This factsheet was last updated in February 2012.
Learning and talent development (LTD) strategy is an organisational strategy that articulates the workforce capabilities, skills or competencies required to ensure a sustainable, successful organisation and that sets out the means of developing these capabilities to underpin organisational effectiveness.
Recent CIPD research has emphasised the importance of strategic human resource management aligning to the overall business strategy.
The learning and talent development strategy should reflect and reinforce the approach within the broader HRM strategy and also link with other strategies (for example, reward) within that overarching HR strategy. So an organisation’s reward strategy might include a focus on total reward – emphasising the value of non-financial aspects of the employee reward package, such as career development opportunities, to drive employee engagement – that could also be a central tenet of the LTD strategy. More information is available in our factsheets on these topics.
When developing strategy, it is useful to adopt the increasingly financial and operational language of business. With good financial and operational ‘savvy’, LTD can also where appropriate challenge decisions that risk damaging organisational value and employee engagement.
Our practical tool for CIPD members Value of learning: assessing and reporting on the value of learning to your organisation gives more detail on how to assess the alignment of learning to strategic priorities.
A key element of an organisation’s learning strategy will target the long-term development of those identified as exceptionally high-performing or high-potential individuals (known as ‘talent’), who are critical to long-term business success. This would typically include the use of techniques such as mentoring programmes with senior leaders.