L&D BASICS

YOUR FIRST STEPS IN

LEARNING AND
DEVELOPMENT

what to do, what not to do,

and how to thrive in your new role

Guide
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 CONGRATULATIONS!
You got your first job in Learning and Development! We are super
excited to have you join a growing community of L&D practitioners.

Everything’s great… except you are not sure what’s next. This self-
paced guide will support you in the first 4 months on the job with a
plan to position yourself for success. The plan we’ve outlined will
give you ideas of the steps you need to make to transition smoothly
into your new L&D role.

Your first 4 months can be divided into 4 Phases and 10 steps:

Your First Steps in L&D © THE L&D ACADEMY | 04

 Phase 1

ANALYSE
In this phase, your main task is
to understand the organisation
and yourself as a professional.
 Step 1

DETERMINE
YOUR
PRIORITIES
Before you can begin your new
role, it is important you
understand what’s expected of
you. The places to look for this
information are:

The job description

The team’s priorities
Company strategy
documents
Organisational chart
Project plans
Your new line manager

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It would be helpful to meet with your new
manager in advance and ask them some
questions:

What is the main purpose of the L&D role

in the organisation?

Is L&D expected to implement changes or

maintain the status quo?

Who else is on the team?

What are the unique aspects of the

organisational culture?

What would be the best way to prepare for

the role?

What resources (books, articles, videos, other

materials) would they recommend?

What is the best case scenario for your first

week?

You don’t need to have completed this step

before joining the team, but it should be one
of the first things you do immediately after.

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 GET INFORMED
Once you understand the expectations from the role, it’s
time to learn more about the business and then get to
know the key players and their pain points.

Let’s start with a simple acumen builder. Try to find the answers to the following questions:

What products and services does your organisation offer?

How is your customer base different from other similar businesses?

What are the main divisions across the organisation?

What are their roles?

What are the main sources of revenue?

What are the main cost categories?

What are the main customer segments?

Who are the main competitors?

What are the top 3 to 5 trends happening in the industry?

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What to ask What they can offer:

SENIOR Vision, mission, and strategy

of the company
MANAGERS High-level overview of the
organisation
Examples of organisational
What are the organisation’s top 3-5 culture
goals? Future strategic plan for the
organisation
How does the organisation intent to
reach them?

How have the goals changed over

the last 3-5 years?

What are the economic trends that

are influencing the organisation’s
performance?

What are the top 3 to 5 trends

happening in the organisation’s
industry?

What changes (to the marketplace,

the products or services, the strategy)
do you anticipate in the next 12-24
months? Which of these might
require learning?

Who from the line managers do I

need to speak to?

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What to ask
LINE What they can offer:

MANAGERS Operational view into the

company and its processes
and procedures
Capability needs and gaps of
How does the organisation produce individuals
its products or services?

How does the organisation sell its

products or services?

What are the main processes and

procedures that affect the day-to-day
work of all employees?

How would you describe the

leadership and management style in
the organization?

Who are the formal and informal

leaders in their departments?

What are the top 3-5 capabilities

needed for achieving the business
priorities?

Are there any anticipated regulatory

/ mandated learning requirements
for the people in your
division/team?

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What to ask
HR BUSINESS What they can offer:

PARTNERS People- and business-related

insights into specific parts of
the organisation
What division do you work with? What is
the organisation in it?

Who are the formal and informal leaders

in your division?

What are the goals of your division?

What are the capabilities needed in your

division?

What capability gaps exist in your

division?

What are the top 3-5 capabilities needed

for achieving the business priorities?

What are the most critical learning

priorities in your division?

What learning needs did the L&D achieve

last year? Which needs weren’t met?

Who from your division do I need to talk

to about their learning needs?

What is the performance management

system used in the organisation? How
successfully is it used?

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What to ask
YOUR What they can offer:

MANAGER The goals and purpose of

the L&D department
L&D strategic plans, vision
What is the L&D strategy for the and mission, and budgets
organisation?

What are the top 3-5 priorities for the

L&D team in the next 12-24 months?

What is the budget for L&D activities for

the year?

What are the most critical capabilities that

need to be addressed in the next 12-24
months?

What are the main roles and

responsibilities in the team?

What are the accepted communication

style and channels in the organisation?

Who from the HR and the overall

organisation do I need to meet? Talk to
them about their learning needs?

What learning and/or development

programmes are being offered to the
organisation?

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What to ask What they can offer:

YOUR TEAM
MEMBERS Personal experiences with
the organisation and its
people
Strategies for building
What are some of the L&D team’s rapport with business
successes over the last 12-24 months?
leaders and employees
What are some of the failures?

What is the L&D manager’s

leadership style?

What are some examples of the

culture in the organisation?

What are some key skills (technical

and interpersonal) required for the
job?

What is the best way to work with

various leaders across the
organisation?

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 CONVERSATION PLANNER
Use the template below to help you plan your conversations with
various stakeholders.

Date Meeting with.... Questions to ask Answers/Notes

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 Step 3
DEVELOP
ASSUMPTIONS
By the time you’ve met and spoken to all the key players in the
organisation, you will have started creating some assumptions about
the state of the organisation and the place of L&D in it.

Based on all your conversations, consider:

What’s important to the main stakeholders you met with?

What are their areas of concern?

What’s needed to be successful in your role?

Do you have the talent, desire, need, time, and support needed to implement
L&D’s plans?

What should the L&D team start, stop and continue doing to help the
organisation achieve its goals?

Behavior is affected by our assumptions or our perceived truths. We make

decisions based on what we think we know.

– Simon Sinek
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 Phase 2

PLAN
In this phase, you want to focus
on testing your assumptions and
begin creating a plan to meet
your stakeholders’ needs.
 Step 4

TEST YOUR
ASSUMPTIONS
In this step, you want to take all
the assumptions from the
previous step and test them with
some of the stakeholders.

This can be done by:

meeting with stakeholders again

and asking them some follow-up
questions

meeting with people you didn’t

meet previously and check your
assumptions with them

find evidence in corporate

documents, like engagement
surveys, exit interviews,
performance metrics, training
feedback, etc.

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 Step 5

MAKE CONCLUSIONS
Once you have tested your assumption, you should now
have a list of verifiable facts that you can work with. These
can now be analysed using tools, like the SWOT analysis.

Your First Steps in L&D © THE L&D ACADEMY | 18

 SWOT TEMPLATE

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES

Tips: consider the trainings and development Tips: consider the trainings and development
programmes in places, their effectiveness, programmes in places, their effectiveness,
resources you have access to, the culture and resources you have access to, the culture and
values of the company, existing capabilities, etc. values of the company, existing capabilities, etc.

OPPORTUNITIES THREATS

Tips: consider the changes the organisation will Tips: consider the changes the organisation will
require in new product/services, procedures, require in new product/services, procedures,
capabilities, culture, governmental and legal capabilities, culture, governmental and legal
regulations, technology, etc. regulations, technology, etc.

Once your SWOT analysis is ready, review it with you manager and your team members.

Your First Steps in L&D © THE L&D ACADEMY | 19

 Step 6
START BUILDING A PLAN
Now that you have a better grasp on what’s happening in the
organisation, begin putting some plans in place. Reviewing your
SWOT Analysis can be a great source of putting in place some goals.

What can be done to enhance the What can be done to negate/eliminate

strengths? the weaknesses?

What can be done to take advantage of What can be done to eliminate some of
the opportunities? the threats?

Your First Steps in L&D © THE L&D ACADEMY | 20

 PLAN TEMPLATE
Having a clear understanding of what’s happening in the organisation and the
opportunities to plug in L&D activities is a great start for a more
comprehensive plan. Use the template below to facilitate your thinking:

Learning Goal Tasks Owner Deadline Notes

Improve learning 1. Set regular meetings with top John S. Q2

alignment managers
2. Communicate learning Maria T. Q1
opportunities one a month
3. Design an on-the-job learning Sandy W. Q3
activity for Marketing dept.

Again, once your plan is ready, solicit some feedback from your manager and other stakeholders.

Your First Steps in L&D © THE L&D ACADEMY | 21

 Phase 3

IMPLEMENT
Planning is great, doing is better!
In this phase, you begin working
on your plan.
 Step 7
IMPLEMENT QUICK
WINS
One of the worst things about working on a large plan is not seeing results
quickly. To avoid that happening to you, plan some quick wins into your
plan. You want to show that you can deliver. This way you will get energised
and people around you will buy into your plans more easily.

Remember, quick wins are short-term and easy to implement, but have a
guaranteed positive effect on everyone involved!

Examples of quick wins include:

Announcing a new type of Facilitating a group

learning opportunity session/discussion with
managers/leaders

Getting approval for a new

Learning Management Using psychometric
System assessment(s)

Delivering a training Coaching a leader

Administering a 360- Running a business

degree feedback simulation

Your First Steps in L&D © THE L&D ACADEMY | 23

 Step 8
GAIN MOMENTUM
The more quick wins you have, the easier it will be to build momentum.
You want to gain a critical mass of people supporting your plans. These
can be your manager, your team members, colleagues from HR, and
business leaders from across the organisation, both formal and informal.
Here are some things you can do to build momentum

01.
Communicate – share your
progress and especially successes
Provide the right learning
solutions at the right time and to
the right people by carefully
05.
analysing their needs first

02.
Regularly meet with key

06.
stakeholders – dialogue can secure
their buy-in Keep asking for feedback and
make changes accordingly

03. 07.
Check-in with your team – they
Find learning champions or
may have an interesting
influencers throughout the
perspective on things and their
organisations who can help
own opinions that you may not
cheerlead your efforts and
have considered
promote them to employees

04. Make an extra effort to build trust

with your colleagues so they can
support your plans
Continue working on your plan
but change it if new information
08.
comes to light

Your First Steps in L&D © THE L&D ACADEMY | 24

 RESISTANCE TO
DEVELOPMENT
When it comes to employee development, you may also come
across some resistance. Here's how to deal with it!

01.
If employees aren’t interested in developing, then:
Explain that without staying current in their capabilities, they
may be left behind by their peers.
Show them you genuinely want to support them.

If employees feel offended by the suggestion they need to

develop, then:

02.
Make efforts to understand what is the reason they feel this
way.
Clarify that this is about helping them to become better and
grow as professionals.
Explain that everyone has development areas
Discuss all the options they have to develop

If employees want to be promoted but they don’t have the

required skills, then:

03.
Help them understand that there is a strong correlation
between capabilities and being promoted
Describe the risk of failure when someone is pushed too far
and/or too fast
Clarify the need to excel in their current job before they can
be considered for promotion

Your First Steps in L&D © THE L&D ACADEMY | 25

 Phase 4

EVALUATE
In this phase, your goal is to
check whether your plan was
successfully implemented and
what was the end result on the
organisation’s bottom line.
 Step 9
MEASURE THE
SUCCESS
To measure how successful your plan was, you need to go back to your goals.
Each goal will have a different measurement. Check out this handy checklist of
things you can measure. Make sure to write where you can find each of these
measurements in your organisation.

What to measure Where to find it

Hours spend on training

Number of learning programmes delivered

Training cost per employee

Budgeted versus spent money on L&D

Time-to-learn

Time-to-competency

Cost per training hour

Learning programmes attendance rate

% of digital learning offered

% of classroom learning offered

% of 1-on-1 learning offered

% of learning consumed digitally

% of learning consumed offline

Digital learning costs

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 What to measure Where to find it

L&D headcount

L&D headcount per employee

Number of new learning programmes launched

Cost of vendors and external contracts

% of employees with the right skill level

% of employees with skill gaps

Learners’ satisfaction with learning offer

Number of induction/onboarding programmes

delivered
New-hire performance after 12 months

New-hire performance gaps

New-hire job satisfaction

New-hire failure within 12 months

Number of high potential development
programmes within the company
% of people that have gone through a high
potential development programme
% of promotions of high potential employees
Number of leadership development programmes
delivered
Leadership turnover

% of people promoted to leadership

% of leaders that have gone through a leadership
development programme

Your First Steps in L&D © THE L&D ACADEMY | 28

 Once you select the measurements you want to evaluate and consider
where to find the information, run it by your manager and team members
to get their view.

Finally, make sure to review all your findings with your team and even
some of your key stakeholders. This way you can bring more context to
the numbers.

Your First Steps in

WWL&D
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 Step 9

RECOMMENDED
NEXT STEPS

Once you analyse your findings from the previous step, it’s
time to decide what’s next. Whatever you think is best,
remember the old 70-20-10 rule. For learning to be effective,
provide 10% of formally structured training, 20% social
interaction, and 70% experience.

Use the template on the next page to plan through

your next steps.

Your First Steps in L&D 2021 | © THE L&D ACADEMY | 30

 PLAN FOR NEXT STEPS

Evaluation Evidence Recommended

Learning Goal Owner Deadline
Findings Interpretation Next steps

Increase 2.5 out of 5 learner MDP needs to be Decrease formal learning Alice J. Q2
management satisfaction rate less time- interventions by 50%
development Main barrier – time consuming Introduce social
programme constraints elements into the MDP
attendance by 30% Introduce experiential
tasks into the MDP

Your First Steps in L&D © THE L&D ACADEMY | 31

 Congratulations!
You’ve completed Your First Steps in
L&D guide. Well done!🎉

Now, take your skills to the next level!

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