identification of talents” is a significant part of their approach.

Conclusion: L&D is Solving Business Problems

The focus on data and ROI reflects, in part, a continuing anxiety about L&D’s ability to solve business problems, but this data suggests that Learning leaders remain focused on the top-level issues that drive business performance. Rather than pursuing the latest shiny platform, Chief Learning Officers are interrogating new technologies – whether AI-generated content or complex skills mapping – to understand the data that feeds them and how they, in turn, support the leadership, culture, and skills that the business needs to succeed. 

Thumbnail: 
News category: 
Latest Trends in Learning

More Insights

Ahead of his session on hybrid working and exclusivity at iVentiv's Learning Futures California in 2022, Uli Heitzlhofer, Director of People Learning & Development at Lyft, gives a preview of the topics he plans to cover in this short interview.

Uli discussed the pivot to a hybrid model of work and the opportunities and challenges that presents for leadership, for new employees, and for the business. Read more and watch the full interview with Uli to hear about how Lyft made the transition to a fully hybrid model.

Matt Smith is an Executive Coach, Leadership Advisory, and former Chief Learning Officer at McKinsey & Company. Speaking to iVentiv's Temi B, Matt discussed the habits that make a successful learner, techniques for developing intentional learning, plus ideas to help CLOs work with business leaders. For Chief Learning Officers, these are perennial questions, but Matt says they are tractable ones as well. To find out more about Matt's tips for creating a culture of intentional learning, read and watch the full interview.

iVentiv events are all about community and collaboration. By bringing together senior executives from global companies to share knowledge, iVentiv provides the platform for you to connect with peers in the same roles and take away new ideas that make a real business impact. Over the years, we have been very fortunate to bring that conversation to some of the world's most iconic corporate venues.

Corporate hosts enhance the iVentiv experience by providing inspiring spaces to connect and develop. A fresh environment and a different business culture helps participants think about their challenges in new ways. In short, hosts inspire the iVentiv community to experiment, innovate, and do more. Find out more about hosting iVentiv here.

Events, conferences, expos, seminars. Whatever you want to call them. Attending is one of the best ways to meet decision-makers in big companies and do some networking, whether that's Chief Learning Officers, Heads of Talent, or Executive Development leaders.

But there are a lot of events out there, and making the most of them is tough. To get started, read iVentiv's top ten tips for networking with decision-makers at events and conferences.

Leadership is about so much more than KPIs and performance.

Derek Bruce has recently joined DSM as Global Lead, Performance Management and Learning Strategy. In this interview with iVentiv, he talks about the skills that leaders need in 2022 to make sure they can support individuals in the way they bring themselves to work. He talks about mindfulness, succession development, and especially purpose. These are the skills that Derek says are going to be especially important going forward, and in the full interview he gives his advice on how to go about it.

On 1 December 2021, Theresa Cook, EMEA Talent Development Head for TikTok and ByteDance, and her team attended a Town Hall where they were told that the talent development global function was being made redundant. "Now, in any organisation that is quite a shock," Theresa recalls, "however, in a startup organisation, which I did sign up for, I also knew that these are the kind of things that might potentially happen." Find out more about how Theresa lept into action.

Skills, reskilling and upskilling are high on the CLO agenda right now. Peter Sheppard is Head of Global L&D Ecosystem at Ericsson. In this video, he talks about how to demonstrate the value of skills in your organisation and how to tie your reskilling efforts to key business goals. Watch and read the full interview here.

In the first of iVentiv's 'Five minutes with' series, Charles Jennings, Co-Founder of the 70:20:10 Institute and a member of the iVentiv Advisory Board, spoke about the key skills and challenges that CLOs need to focus on right now. Charles shares his insights and ideas on how CLOs can build communities to manage change. Watch the full video to find out more.

Gorana Sandric is the former Head of Group Talent Development for the Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company and a HR Leadership Development Consultant and Executive Coach. In this blog, she reflects on some of her main takeaways from iVentiv's Talent Management Europe Virtual Knowledge Exchange. Read the full blog to find out more.

Pages