What Is Alignment—and Why Is it Important?

It’s the tough job of an organization’s senior learning officer to ensure that the learning strategy provides the workforce with the skills and tools necessary to deliver on business goals. In other words, the head of learning is responsible for building and maintaining alignment between learning and business strategies, which can often be a daunting task. Andre Martin, the CLO at Mars Corporation from 2010 to 2014 explained that, alignment is what happens when learning is “relevant to our business leaders. We have to make sure that what we do is intimately tied to business strategy.” 

In the new research report, Aligning for Success: Connecting Learning to Business Performance, ATD Research draws upon a wealth of survey data and interviews with top chief learning officers (CLOs) to explore how learning can ensure alignment in today’s complex and fast-moving organizations. 

Based on the results of two separate surveys of learning and business professionals conducted by ATD and the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) in 2011 and 2013, we found that between a half and two-thirds of organizations are characterized by high alignment between learning and business strategies. However, in both surveys, companies that had high levels of business and market performance were much more likely to be highly aligned. Not surprising, high performers were also much more likely to measure or track the business impact of learning programs. 

What Can Learning Do to Achieve Alignment? 

Learning is keenly aware of the need for alignment, with over nine in ten learning professionals expressing that alignment was very important to them personally. In 2015, ATD interviewed CLOs from Fortune 500 companies, including Hilton Worldwide, DaVita HealthCare Partners, and United Parcel Service, who voiced agreement that alignment is of critical importance. 

Among the tips offered by these top CLOs for achieving alignment in 2015 were:

• gain support from senior business leaders and the CEO for learning

• involve employees at all levels in developing the learning strategy

• make sure there are processes in place for maintaining alignment through changes, such as mergers and CEO turnover. 

Interested in Learning More?

The full report is available at www.td.org/alignment. Members have access to a free whitepaper version of the report, and an infographic is free to everyone.