Learning and Development

Purpose. Strategy is executed through organisational capabilities: the combination of people, processes, systems and tools that deliver results consistently. People capability depends on employees having the knowledge, skills and behaviours their roles require. L&D exists to build those capabilities. It is not the only lever: performance also depends on clear expectations, feedback, resources, processes and incentives, which is why diagnosis comes before training (Section 4.2).

Key terms

Principle. Training is the right solution only when people cannot perform because they lack knowledge or skill. If they could perform but do not, because expectations are unclear, tools are missing, processes are broken or incentives reward the wrong behaviour, training will not help and wastes time and money.

Mager and Pipe’s analysis

Robert Mager and Peter Pipe’s Analyzing Performance Problems (first published 1970) offers a sequence of questions:

1. Is there a real performance gap, and does it matter? Compare actual and expected performance and estimate the cost of the gap.
2. Are expectations clear? Do people know what good performance looks like?
3. Do people have the resources? Tools, time, information, access.
4. Is performance rewarded and poor performance addressed? Or is desired behaviour actually punished (extra work for the best performer) and poor performance ignored?
5. Do people receive feedback on how they are doing?
6. Is it a skill deficiency? Could they perform if their lives depended on it? If yes, it is not a skill problem.
7. If it is a skill deficiency: did they once know how (practice or job aids may be enough) or do they need training?

Gilbert’s Behaviour Engineering Model

Thomas Gilbert (Human Competence, 1978) classified the factors behind performance into environmental factors (provided by the organisation) and individual factors (brought by the person), each with three types:

Gilbert argued that most performance problems originate in the environment row, which is cheaper and faster to fix than the individual row. Training addresses only one of the six cells: individual knowledge and skills.

Example. A sales team misses targets. Diagnosis shows poor lead quality from marketing (environment, information and instrumentation) and incentives that reward volume regardless of margin (environment, motivation). Selling-skills training would not have fixed either.

Andragogy. Malcolm Knowles described six assumptions about adult learners: they need to know why they are learning something; they are self-directed; they bring experience that is a resource for learning; they are ready to learn what helps with real situations; they are problem-centred rather than subject-centred; and they are mainly internally motivated. Practical implications: explain relevance, use participants’ experience, centre learning on real work problems and give learners some control.

Kolb’s experiential learning cycle (1984): concrete experience → reflective observation → abstract conceptualisation (forming principles) → active experimentation (trying them out). Good programmes take learners round the whole cycle, for example through a role-play, a debrief, a framework and a real application at work.

Memory and retention. Hermann Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve showed that much newly learned material is forgotten within days without reinforcement. Two well-established remedies are spaced practice (revisiting material over time rather than in one session) and retrieval practice (recalling information, for example through quizzes, which strengthens memory more than re-reading). This is why one-off workshops without follow-up have limited effect.

Social learning. Albert Bandura showed that people learn by observing others and the consequences of their behaviour. In organisations this underlies role-modelling by leaders, mentoring and peer learning.

The 70-20-10 framework. It suggests that roughly 70% of development comes from challenging experiences on the job, 20% from relationships (feedback, coaching, mentoring) and 10% from formal learning. It originated in research by Morgan McCall, Michael Lombardo and Robert Eichinger at the Center for Creative Leadership, based on interviews with successful executives about key developmental experiences.

William McGehee and Paul Thayer’s three-level model (1961):

Competency-based TNA. Where a competency framework specifies the required proficiency level for each role, assessing employees against those levels shows gaps directly and allows learning paths to be designed by level.

Prioritising needs. Not every gap justifies investment. Prioritise by business impact, the number of people affected, the risk (safety and compliance needs are mandatory) and whether a non-training solution would work better.

Revised Bloom’s taxonomy (Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001) orders cognitive objectives from lower to higher levels:

Writing objectives (ABCD format): Audience (who), Behaviour (observable action, using a verb from the taxonomy), Condition (circumstances or resources) and Degree (the standard).

ADDIE

ADDIE is criticised as linear and slow. SAM (Successive Approximation Model), developed by Michael Allen, uses rapid prototypes and repeated cycles of design, review and revision, which suits fast-changing content and digital learning.

Gagné’s nine events of instruction

Robert Gagné (1965) proposed a sequence that supports how people process information: (1) gain attention; (2) inform learners of the objectives; (3) stimulate recall of prior knowledge; (4) present the content; (5) provide learning guidance (examples, demonstrations); (6) elicit performance (practice); (7) provide feedback; (8) assess performance; (9) enhance retention and transfer (job aids, follow-up). The sequence is useful for structuring a workshop or an e-learning module.

Blended learning combines methods (e-learning for knowledge, workshops for practice, on-the-job assignments and coaching for application). Microlearning delivers short units (a few minutes) that fit into work and support spaced practice.

Methods

Choosing by objective. Knowledge can be delivered through e-learning, reading and lectures. Skills require demonstration, practice and feedback (role-plays, simulations, on-the-job practice). Behaviour change requires practice in real situations, feedback over time and support from managers (coaching, 360-degree feedback, stretch assignments).

Coaching, mentoring and training

Coaching models. The GROW model (associated with John Whitmore): Goal, Reality, Options, Will (or way forward). Reverse mentoring, in which junior employees mentor senior leaders on topics such as digital technology or the perspectives of younger employees, was popularised by Jack Welch at GE.

The transfer problem. Learning that is not applied at work produces no return. Timothy Baldwin and J. Kevin Ford’s model (1988) identifies three groups of factors that affect transfer:

Practical actions. Before the programme: managers discuss with participants why they are attending and what they should apply. During: practise on real work tasks and plan specific applications. After: managers follow up, give opportunities to use the skills, provide job aids and recognise application; use spaced refreshers.

Kirkpatrick’s four levels

Donald Kirkpatrick’s model (first published 1959) evaluates training at four levels:

Limits of Level 1. A meta-analysis by Alliger and colleagues (1997) found that participants’ reactions were only weakly related to learning and to behaviour change. A programme rated highly by participants may change nothing at work.

New World Kirkpatrick. Later versions of the model recommend designing backwards: start with the Level 4 result needed, define the Level 3 critical behaviours that drive it, then design the learning, and put “required drivers” (manager follow-up, reinforcement, accountability) in place to sustain behaviour change.

Phillips ROI methodology

Jack Phillips added a fifth level, return on investment, and emphasised isolating the effects of training.

ROI (%) = (Programme benefits − Programme costs) ÷ Programme costs × 100. Benefit–cost ratio = Programme benefits ÷ Programme costs.

Isolating the effect of training from other factors: comparison with a control group that did not attend; trend-line analysis of performance before and after; and participant and manager estimates of the share of improvement due to training, adjusted for their confidence.

Worked example. A supervisory skills programme in a plant costs ₹20 lakh, including participants’ time. Over the following six months, scrap and overtime costs on the participating supervisors’ lines fall, and comparison with lines whose supervisors did not attend attributes ₹50 lakh of savings to the programme. ROI = (50 − 20) ÷ 20 × 100 = 150%; benefit–cost ratio = 2.5.

Other approaches. Robert Brinkerhoff’s Success Case Method studies the most and least successful participants to identify what enabled or blocked application; it is quicker than full ROI analysis and produces evidence leaders find persuasive. The Anderson model of learning evaluation focuses on whether the learning portfolio is aligned with organisational priorities.

Transitions between levels. Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter and James Noel’s The Leadership Pipeline (2001) describes six “passages”, each requiring new skills, time allocation and work values: managing self to managing others; managing others to managing managers; managing managers to functional manager; functional manager to business manager; business manager to group manager; and group manager to enterprise manager. The first passage is the most common failure point: high-performing individual contributors promoted to manage others often continue doing the work themselves rather than achieving results through the team. First-time manager programmes address this transition.

Methods. Stretch assignments and rotations, action learning on real business problems, executive coaching, mentoring, 360-degree feedback, formal programmes (often with business schools), and development centres, which use assessment-centre exercises to diagnose development needs rather than to select.

Indian examples. The Tata Administrative Service and Tata Management Training Centre in Pune, HUL’s management trainee and leadership programmes, and the leadership academies of groups such as Mahindra and Aditya Birla are often cited as leadership pipelines.

Indian context.

• Corporate academies: Infosys’s Global Education Centre in Mysuru, one of the largest corporate training facilities in the world; the Tata Management Training Centre; group academies at Mahindra, Aditya Birla and others.
• Apprenticeships and skilling: the Apprentices Act, 1961, the National Apprenticeship Promotion and Training Schemes, sector skill councils and the Skill India programme.
• Reskilling for AI: Indian IT services firms report training very large numbers of employees in AI and generative AI, and fresher programmes now include AI tools. In 2025 Infosys released several hundred Mysuru trainees who did not clear internal assessments, raising questions about assessment design and fair treatment of trainees.
• Disclosure: listed companies report training coverage and hours in the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR).

Metrics.