4 Tips for Leaders to Engage TD/OD Systems for a Strong 2025

If you’re paying attention, you’ll know that this century is now officially a quarter complete! I say that with the knowledge that when I realized it, I had a bit of a heart flutter. Still, we are 25 years into the “new” century, and while much has changed, what has remained the same is the need for growth-minded professionals looking over the landscape of our organizations to advise and support our senior leaders as they prepare for the known and the unknown. In today’s business environment, the need for well-connected, well-informed learning and development and organization development professionals remains paramount for organizational success. To that end, what should we be thinking about in 2025?

Employee Engagement and Community Building

Now, maybe more than ever, humans are looking for positive connections. We may have put the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in our rearview mirror, but the work and life changes that it started continue to affect us as humans. Add to that how overly connected our global society is, making everything from political unrest to celebrity gossip feel like personal problems, and you’ll see why we need to find ways to provide safe spaces for engagement, community, and connection in our organizations.

Discover what’s happening organically: Discover employee resource groups at your company outside of those you host. These may be in the form of communities of practice, identity-based groups, informal mentorship programs, or clubs. Ask how you can champion and support the great work they are doing and build relationships so that they will want to support your efforts.

Ask and engage: Ask employees what they need and listen to what you hear. So often, we sit in rooms and try to decide how we can ensure our employees feel supported, connected, and appreciated. This year, put together an employee engagement survey that asks people how they are feeling and how you and your team can help them feel more positive. Do this through a short pulse survey, follow up by sharing what you learned and what you can (and can’t) do, and continue to ask for feedback as you update and promote your portfolio of offerings.

Formalize connection opportunities: Write a policy that formalizes continuing professional development as part of all employees’ jobs, and then ensure that employees’ job descriptions are updated to include continuing professional development as part of their key responsibilities. This brings development to the forefront, making it something supported by the organization and something that everyone must do to be a successful employee.

Leveraging AI Specifically, Technology Generally

Everyone is talking about how artificial intelligence (AI) and technology will change how we work. It’s important for us to remember that this isn’t a new conversation; the world of work has constantly evolved, and now is the same, just with new products and services. To take optimum advantage of this trend:

Stay informed: It’s critical that as L&D / OD professionals we stay informed on what’s available and that we help our organizations see these updates for what they are—not a silver bullet that will fix everything, but instead tools that we should all learn and use to make our work more effective, more efficient, and more engaging.

Crush the fear factor: Is your team afraid of AI and technology? Are you? Is your company? Even if there isn’t fear, are you facing policy updates banning the use of AI and other technology tools for reasons that seem unclear? If so, now is the time to ask the powerful question, why? Will AI eliminate all human jobs? No. If used properly, will the tools of AI and technology help us to be better, faster, more effective, and more efficient? Certainly! Now is the time to gather and share information so that you, your team, and your organization are ready to take advantage of advances in technology.

Advise against the shiny penny phenomenon: With that in mind, it is also time to do your homework to ensure that your organization isn’t mesmerized by AI and technology charlatans promising the word and delivering nothing but a big bill. As trusted advisors, we need to know what’s available, what works, and what’s simply too good to be true, and then to advise our organization’s leadership teams appropriately.

Supporting Your Middle Managers

As we think about the leaders in our organizations, sometimes those in the middle are forgotten (or feel forgotten). Middle managers have unbelievably tough jobs. They are often held accountable for doing task-focused work (the individual contributor work that followed them into their management role), supporting a team to success, and ensuring that those who they report to are also successful. This pulled-in-many-directions feeling can be exhausting and lonely, and as L&D / OD professionals, it is our job to acknowledge the struggle and provide the frameworks, tools, and programs to support success.

Acknowledge middle manager burnout: Burnout of middle managers is moving to an all-time high, and it can feel like the best-kept secret in many organizations. Middle managers are a resistant group, trained to shoulder the burden of their work while being a champion and sounding board for both members of their team and their managers. This year, let’s build them a safe space to share their needs and fears, so they know that the burnout that they feel is real, is common, and they can overcome it.

Support well-being: To start the work of overcoming middle manager burnout, we must identify well-being gaps within our organizations and take action to close them. Often, when speaking of well-being, we think of the physical and emotional side of well-being; we provide programs related to exercise and healthy expression of emotional challenges. Today, I encourage you to continue that work, and focus on social, financial, intellectual, and spiritual wellbeing. Do your middle managers have employee resource groups (ERGs) and other social support groups? Is their compensation fair and equitable? Are they supported in growing their skills and intellect? Do they feel support as whole people, not simply cogs in a machine that get things done? These are important questions to ask and answer as we build our portfolios for 2025.

Ask for feedback: And as we do this work, how will we know that we’re making the impact we hope to? By asking, of course. Again, talk to members of your middle management teams, gathering baseline data on how successful and supported they feel. Continue talking to them as you build programs for support, and then once in place, continue gathering data on the same questions to show impact. ROI from these kinds of programs comes from bottom-line revenue numbers and from the hearts of those we support. Find ways to tell those success stories and grow your impact.

Formalizing Lessons From the Past

As mentioned, we are now officially 25 percent of the way through this century, and with that, it’s an important time to reflect on what the past 25 years have taught us. What important lessons have you and your organization learned? What habits were challenged? What customs were abandoned? What views were modernized? What’s next?

Review to learn: As all good project managers know, a post-mortem is an excellent way to learn from past successes and shortcomings. Now is the perfect time to employ those same tactics to discover what your organization has learned, so far, this century.

Structure the change: Once the review has been completed, take what you learn and formalize it, as appropriate, into new practices, policies, and procedures to protect the learning and guide future action.

Continue the growth: This is the first step in continuing to guide your team and your organization to success, today, tomorrow, and well into the future.