Learning And Development Practitioners in Organisations: Organising, Belonging, Learning And Performing Tensions

I first address the organising tension or what Smith & Lewis (2011) call the “organising paradox” that is embedded in the way in which L&D practitioners perform their roles. In the context of the L&D role, this paradox highlights tensions around the structuring of L&D, including devolution to the line versus centralised control, collaboration and co-creation versus control and mandated L&D approaches (Lewis, 2000). These organising paradoxes bring to the fore key debates about whether the L&D role should be operational or strategic in focus or achieve some blend of both. A major area of controversy concerns whether L&D role holders should transition to be strategic, as envisaged in the HRD and strategic L&D (Crawshaw et al., 2020; Garavan 2007) literatures or continue to be operational. The call to become more strategic is fraught with problems for L&D practitioners including questions around what it means to be “strategic.” Garavan (2007) for example, suggested that to be strategic requires that the L&D role contribute to both the formulation and implementation of business strategy in organisations. From a practice perspective, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD, 2022) defines a learning and development strategy as one that sets out the workforce capabilities, skills and competencies required to realise the effective execution or implementation of strategy. This definition is largely silent on the role of L&D practitioners in formulating strategy. The research suggests that the L&D role because of its structural position within organisations, is less likely to be involved in strategy formulation, with this role usually performed by the HR director or Vice President.

There are also debates as to whether the L&D role has the bandwidth and scope to be involved in both strategy formulation and implementation, and that its more natural home may be in the area of implementation. Normative models such as those proposed by Ulrich (1997) and Ulrich et al. (2008) envisaged that components of the HR role, including learning and development, should include operational and strategic dimensions. In this context, Garavan et al. (2020) found that L&D practitioners were much more successful in executing the operational dimensions of L&D work and less successful with the strategic L&D. For example, L&D professions are frequently pulled into operational type activities and many are therefore very comfortable in this mode of operation. In addition, L&D has long had problems with its professional status in organisations and this issue was acknowledged in the seminal textbooks on training and development (e.g., Kenney et al., 1979; Harrison, 2005). It is argued that because of the positioning of L&D practitioners in organisations, they are not well placed to send signals to senior management about the importance of L&D and the need to upgrade the function.

L&D practitioners have taken actions to enhance their legitimacy and show progress towards evolving to a strategic role. One such step has involved positioning L&D as a centre of expertise (Ulrich, 1989). This is a common approach in MNCs where L&D is organised around a number of areas of expertise including competency development, technical training, leadership development and talent development (Caligiuri et al., 2005; Cox & Warner, 2013; Jaiswal et al., 2022). These centres of expertise are tasked with designing best-in-class learning and development solutions that can be leveraged throughout the MNC to enhance capability. Second, a significant amount of operational learning and development is now devolved to line managers. Managers are expected to engage in developing their team, including coaching and learning on the job. In this context, L&D practitioners are expected to facilitate the upskilling of line managers so that they can perform these tasks effectively (Blayney et al., 2020; Kurdi-Nakra et al., 2022). This approach is not without its challenges because managers often have significant skill deficits when it comes to performing a development role, coupled with, in some cases, a lack of commitment to do so. While organisations have taken steps to address these line manager skill and motivation issues, a more persistent and intractable problem exists where line mangers experience difficulties in taking on a HR or learning and development role identity (Kou et al., 2022). Overall, the evidence on the effectiveness of the devolution of the operational aspects of L&D is inconclusive.

L&D practitioners increasingly engage with issues around collaboration and co-creation (CIPD, 2023). There is increasing evidence that L&D practitioners are now expected to work in collaboration with other functions to ensure delivery on business-critical issues. These include working with line managers, collaborating with employees and engaging with senior leaders to develop customised learning and development solutions. L&D is also to the forefront when it comes to the outsourcing of learning and development with different forms of outsourcing used including business process outsourcing, contracting and licensing (Patel et al., 2019). Business process outsourcing can be comprehensive or selective, with the former focused on the full set of learning and development processes and the latter involving a small number of processes. Contracting is the most common method used and focuses on specific L&D tasks such as programme design and delivery. Licencing is increasingly common and involves the purchasing of access to learning materials. There are however questions as to its impact on the in-house L&D function and the strategic focus of the L&D role. For example, Glasiter (2014) argued that outsourcing may limit the ability of the L&D function to benefit from skill development and this diminishes the strategic impact of the function. In a similar vein, Sim et al. (2012) concluded that outsourcing of the HR function in general has not added value strategically and resulted in a better positioned function to deliver value to the organisation.

L&D practitioners have undertaken automation of operational L&D tasks as a way of addressing the operational-strategic tension. These include the automation of course registration and the nomination process, course evaluations and course participation tracking. MNCs and large public sector organisations have automated components of L&D and make the argument that by automating administrative tasks, L&D practitioners therefore have more scope to a strategic role and contribute to the implementation of business strategies (Garavan et al., 2020). L&D practitioners have also taken steps to enhance their occupational and professional status. A common refrain in the early years of the evolution of learning and development as a profession focused on criticism that those who occupied L&D roles were very administratively focused. It was argued that they were not sufficiently skilled to work on more complex HR areas including employee relations and reward management. This has changed significantly with the introduction of professional masters programmes in learning and development and important work by the CIPD in the UK, ATD and AHRD in the USA and the Learning and Development Institute (formally IITD) in Ireland. These educational and professionalisation efforts have elevated the importance of L&D expertise, business acumen, consultancy skills, financial acumen, change management and strategic awareness (Garavan et al., 2020) and enhanced the legitimacy of the L&D role. They have allowed L&D practitioners to be perform strategic partner roles and contribute to organisational performance (Cayrat & Boxall, 2023).

The tensions that I have discussed so far arise from the contradictory demands placed on the L&D role by organisations and employees (Van Fenema & Loebbecke, 2014), however tensions also arise around identity and belonging that are cognitively constructed (Lewis, 2011). The identities of L&D practitioners are continually challenged and changing due to new technologies and the development of new relationships within and outside the organisation. A major identity issue which goes to the heart of what the L&D role is about concerns performance or learning (Holton, 2000; Chalofsky, 2007). This tension is articulated in many of the early writings on training and HRD. For example, Weinberger (1998) argued that from the perspective of learning theory, L&D is a continuous process of learning with the focus on the learning itself. However, the performance dimension is also given emphasis with arguments that L&D is about performance improvement for both individuals and organisations. Swanson and Holton (2002) likewise side with the emphasis on performance and that L&D is essentially concerned with the identification and solving of performance. Bierema (2002) and Dirkx (1997) stressed that the process of individual learning and growth are beneficial to organisational performance, however they place learning as the central focus of L&D. Arguably this dimension of identity has shifted significantly given new developments in technology and the changing workplace.

Another version of this identity tension is expressed in debates around whether L&D focuses on the “human” or the “resource.” McInnes et al. (2017) made an important distinction between individual and organisational level L&D and proposed that at the individual level a focus on the “resource” include themes related to individual development, self-awareness, personal change and human capital. This conceptualisation also incorporates the notion of employability, which focuses on the development of self as an identity project. At the organisational level, L&D is concerned with the crafting of an identity in service of the organisation, or as proposed by McGuire, Garavan and Lee (2013) the development of a similar worldview and shared identity to ensure organisational alignment. McInnes et al. (2017) proposed that this harder version of L&D is essentially about the development of a coerced identity where employees are expected and required to attach themselves to a shared organisational identity. Many L&D scholars place the emphasis on the “human” (Garavan, 2007; Fenwick, 2004,) and propose that the essence of the “human” is to be individual and unique, therefore organisations should value diverse and complex identities. At the organisational level, a focus on the “human” is manifest in issues including social justice in the workplace, caring and what are called organisational undiscussables (McGuire, 2014). In contrast, the emphasis on “resource” prioritises usable human resources but gives significantly less attention to the needs of the individual and the diversity of human needs (Collins et al., 2015).

An interesting belonging or identity tension for L&D practitioners concerns their professional versus manager identities (Chen et al 2021). Professional identity for L&D practitioners is manifest in their L&D skills, expertise, and knowledge of learning and development processes; however, they experience significant challenges in establishing their value based on this organisational and professional knowledge (Heizmann & Fox, 2019). In the context of HR, O’Brien and Linehan (2014) criticised frameworks such as those proposed by Ulrich as both prescriptive and simplistic in that they do not capture the nuances in the professional work of HR practitioners. Garavan (2023) found that many L&D professionals felt inadequate in their professional role due to a perceived inability to work on strategic projects. While they have made some progress in that their professional identity enables them to perform multiple competing roles, the reality is somewhat different from that proposed in normative models and versions of the L&D role (Garavan et al., 2018). These identity dimensions contrast with what might be described as manager identity which is manifest in the case of a L&D practitioner who takes on a manager of L&D role. This role requires that they have to engage with financial budgets and resources, manage teams of trainers and L&D professionals and make complex resourcing decisions. Garavan (2023), for example, found that where L&D professionals took on a manager of the L&D function role, they encountered difficulties in shifting away from the professional role and in some cases retained their professional identities as they performed a manager role and sought to mould the manager role with their professional identity.

Barratt-Pugh et al. (2017) highlight that the need to respond to technology and develop new L&D practices represents a self-development project for many L&D professionals and that there is a continuing requirement to work on the self. This is vividly illustrated in the context of how L&D practitioners responded to COVID-19. Prior to the pandemic, L&D practitioners had not sufficiently engaged with new technologies as a way of delivering training (Mikolajczyk, 2022; Dirani et al., 2020). The centrality of the classroom as the locus of learning and development presented significant identity challenges for L&D professionals. For example, a CIPD (2022) reported issues related to a reluctance and lack of confidence to upskill to facilitate online learning, concerns about reduced natural interactivity and rapport-building during training sessions. They additionally expressed major self-doubt due the different sensory cues emanating during an online training session compared to the familiar and ideal type face -to-face environment, and fear of technology generally (Nanjappa et al., 2021). Gubbins et al. (2023) explored similar challenges and the ability of L&D practitioners to embrace digital learning. Peng et al. (2022) found that during the shift from working in the office to working from home (WFH), L&D practitioner learning agility was central to their own learning and to supporting the learning agility of others within the organisation.

Overall, L&D practitioners experience significant tensions related to belonging or identity. These tensions cut to the core of what the L&D role in organisations is about. In many respects these tensions reflect a fundamental paradox found in the wider HRM literature related to whether they focus on the needs of the employee or employer. This becomes particularly evident in Ulrich’s (1997) notions of employee champion and strategic business partner models and Garavan et al. (2023) for example found that L&D practitioners are more comfortable with the employee champion components. Indeed, in different elements of L&D practice found in organisations, this tension is acknowledged in initiatives such as personal development plans (Beauseart et al., 2011; Greenan, 2016), personal development accounts and financial support (Hamouche 2021), and support for personal development and employability.

Learning paradoxes are, according to Schad et al. (2016), often framed in terms of the “old versus the new”, “stability versus change”, and “the present versus the future”. Organisational training processes emphasise stability in that they focus on the demonstration of skills and behaviours that align with how things are done in the organisation. Many aspects of technical, compliance, regulatory and induction training are underpinned by notions of stability (Burke & Hutchins, 2007; Blume et al., 2010). The very definition of training emphasises a change in the behaviour of employees (Baldwin et al., 2009), yet a significant amount of organisational training is designed to reinforce existing behaviours and routines rather than implement new routines,

On the other hand, L&D practices frequently emphasise experimentation, risk taking and double loop learning which provide energy and resources to be more dynamic and competitive. These different learning tensions co-exist and employees oscillate between stability and change. In the implementation of many training practices these opposing forces are highly interdependent and they create present a persistent tug of war for individual leaners and the organisation Where training is explicitly focused on the requirement to develop new behaviours, it challenges existing norms and requires that people individually and collectively do things differently (Kreiner et al., 2006). Some employees will interpret the change advocated through L&D activities as welcome and positive whereas others will interpret them as negative, leading to resistance. These tensions will exist during and post the training process (Doz, 2020).

Another dimension of the stability-change learning tension is manifest in the internal consultancy roles that L&D practitioners perform. Garavan (2023) in his study of L&D roles found that practitioners interpreted the stability and change dimensions differently. For some practitioners in their interactions with line managers, the approach is focused on compliance and providing what is requested. They are less likely to disagree with what the line manager requests and are focused on ensuring that rules and procedures are followed rather than challenge and question issues. In contrast, other L&D practitioners are more likely to question, critique and oppose what managers request. They are more likely to articulate the need for L&D to stand up for their competence and professionalism and to emphasise different ways in which things can be achieved. Increasingly, learning paradox have become more pronounced for L&D practitioners due to technological change which creates a gap between existing capabilities and those required by external environmental changes (Tursunbayeva, 2019; Li et al., 2020).

Given the plurality of stakeholders that L&D practitioners are accountable to, this inevitably gives rise to competing strategies, goals and outcomes (Stahl et al., 2020; Prikshat et al., 2022). Harney and Collings (2021) pointed to the important role that multiple stakeholders play in HRM and Poell (2022) highlighted that L&D is too important to be left to professionals alone but must involve managers and employees. Wognum and Fond-Lam (2000) highlighted the importance of stakeholder involvement and the strategic alignment of L&D, however in practice it results in tensions about means and ends. The number of stakeholders relevant to L&D has expanded to include regulators, external business partners, external consultants and the wider society (Bierema and Callaghan 2014).

At the most basic and day-to-day level, L&D practitioners and line managers frequently have different priorities and time horizons (Hutchinson & Purcell, 2007; Gibb 2003). Kravariti et al. (2023) investigated the importance of line manager support for development as an element of effective implementation. The reality is that line managers give less priority to L&D practices and they have a short term-time horizon, focused on performance. In addition, line managers focus on the team or work unit rather than the total organisation, which contrasts with L&D practitioners who take a more total organisation perspective. Frances and Keegan (2006) pointed out that HR and L&D practitioner were likely to experience tensions when choosing which stakeholders to serve, be it the organisation or employees, their profession or external stakeholders. O’Brien and Linehan (2014) for example emphasised that this lead to strain, emotional exhaustion, a sense of failure and professional incompetence. Garavan (2023) found that L&D practitioners have increased engagement with individual employees around development planning and career issues. This can sometimes lead to conflicts with line managers concerning development opportunities, career progress and supports. Senior leadership are a somewhat opaque group for L&D practitioners, and many have limited engagement with this level and have to learn about their priorities from HR managers who sometimes function as gatekeepers. Tensions also arise between the L&D role and HR role when it comes to prioritising development and resources for learning and development.

L&D practitioners increasingly respond to these tensions around means and ends through an increased use of learning analytics and metrics (Poquet et al., 2022; Lundgren & Poell, 2023). They use metrics to make justifications for financial resources to support training and to provide data to external training agencies that fund training. However, Garavan et al. (2020) found a relatively low level of sophistication in the use of learning metrics and these metrics are not widely distributed outside of the L&D function. The research from the wider HRM field suggests that the use of analytics may have value in enhancing the strategic role of the function and its overall contribution to organisational effectiveness (Boudreau & Lawler, 2014). There is however no doubt that the L&D function is behind the curve when it comes to measurement of its effectiveness (Garavan et al., 2019; Phillips & Phillips, 2016).

When it comes to deciding on which metrics to use to demonstrate the impact of L&D, additional tensions emerge between stakeholders. The essential dilemma here concerns efficiency and effectiveness measures and proximal and distal measures (Kodwani, 2017; Ritzmann et al., 2017). Garavan et al. (2020) found that many L&D practitioners utilised efficiency rather than effectiveness measures of training, including programme attendance, utility, relevance and satisfaction and they also measured the effectiveness of the trainer. While these metrics are important to L&D practitioners, managers give them significantly less priority. In contrast, managers prioritise proximal measure such as impacts on productivity, reduction in errors and safety issues, and enhanced customer service. However, the reality is that few L&D practitioners systematically measure these dimensions. Senior managers prioritise distal measures such as impacts on sales performance and the bottom line, yet these measures take time to collect and there is the persistent and intractable problem of how do L&D practitioners link training to these outcomes (Garavan et al., 2021; Govender & Adegbite, 2022). In addition, HR specialists prioritise HR-type outcomes including increased engagement, job satisfaction, retentions and promotions. However, these outcomes also present a causation problem in that the direct links between learning and development practices and these outcomes are difficult to capture. Wider stakeholders are interested in external outcomes including enhanced strategic relationships, community involvement, contributions to CSR and the sustainability of the environment. These different and potentially competing stakeholder priorities present significant challenges when it comes to generating solutions that enable paradox to be navigated (Dadd & Hinton, 2022; Cotter et al., 2018).

The use of paradox theory points to several important areas of future research on the L&D role which I outline in Table 1. First, there is a need to develop more insights around the operation of the four paradoxes that I discuss in this paper. To date, research has tended to focus on “which” and “when” questions. “Which” questions look at how a problem can be solved and suggest a trade-off, whereas “when” questions set up research to investigate an ideal solution based on “if/then” logic. The application of paradox theory suggests that research should shift to investigating “both/and” questions (Smith & Lewis, 2011). This type of approach could be used to understand for example the dynamics of interdependence between the operational and strategic dimensions of the L&D role. It could also shed light on the interdependence of stability versus change in L&D practices and the emphasis on the “human” versus “resource” in the way L&D practices are implemented.

Second, there is a need to develop insights into how L&D practitioners respond to the different types of paradox. Paradox theory suggests potential responses. So, for example, what is the utility of synthesis where L&D practitioners make simultaneous use of both operational and strategic role dimensions within the context of the paradox of organising? How can L&D professionals use both temporal and spatial separation to address paradoxes related to stability versus change and the “human” and “resource” tensions in L&D practices? What role does acceptance for example play where L&D actors are willing to accept the paradoxical impacts of using specific L&D practices rather than focusing on positives or negatives?

Third, there is major scope to investigate the outcomes and dynamics of paradox in the context of L&D over time. What for example are the benefits to L&D of the L&D practitioners working through paradoxes and the costs of failing to do so? How does the navigation of paradoxes impact the performance of L&D in organisations and how it is perceived by stakeholders. In terms of the dynamics of paradox, there is scope to explore the emergence of virtuous and vicious cycles that are key component of how actors respond to tensions. What do these dynamics do to the standing of the L&D role in an organisation? Can virtuous cycles of learning advance the impact of L&D in the long term? These are just some of the questions that can be investigated.

My analysis suggests several practice implications. First, central to L&D and other actors, effectiveness within the paradox approach is focused on the development of a paradox mindset. Proponents of a paradox mindset (Miron-Spektor & Palatz, 2020) suggest it helps managers and L&D practitioners to embrace tensions and develop a frame to enable them to understand conflicting and interconnected demands and priorities. It also helps managers to both identify and then accept that tensions are inevitable (Smith & Tushman, 2005). Organisations should endeavour to design development interventions that help managers and L&D practitioners to engage with inconsistencies and tensions and develop the mental templates required to embrace seemingly contradictory dimensions to a task. Second, there may be value in L&D practitioners and for that matter other HR actors to question the strategic – operational focus tension. In particular, Gerpott (2015) proposed that the paradoxical perspective is useful in questioning the either/or thinking that often accompanies calls for L&D to be strategic. I would go far as to suggest that L&D practitioners should begin to question whether the commonplace appeal to be strategic in many ways neglects what is distinctive about L&D practices in organisations, which is to enhance the individual develop their KSAOs and promote (Barratt-Pugh et al., 2017).