Are your people learning the way you think?

Learning has moved closer to the work

People now expect learning to be available when they need it. A course next month will not solve a problem at 10.30 on Tuesday morning. They need help there and then.

Technology has made that possible. Microsoft’s 2024 Work Trend Index found that 75% of knowledge workers were already using AI at work, showing how quickly new tools are becoming part of everyday problem-solving.

The shift is not only technological because the OECD’s 2025 Trends in Adult Learning report found that more than nine in ten employed adults learn something new at work at least occasionally, and two-thirds do so at least monthly.

Much of that learning is already built into the job, for example a manager who explains a decision is teaching. So is the colleague who shares an approach, the project that stretches someone, and the honest conversation afterwards about what worked and what did not.

The work itself contains a great deal of learning, and good leaders are the ones that recognise it and create more of it.

Relevance matters more than ever

People are used to choosing what they consume, when and how, that’s become a fact of modern life. That ‘on-demand’ expectation does not disappear at work. This does not mean everyone wants to learn alone or that formal programmes are obsolete, but it does mean that development must feel relevant.

LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report found that career progress was the leading motivation for learning globally. In the UK, 91% of learning and development professionals said continuous learning matters more than ever for career success, yet only 33% of organisations were classed as “career development champions”.

That gap suggests many organisations still treat development as a catalogue of courses, while employees see it as part of where their career is heading.

Better development conversations begin with the person:

• What parts of your role would you like to be more confident with?

• Where are your biggest challenges?

• What would make a real difference in your role?

• What would you like to be ready for next?

These questions give people ownership and connect learning to something they genuinely care about.

Access is not the same as learning

The evidence suggests that unlimited access to information does not guarantee effective learning. OECD research shows that non-formal, job-related learning is far more common than formal study: 37% of adults take part in it, compared with 8% in formal programmes. Much of it is brief, with 42% of activities lasting a day or less.

Short learning is convenient and useful in the moment, but that does not make it lasting. People retain more when they retrieve information, return to it over time and practise it in context.

For example, a feedback workshop may take a day but learning to give effective feedback takes repeated attempts, reflection and support. What happens after a course often matters most. Because of this formal learning should be viewed as the catalyst that starts development; it rarely completes it.

Some of the best learning does not look like training

Ask people where they learned to do their job well and many will mention a manager who showed them the ropes, a colleague who let them observe a difficult conversation, or a project that went wrong and taught them what to change.

The OECD describes this as informal learning through everyday activity, including learning by doing and learning from colleagues and supervisors. It also links autonomy, experimentation and self-directed teams with stronger use of skills and better returns from training.

There is no need to squeeze this into the familiar 70:20:10 formula, whose evidence base is weak. The more useful point is simpler - people learn through experience, relationships and the work itself.

Leaders can act on that by pairing people with experienced colleagues, offering stretch assignments and making reflection part of every project. These should not be viewed as special “learning interventions”, because fundamentally they are good management.

AI changes what it means to be a learner

Generative AI offers immediate explanations, examples and practice conversations which can be powerful, but an answer is not the same as understanding. The easier information becomes to access, the more judgement matters.

As AI produces more convincing answers, people need to know what to trust, what to question and when to seek a human perspective. Skills England’s 2025 AI Skills for the UK Workforce report highlights widespread barriers to building AI capability across ten growth sectors.

AI development cannot stop at showing people how to use a tool because it must also build curiosity, critical thinking and the confidence to challenge assumptions. Increasingly, the most valuable skill is not knowing the answer, but knowing how to learn your way towards one that is reliable and credible.

The real challenge is learning capacity

The skills people need are changing faster than many traditional development models can keep up with. Skills England’s 2026 Annual Skills Report says more than a quarter of vacancies are hard to fill because of skills shortages. The UK Employer Skills Survey 2024 also points to gaps among existing employees, as well as recruitment difficulties.

Recruiting every new skill is not realistic, and organisations need people who can acquire new capabilities, adapt what they know and move confidently into unfamiliar territory. That calls for more important than a training catalogue and that’s the capacity to keep learning.

What leaders can do differently

The answer is not to replace formal training with a pile of videos, podcasts and AI tools. That would simply exchange one narrow model for another. Leaders need to look at the whole environment in which people develop.

• Give people useful problems to solve. A well-supported stretch assignment can teach more than a theoretical exercise.

• Help people learn from one another. Make expertise easy to find and share through observation, coaching and purposeful conversations.

• Build reflection into the work. After a demanding project, ask what worked, what did not and what the team would change next time.

• Connect development to ambition. Find out what matters to each person and offer opportunities that move them towards it.

• Use technology intelligently. Let AI and digital learning improve access and personalisation without replacing judgement, experience or human interaction.

• Do not confuse provision with culture. A course catalogue or AI subscription is not a learning culture. Daily behaviour is.

Start this week

You do not need a new strategy to change how your team learns. Start with one or two practical steps:

• Ask one person what they most want to improve, rather than telling them which course to take.

• Give someone a stretching piece of work with clear support around them.

• Spend 15 minutes after a project asking what the team learned and what it would do differently.

• Invite someone with a particular strength to show how they approach a task.

• Take one recent piece of training and create an opportunity to practise it in real work.

• Ask where your team goes when it needs to learn. The answers may reveal more than your completion statistics.

Leaders are part of the learning environment

People learn from what leaders do. Blame teaches them to hide mistakes. Admitting uncertainty shows that not knowing is acceptable. Inviting challenge, then listening properly, makes speaking up worthwhile. Talking about development while leaving no time for it sends a clearer message than any strategy.

The team’s culture is teaching people every day, whether anyone planned it or not. That makes leadership development and people development inseparable.

Pay attention to how people really develop

There are more ways to learn at work than ever before. Information is easier to reach, AI makes unfamiliar subjects easier to explore, and much of the most valuable development still comes through experience and relationships.

However, time is still a real barrier. The OECD found that work and family commitments are among the main reasons adults do not learn, while employer support strongly predicts participation. This means that people need more than permission - they need time, encouragement and a chance to practise.

Look beyond course completions and ask who is learning, what they want to improve, where they are stuck, who helps them and when they get to practise. Then consider what your own leadership is teaching every day.

A true learning culture is visible throughout all of the work: people ask better questions, test ideas, reflect on experience and change what they do. The conditions for that are shaped by ordinary leadership choices.

Research and further reading

OECD (2025), Trends in Adult Learning: New Data from the 2023 Survey of Adult Skills

CIPD (2023), Learning at Work 2023

LinkedIn Learning (2025), Workplace Learning Report – United Kingdom

Skills England (2025), AI Skills for the UK Workforce

Skills England (2026), Annual Skills Report

Department for Education / Skills England (2025), Employer Skills Survey 2024: UK Findings

Clardy (2018), “70-20-10 and the Dominance of Informal Learning: A Fact in Search of Evidence”