Human Resources Training and Development: How to Build Skills That Improve Performance

Effective development connects the skills the business needs with practice, feedback, and opportunities employees can use to prepare.

An employee misses a target and is enrolled in a course. A new system arrives, and everyone attends the same workshop. Engagement falls, and HR launches a leadership program.

Each response may be useful. But first, someone needs to establish what is causing the difficulty.

Employees might lack a skill. They might also be working with unclear expectations, unreliable tools, or responsibilities they cannot carry without additional authority.

For HR and L&D, the task is to identify what needs to change, decide how development can help, and check what happens afterwards.

That responsibility extends beyond current performance. The organization also needs people prepared for new roles, changing technology, and greater responsibility.

Balance current performance with future capability

Training and development serve different time horizons. A useful plan addresses the work employees must perform today while preparing them for responsibilities the organization will need tomorrow.

Distinguish training from development

Training usually supports a defined task or immediate requirement. It might prepare an employee to use a CRM, follow a procedure, or conduct a performance review.

Development has a longer horizon. It can help an employee prepare to lead a team, move into another role, or handle more complex decisions.

Both can include courses, coaching, practice, feedback, and work assignments. The purpose determines the approach, rather than the label attached to the activity.

HR connects these decisions with workforce planning, performance, and career opportunities. L&D contributes expertise in identifying learning needs, designing support, and evaluating capability.

Use workforce priorities to guide investment

The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 shows the scale of the challenge. Employers surveyed expect 39% of existing skill sets to change or become outdated by 2030; 63% identify skills gaps as a major barrier to transformation, and 85% plan to prioritise upskilling.[1]

These are cross-industry employer expectations. They provide context, but each organization needs to examine how its own work is changing.

A business introducing automation may need technical skills, data interpretation, and new supervisory practices. An expanding business may need more employees ready to coordinate teams or manage customers.

Recruitment can address some requirements. Internal development can address others, particularly where employees already have relevant knowledge and experience.

Build a portfolio around business needs

Immediate priorities may include onboarding, quality, safety, or customer-facing skills. Longer-term priorities may include succession, internal mobility, and preparation for changing roles.

The balance should reflect strategy, risk, and the time needed to build capability. A fixed percentage allocated to each category would overlook those differences.

For example, a company preparing to open new branches may need both capable frontline employees and supervisors ready to lead them. Developing one group without the other leaves part of the plan unsupported.

Give each initiative a clear purpose, audience, owner, and review point. That makes priorities easier to compare when time and budget are limited.

Diagnose the gap before recommending learning

A request for training describes a proposed response. HR and L&D still need evidence about the problem and the conditions that produce it.

Examine what prevents the expected performance

Consider an illustrative service team taking too long to resolve complaints. Its manager requests communication training.

Employees may need better questioning skills. But they may also struggle to find customer information, wait for approval, or work under targets that reward short calls rather than resolution.

Review the process, observe suitable work, and speak with employees and managers. Ask what successful performance requires and where the actual work differs.

If employees know the procedure but cannot act, agree on the operational change needed. Learning can support that change where relevant.

Connect business needs, role requirements, and individual capability

CIPD describes learning needs analysis as an ongoing process connected to organizational needs and expected performance.[2]

This helps keep the discussion broader than an annual list of course requests.

Start with the business priority, then examine the tasks and decisions required to deliver it. Use work samples, quality data, observation, interviews, and assessments as appropriate.

Next, establish what each participant can already do. Two employees with the same title may need different support.

One may understand a process but struggle with exceptions. Another may handle the work well and need help only with a new tool. Assessment helps distinguish those needs.

Define the change and record the starting point

Broad labels such as leadership or communication need to become observable behavior. A feedback skill, for example, may involve describing an event, explaining its effect, asking for the employee’s perspective, and agreeing on a next action.

Define the expected standard and the evidence that would show it has been met. Then establish a baseline.

Depending on the problem, the starting measure might be error rate, time to independent work, repeat escalations, or performance on a realistic assessment.

Set any improvement target using that evidence and operational judgement. A target is a planning decision, not a guaranteed result of training.

Design support that helps employees apply the skill

Once the need is clear, choose the learning experience and workplace support together. Employees need a route from understanding a task to performing it under realistic conditions.

Match the method to the work

A short lesson can explain a policy. Guided practice can help an employee use a system. Role-play can allow a manager to rehearse a difficult conversation.

More complex skills may require several methods. An employee might review a demonstration, practice with feedback, complete a supervised task, and return to a more challenging scenario.

Choose examples, language, and delivery around the audience. Shift patterns, accessibility, devices, and previous experience affect what employees can use.

For a small company, coaching, shadowing, checklists, and focused assignments may provide sufficient support. The scope should follow the need, rather than the size of a course catalogue.

Involve managers while the program is being designed

Managers can help identify the gap and the work where participants will apply the skill. Involving them early makes it easier to agree on realistic assignments and support.

Before learning begins, the employee and manager should understand the intended outcome and when practice will occur.

Afterwards, the manager can observe suitable work, provide specific feedback, and discuss what the employee will try next. Further practice may be needed before performance becomes consistent.

Development responsibility remains shared. Leaders provide priorities and resources, L&D designs and evaluates support, managers enable application, and employees participate in practice and reflection.

Test the experience before expanding it

A small pilot can reveal whether the examples fit the job, instructions are clear, and the assessment measures the intended capability.

It can also test conditions outside the learning material. Are managers available? Do participants have enough time? Can they access the system or information needed for the task?

Ask what employees used at work and what prevented application. Positive feedback about the course is useful, but it cannot answer those questions on its own.

Use the findings to revise the program before wider delivery.

Connect learning with opportunities employees value

Participation depends partly on whether people understand what learning will help them do. A clear connection to current work or future responsibility gives development a more meaningful purpose.

Explain the practical benefit

Employees may disengage because the content repeats what they know, examples feel irrelevant, or the timing conflicts with urgent work.

Before adding reminders, investigate the difficulty. Explain which task the program will help with and what support employees can expect.

The benefit may be resolving a frustrating problem, using a new tool confidently, leading a project, or preparing for another role.

It should be specific enough for employees to recognize in their own work.

Make career pathways clearer

LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report identifies career progress as a leading motivation to learn.[3] That finding supports examining how development relates to opportunities, rather than assuming course availability is enough.

For an employee preparing to manage a team, describe the responsibilities involved and the capabilities they need to demonstrate.

A pathway might combine coaching, a supervised assignment, and a review of readiness. The employee can then see both the purpose of the learning and the evidence required.

Be clear about the difference between readiness and selection. Completing development should not imply a guaranteed promotion where opportunities depend on vacancies and other criteria.

Review progress through evidence

A development conversation should examine work the employee has attempted, feedback received, and the next responsibility they could prepare for.

Useful evidence might include a project, an observed conversation, or a task completed with reduced supervision.

This gives the employee a clearer account of progress. It also helps HR identify internal capability that could support mobility or succession.

Retention may be relevant to review, but learning is only one influence on whether people stay. Pay, management, workload, and available opportunities also matter.

Evaluate learning, application, and business results separately

Different measures answer different questions. Plan evaluation early so the organization can examine whether the intended capability improved and whether it contributed to the original performance goal.

Establish whether employees learned and applied the skill

Attendance and completion show reach. Assessments, demonstrations, simulations, or work samples provide evidence of capability.

Confidence surveys add a useful perspective, but should not replace evidence of performance. Feeling more capable and demonstrating capability are different findings.

Follow up at work using suitable observations, quality reviews, system data, or reviewed outputs. Check whether employees use the skill beyond the training activity.

CIPD’s evaluation guidance connects evaluation with the performance gaps that informed the learning need.[4] The original problem should remain visible throughout the review.

Return to the operational measure

Compare the relevant baseline with later results using consistent definitions. Examine whether quality, error rates, readiness, or another selected outcome changed.

Record other influences, such as a revised process, staffing change, or new system. Better results after training do not establish that training caused the whole improvement.

Where practical, use a suitable comparison group or period. Interpret the findings alongside evidence of learning and workplace application.

If capability improves but application remains weak, investigate support and working conditions. If application improves without the expected business result, revisit the assumed connection between the behavior and outcome.

Use financial ROI when the benefit estimate is credible

Training ROI compares attributable financial benefits with the full program cost:

ROI (%) = [(Financial benefits − Total program cost) ÷ Total program cost] × 100

In an illustrative example, a program costs $50,000 and produces estimated attributable benefits of $80,000. The net benefit is $30,000, giving an estimated ROI of 60%.

Include design, delivery, systems, learner time, manager support, and evaluation in the cost. Make the basis for valuing benefits explicit.

Estimated time savings, for example, do not automatically become cash savings. Revenue gains also need to account for relevant costs before being treated as profit.

Some initiatives are more meaningfully assessed through readiness, quality, or risk indicators. Use a financial calculation where the assumptions are defensible.

Choose technology that supports the development process

Technology can make resources easier to find and progress easier to follow. Its value depends on whether it improves the learning and application process already defined.

Evaluate the intended workflow

Before selecting an LMS, LXP, or skills tool, identify what users need to accomplish.

Employees may need relevant guidance, practice, or a clear pathway. Managers may need evidence that helps them provide support. HR may need a reliable view of readiness.

Test how the platform supports those tasks. Examine access, integration, reporting, and the effort needed to maintain accurate information.

Keep evidence of capability distinct from records of content consumption. A resource viewed or completed is not a verified skill.

Use AI with suitable evidence and review

AI can assist with drafts, recommendations, scenarios, feedback, and access to workplace knowledge. The application should follow a defined need.

Personalized recommendations depend on reliable information about the role and employee. An inferred gap should be examined before it drives a development decision.

Generated content and feedback also need review for accuracy, relevance, and alignment with approved information. Establish suitable handling of employee and organizational data.

Employees learning to use AI need opportunities to practise checking outputs and deciding when human judgement is required. Adoption may also require changes to workflows and expectations.

Keep the approach current

Review programs when roles, systems, policies, customer needs, or business priorities change. Assessment and application evidence can show where a resource or activity has become less useful.

Continuous learning does not require permanent enrolment in courses. It requires relevant support as work and responsibilities change.

The organization should be able to explain what employees can now do, what they are preparing for, and what support remains necessary.

That is the connection HR and L&D need to maintain: development that helps people perform today and prepares them for the work ahead.

Sources

[1] World Economic Forum: The Future of Jobs Report 2025 Digest. Cross-industry employer expectations about skills and workforce change.

[2] CIPD: Learning needs analysis. Guidance on identifying learning and development needs.

[3] LinkedIn Learning: Workplace Learning Report 2025. Research on workplace learning and career development.

[4] CIPD: Learning evaluation, impact and transfer. Guidance on evaluating learning and workplace application.