“When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute.” – Simon Sinek
Organizations and C-suite execs often have one frequent complaint about L&D initiatives:
“Why are Corporate Training Programs failing to the extent where they don’t improve employee performance or help achieve organizational strategy?”
When you peel back the layers of this issue, one core pitfall is uncovered, one that L&D teams often gloss over as insignificant. It is rarely given the attention it is due, but with it lies the cause of an even larger roadblock threatening the global workforce.
A chief saboteur of Learning & Development training programs is the lack of employee motivation and engagement.
Post the 2020 pandemic, people’s priorities have drastically changed. While work is still valued as a source of income, employees are disengaging from organizations at an unprecedented level.
The lack of meaningful work, few career advancement opportunities, a work culture that doesn’t encourage growth, coupled with the stress of surviving in an inflationary economy, experiencing burnout, and the lack of work-life balance, are some of the top factors eroding employee engagement in an organization.
And its impact is apparent in the workplace phenomena of quiet-quitting, bored-out, quiet cracking, bare minimum Mondays, and quiet vacationing, all of which are heavily endorsed on social media by employees seeking to re-evaluate what work means to them. Is there a way to turn things around for organizations? Yes. There is. And the answer lies rooted in employee training programs.
Learning &Development Programs Continue To Remain A Big Draw For Employees
Surveys say that employees value and actively seek relevant Learning &Development to upskill themselves and further their careers. Strangely, it’s the frequently criticized Gen Z-ers in particular who are hungry for training programs.
LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report 2025 offers the following insights on the employee perspective on the need for relevant L&D programs:
- The #1 motivator for employees to engage in Learning & Development efforts is career progression.
- 84% of employees surveyed stated that learning added the key ingredient of “meaning” to their work.
- 68% of employees agree that learning helps them to adapt in times of change in the job market.
- 76% of Gen Z employees believe that learning holds the key to a successful career.
- LinkedIn’s 2023 Workplace Learning Report found that 94% of the employees surveyed preferred to stay in an organization that provided them with adequate Learning & Development opportunities.
If the data is to be believed, there does seem to exist a desire and initiative to learn, but somewhere along that learning journey, the enthusiasm and interest dissipates, disinterest creeps in, leading to lower course completion rates and poor application in daily workflows. These are the very things that cause C-suite execs to wonder if investing in Learning and Development isn’t pouring money down the drain.
This puts the onus squarely on Learning &Development teams to structure their efforts in a way that keeps employees “hooked” to a culture of continuous learning, highly beneficial for the company ecosystem in the long run.
The question remains: What are some practical measures an organization’s Learning and Development Team can take to bridge the widening motivation gap?
Here are some suggestions to help realign and rebuild Corporate Employee Training efforts to ensure employees stay engaged throughout their learning journeys.
Strategic Steps To Take To Ensure Continued Employee Engagement in Learning &Development
1. Spark A Connection
Emotions overpower logic in several real-world scenarios. Leverage this idea to spark a genuine connection between the employee and the learning matter. Clearly explain how the employee will gain from the learning experience and how it will add to their personal career goals.
The benefits?
- Better content retention.
- Increased likelihood of learning an application.
- Boosted productivity.
2. Exploit Cohort Learning
Social interaction is crucial to any learning experience. By maximizing the potential of cohort-based learning, Learning &Development teams can keep employees engaged and motivated to pursue courses to completion. Group projects, team games, discussions, brainstorming sessions, peer engagement, interactive workshops, and bonding opportunities with fellow learners improve employee participation and engagement.
3. Creating Challenging Coursework
Every Learning & Development program must have something of a “bite”. Coursework should provide employees something to chew on and challenge them to apply themselves. Easy coursework and unengaging content cause boredom to set in. And boredom is the silent killer of all Corporate Training Programs.
4. Hyper-personalization
To each, his own. Employee training programs have to come in all shapes and sizes if they are to cater to individual learning needs. Creating training programs in different, easy-to-consume collaterals improves engagement and retention. Also, incorporating a mix of learning principles from gamification, blended learning, learn-on-the-go, and instructor-led training impacts engagement, meeting employees at their point of need. Personalizing the learning experience is a big boost to bridging any widening motivation gap.
5. Skill-Mapping
News skills are now more necessary than ever. With the advent of GenAI, there has to be an overhaul of the skill-mapping process to orient employees on what is expected of them in this new AI era. Defining the benefits of picking up new skills related to their job role motivates an employee since it is tied to their career growth and opportunities for internal mobility.
6. Feedback and Reviews
For any employee training program to achieve its outcomes, it needs to be monitored. There have to be pre-program and post-program evaluations along with a review system for evaluating learners to boost the learners’ accountability. Employees should be free to provide feedback.
7. Formal Recognition and Appreciation
Appreciated employees are more likely to be engaged and motivated to contribute to the company’s goals and objectives. Public appreciation or an incentive program also works wonders to promote an engaged learning culture in the workplace.
8. Wrapping Up
To truly rebuild your Learning &Development initiatives, addressing employee disinterest isn’t optional — it’s essential. By aligning training with personal goals, building engagement through interactive methods, and creating a culture that values continuous growth, you turn passive learners into active participants.
The result?
A workforce that’s not just trained, but genuinely contributing.
