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Beth Hughes is a learning consultant and instructional designer with more than 15 years of experience partnering with clients to provide learning solutions that meet business needs. She has earned an MEd in instructional systems technology and is a Certified Performance Technologist (CPT).

Beth Hughes

Knowing in advance that issues will likely arise as you progress with your L&D solution can help you approach the challenge with greater aplomb.

Early Thinking Equals Impactful Results

September 2019 - TD Magazine

Learning consultants can work with stakeholders to weigh what’s most important.

For Best Results, Ask Questions to Zero in on Priorities

Focus First on Results

As the L&D function is increasingly asked to prove their worth, they need to think more strategically and work to become strategic partners by working with business owner clients.

Putting On Your Performance Consultant Hat

September 2018 - TD Magazine

Binge-Watch on the Job for Improved Performance

Mary Beth Thornton is a talent development professional passionate about helping others achieve their highest potential. She currently works in organization development and enjoys focusing on employee engagement, learning and development, process improvement, employee coaching, change management, project management, and more. She functions as a business consultant, instructional designer, and corporate educator. Mary Beth enjoys content creation and facilitation and has delivered presentations to groups ranging from two to 500 attendees. Her favorite topics include leadership, communication, and emotional intelligence.Mary Beth has a bachelor’s degree in international relations and a master’s in educational leadership. She is an ATD Master Trainer and a certified Associate Professional in Talent Development. She also holds a Consulting certificate from the Association for Talent Development along with a Diversity and Compliance Specialist certification from HR Unlimited.

Mary Beth Thornton

Tatiana Sehring has over ten years of combined experience in corporate and strategic partnerships for leadership, talent, and professional development across a variety of industries, currently serving as the Director, Corporate & Strategic Relationships at American Public University (APU). Her passion is to inspire authentic leadership development, lifelong learning, and meaningful individual and organization career transformation, so they can both develop to their highest potential and performance. She also serves as an editor for Inspire – a thought leadership series to inspire individual and workplace transformation. Tatiana has been featured as a thought-leader in these subjects and her work has been showcased in Human Capital Media, Enterprise Learning Conference, E-Learning, Chief Learning Officer, ATD conference, Training Magazine, HR.com, among others. Learn more or subscribe at www.GreatLeadersInspire.com.

Tatiana Sehring

Most organizations track learner satisfaction and completion rates, but does that really move the business forward? Our joint research with ATD shows that only 43 percent of organizations report strong alignment between learning and business goals. That means more than half risk investing in training that fails to translate into performance gains and measurable outcomes.What Alignment Really Means and Why It MattersAlignment isn’t a buzzword; it’s the operating system for strategic L&D. True alignment exists when L&D leaders, HR, and the C‑suite share a common definition of success and design learning experiences to advance it. In practice, this means mapping every learning objective to one or more business KPIs, whether that’s revenue growth, customer retention, safety incidents, cycle time, or quality metrics. Hence, the connection between training and value is explicit, visible, and testable.This clarity does three things: Focuses limited resources on the highest‑impact skillsIncreases executive confidence in L&D investmentEquips teams to iterate quickly because outcomes are tracked with the same rigor as any other initiativeDiagnosing MisalignmentMisalignment rarely announces itself; it shows up as familiar symptoms. There’s overreliance on activity metrics (enrollments, completions, smile sheets) without behavioral or business indicators. L&D gets kept out of strategic conversations about growth plans or capability gaps. Demonstrating ROI becomes a struggle, which slows funding decisions. Programs stagnate as content falls out of step with shifting priorities. Each symptom erodes trust and makes it harder for learning to influence performance at scale.The Four‑Step Alignment FrameworkUse this simple, repeatable framework to tighten the connection between learning and results:Discover. Start with the business problem, not the course idea. Clarify the desired outcome (for instance, increase win rate from 28 percent to 34 percent in H2) and the behaviors that would move that needle. Interview leaders and exemplary performers; mine performance dashboards to identify capability gaps.Design. Translate outcomes into skills and practice. Build learning objectives that mirror the KPI and embed practice activities that simulate real work (role‑plays, system sandboxes, decision games). Co‑create content with stakeholders to maintain relevance and ownership.Deliver. Meet learners in the flow of work. Blend short, applied learning assets with manager‑led coaching. Managers influence a large share of engagement, so equip them with conversation guides, observation checklists, and micro‑challenges to reinforce transfer on the job.Measure. Track leading and lagging indicators. Pair learning analytics (progress, proficiency, practice quality) with behavioral and business signals (pipeline hygiene, NPS shifts, first‑call resolution, defect rates, time‑to‑productivity). Review results monthly with stakeholders and adjust.What High‑Performing Organizations Do DifferentlyIn our findings, high performers consistently co‑create training with senior leaders, focus on a small set of KPIs that matter to both HR and the business, and use performance data to continuously refine programs. The key difference is philosophical: They don’t just measure activity, they measure contribution to business success. This orientation turns L&D from a service provider into a strategic partner.Manager Enablement Is NonnegotiableEven the best course fails without manager reinforcement. Provide managers with “day‑one” toolkits like talk tracks, observation rubrics, and simple dashboards so they can coach to the targeted behaviors. Recognize and reward managers who model desired behaviors and create time for practice. When managers champion the effort, adoption accelerates and results stick. Managers account for more than 70 percent of team engagement, so their role is critical.Technology as an Enabler (Not the Strategy)Modern platforms can make alignment easier to execute. AI‑powered solutions such as Learn365, embedded in Microsoft Teams, bring learning into daily workflows and surface real‑time insights through Power BI dashboards. That matters when only a minority of organizations feel confident evaluating impact; technology helps consolidate data, automate evidence collection, and free L&D to focus on coaching and design. The tools don’t create strategy; they make good strategy scalable.Start Small, Prove Value, Then ScalePick one business outcome and run a 90‑day pilot. Example: reduce customer churn by two points. Map the chain of impact: skills (active listening, needs discovery) → behaviors (probing, summarizing) → metrics (repeat contact rate, NPS, renewal). Instrument your pilot with a pre/post skills check, manager observations, and a simple dashboard that pairs learner progress with operational KPIs. Share results with leaders monthly and capture quick wins and lessons learned.This approach builds a repeatable playbook: define outcomes, design for practice, enable managers, and measure what matters. Do it once, then standardize templates, data definitions, and governance so future programs start aligned rather than retrofitting alignment after launch.Where to Go NextAlignment doesn’t happen overnight, but it does happen by design. Begin with a single program and ask, “Which business outcome does this serve, and how will we know?”For deeper benchmarks and practical checklists, explore the full research report and see how peers are operationalizing alignment in the flow of work.

Driving Business Impact: Aligning Training With Strategic Goals

At all levels of government (local, state, and federal), the notion of shifting talent management practices to be more skills based has been discussed for years. For just as long, agencies have understood that making this shift successful would require not only a shift in process, but also the technology that supports learning and performance management processes. In this blog, we’ll discuss the differences between “skills” and “competencies,” the benefits of skills-based talent management practices for agencies and workers, and best practices for skills technology adoption. What Are the Differences Between Skills and Competencies?Skills often refer to single proficiencies possessed by an employee, often gained through training and experience. There are both “soft skills” such as emotional intelligence, or “hard skills” such as proficiency in a foreign language. Skills and skill proficiencies may be identified by an employee’s manager or peer, or even the employee themself. Attributing skills to an employee is typically done in a less formal manner than competencies.Competencies are often used to refer to an overarching group of skills, knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes that an employee should possess to be successful. They may be specific to a role or apply across an entire business and are used by organizations in formal performance review processes to set expectations for job roles and levels.Skills Are Integral to HR Digital TransformationAccording to the Academy to Innovate HR, HR digital transformation refers to the digitization of existing HR operations to optimize business processes and enhance employee experiences. Many public sector agencies are well under way in transforming their HR processes, and skills are integral to continuing this effort forward. And for good reason! There are many benefits to moving toward skills-based talent management practices. From an agency perspective, skills-based practices can help:Increase Employee Performance and Satisfaction. Research has shown that employees who are provided with ample learning and growth opportunities are more likely to be actively engaged in their work and report higher levels of job satisfaction. Agencies can leverage skills and skills-related technologies to enhance their learning and growth opportunities by tailoring their catalog to the skills employees are looking to develop and providing training on skills needed for a specific job. Doing so enables the upskilling of the public sector workforce as well as increased employee performance and satisfaction.Improve Workforce Planning and Agility. As technology continues to advance , some jobs are becoming obsolete while others are growing to require more advanced or different skills. This has led to an increased demand for upskilling and reskilling within an organization. By implementing a skills taxonomy and leveraging skills-first strategies, public sector agencies can remain adaptable and stay on top of these changes. Improve Recruiting and Hiring Outcomes. Skills technology makes it easier for recruiters to identify candidates with specific skillsets needed for a job. In addition, it enhances recruiters’ ability to hire and promote internally, fill vacancies more quickly, and retain the company’s top talent and highest performers.From a public sector employee perspective, there are also many benefits to skills-based talent management practices including: Tailored Growth and Development Opportunities. With effective incorporation of skills into learning and development initiatives, individual employees benefit from tailored growth opportunities based on their current skillset and skills they wish to develop. For example, if an employee indicates their desire to enhance their written communication skills, they may receive automatic recommendations for training to take within the learning management system (LMS). By interacting with skills functionality, employees can help find the training they need to succeed and grow in their careers.Upskilling Within a Current Role. According to a LinkedIn study, 48 percent of workers would consider changing jobs just to update their skills. For many, being able to upskill within their current role is an incredibly enticing reason to stay in their current job and avoid the stress of needing to look elsewhere.Expertise Development in New and Emerging Fields. Expertise can increase the value of an employee within the workforce exponentially. Skills technologies enhance employee development, ultimately leading to more experts in burgeoning skillsets and fields.Best Practices for Skills Technology AdoptionBuild a Skills TaxonomyTo implement skills-based practices within an agency, a skills taxonomy should be created that identifies the skills required within that agency, as well as skills already possessed by the workforce. The taxonomy can be expanded by associating critical skills to different job roles and outlining how skills relate to each other.Encourage Employee InvolvementEmployee involvement is critical to successful skilling strategies. Ensuring employee buy-in early in the process will enable agencies to get the most from skills-based functionality and technologies. Also, employees will need to interact with the skills taxonomy to get the most from it. From identifying the skills they possess, to assessing the proficiency of a direct report, employees’ use of skills functionality like the taxonomy will vastly increase its effectiveness. Embrace ChangeImplementing skills-based talent management approaches within a public sector agency may seem like a daunting task but embrace the change! Help employees understand how the change will benefit them individually, as well as the agency, and convey that it’s something to be excited about.

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