The digital workplace is truly disrupting all business, and learning is no exception. The nature of work, the workplace and the workforce are evolving at incredible speed, changing how they work, where they work and new ways of learning. These changes are contributing to huge challenges with rapidly increasing requirements for learning and development teams.

In a recent series of roundtable research groups, we heard from learning leaders across Australia and New Zealand who are passionate about improving performance within their organisation, creating a learning culture with innovation and the learner at its very core.

The following six themes emerged from our roundtable discussions as being most important to the community:

• Creating a Learning culture with a clear vision and innovation at its core
• Translating data into business outcomes and quantifying value
• Acquiring the skills and competencies of the modern L&D leader
• Selecting and implementing technology solutions to deliver on business objectives
• Adoption of technology through amazing UX
• The future – staying at the cutting edge of L&D technology

L&D professionals’ top challenges are tied to demonstrating business impact. Learning professionals must show they can deliver to the business. The tangible benefits of L&D innovation and technology transformation can be difficult to quantify – but it’s about staying relevant and ensuring organisations are equipped to succeed in the modern business world.

Successful learning leaders will wear many hats. They will become accomplished story tellers adept at securing business support from every part of the executive team, including the HR teams and the learners themselves. These groups have difficult and different nuances and challenges to overcome.

Right now, there is huge investment in technology to enable the necessary blend of learning required, but as a community we heard that this is “not the silver bullet”.