You have a vision of a grand training programme that will transform your learning and development (L&D) efforts. This vision probably includes a better approach or a shiny new tool that takes organisational learning to the next level.
However, your vision will remain just that, a vision, unless you get leadership buy-in for your new L&D initiative. And that’s the hard part!
It’s not always easy to convince your leaders that the investment is worth it. After all, your organisation might have failed in their previous training endeavours. Or perhaps your leaders fail to understand the importance of employee training.
Luckily, there is a lot that can be done to win over your senior teams! Without further ado, let’s explore the importance of leadership buy-in in the L&D space.
What Does ‘Buy-In’ Mean?
In essence, buy-in means that a selected audience accepts and is willing to support or participate in something. As such, leadership buy-in refers to your leaders accepting and supporting your vision.
This vision can range wildly, but as an L&D professional, your proposals will typically focus on introducing new training strategies, tools or training programmes.
The Prevailing Disconnect Challenge Between Learning and Leadership
Leadership buy-in has been a notoriously big challenge in the L&D industry. But why is this the case?
L&D professionals have struggled to showcase benefits and calculate return on investment (ROI) accurately. This leads to a situation where L&D teams are unable to determine how well they are meeting their goals or improving the organisation.
If the proof’s in the pudding, then too often L&D teams are showing up to the bakesale empty-handed.
Similarly, this makes it difficult for your leadership team to analyse the success of your training programmes. And they want to know if their investment is paying off.
Ultimately, this can lead to organisations downplaying the importance of L&D. No wonder why learning and development departments are typically the first ones to suffer from budget cuts.
For many organisations, there is also a big strategic alignment gap. After all, your organisation’s wider goals might be very different from what your Head of Sales or Director of Customer Success wants from their teams.
If you cannot find a training approach that suits all these needs, the end result is not going to be successful. This makes it even more difficult to demonstrate the true impact of your training programme.
When L&D functions are out of sync with your business, there will be a lack of awareness of the impact learning can have on your organisation. This is clear when you look at the LinkedIn Workplace report stating that only 8% of CEOs see an impact from their L&D programmes.
The disconnect between leadership and learning strategies often comes down to impact, or more likely, the lack of it.
Why Is Buy-In Necessary?
So, we know there is a prevailing disconnect challenge between leadership and introducing new training initiatives. If it’s so difficult, wouldn’t it just be easier to leave it be?
While it can be challenging, gaining buy-in from key stakeholders is essential in any corporate training programme’s journey. After all, you need a sign-off to move forward with any new training initiatives or tools. But more than their sign-off, you need your stakeholders’ advocacy.
With leadership buy-in, you can create an effective continuous learning culture as your leaders will be actively involved. They will promote the continuous upskilling and reskilling of employees.
Buy-in is especially important when you are introducing significant organisational changes. In fact, Harvard Business School Professor John Kotter explained that 70% of organisational change efforts fail, partially due to lacking buy-in from enough people.
Similarly, leadership buy-in will likely lead to increased or protected budgets for your future L&D initiatives. This is important as L&D budgets are constantly under the microscope.
In addition, you cannot expect your leadership team to vouch for your programme if they don’t believe in it. And if your senior team doesn’t, why would your learners?
However, it’s essential to understand that getting buy-in doesn’t mean 100% agreement with your vision. Instead, it means you have the support of your leadership team to achieve success, whether your proposal needs tweaking or not.
9+1 Tips For Gaining Leadership Buy-In
Knowing how to win over your business leaders is enough to get even the most seasoned L&D professionals to scratch their heads. Luckily, we have just the resource for you!
Our Business Case Checklist is an interactive document that will help you to tick off everything you need to build a winning business case your leaders will love.
Before you get started, explore our ten tips below!
1. Know Your Leadership Audience
In order to achieve leadership buy-in and create a compelling business case for L&D, you need to know the audience you are seeking support from. In this instance, it means understanding what the leaders in your organisation want.
As such, before starting to draft your business case or presentation, make sure you:
- Know who you’ll be addressing
- What the overarching organisational needs are
- What specific problems you can solve with this new training approach
You can get some indication by looking at your internal memos, your organisational values and company-wide OKRs. This helps you to identify if your training vision directly addresses one or more organisational goals.
This is essential, as only 36% of companies say their learning strategies are aligned with their business goals. This alone can be the reason behind failed training initiatives and dwindling leadership support. After all, you cannot expect positive results if your training strategy does not support your needs in the first place.
In addition, take examples of previously successful business cases your leadership has been happy with. You might spot some similarities when it comes to design, usage of graphics, structure and tone. By following a similar approach your leaders may be more receptive to the information you are sharing.
2. Find Gaps In Your Previous Training Approach
One of the most effective ways to create a stellar training programme is to take a step back and explore your previous training initiatives. Ask yourself what went well and what could be improved. Where possible, use data rather than your intuition.
By identifying gaps in your previous training approaches, you can ensure you are aligning this new initiative better with your desired performance outcomes.
Similarly, this helps you to showcase how your new approach will yield better results than any previous training programmes. This is essential, especially if your leaders are apprehensive about your new initiatives based on the results they saw previously.
3. Outline the Benefits of Your New Training Programme
There is no point creating a fancy new training programme unless it’s going to bring in some benefits for both your employees and your organisation.
As such, once you have recognised the need to introduce a new training initiative, tool or course, outline the benefits that training will bring. Even better, make sure to highlight these benefits compared to your previous or existing training programme.
These benefits will differ based on your needs. For instance, you might want to highlight how your new online training initiative has the power to increase employee performance and productivity. Where possible, try to quantify these benefits by using case studies and other examples.
Or perhaps you are planning on implementing a new training programme that utilises immersive technology. You’ll want to research these modalities beforehand to determine the benefits that come with these new approaches.
It’s essential to outline the benefits most relevant to your organisation’s wider goals, current pain points or training needs. As such, clearly link the company’s growth strategy to your training programme.
4. Present Any New Tools You Wish to Use
If your vision involves, for instance, new educational technology, an investment in this tool will be a big part of your plan and proposal. In fact, solutions like learning management systems (LMSs) can take a whopping 38% of the average learning tech budget.
As such, you need to be prepared to show or demo this solution. Make sure to get familiar with the tool first. In most instances, this means sitting in a demo by yourself beforehand. Only after you have determined it meets your training needs should you showcase it to your leadership team.
In addition to demonstrations, include details about the solution in your business case. After all, it’s likely that your whole leadership team won’t be able to join the presentation of the solution.
And as always, include research and data instead of nitty-gritty details about the different features. Relevant case studies and referrals are an excellent way to present how this tool can help your organisation.
5. Provide Cold, Hard Numbers
While listing benefits on their own can be effective, there is power in numbers. In fact, adding concrete data to your business case can make it much easier to get leadership buy-in for your L&D vision.
Sharing detailed, high-level data shows you have done your homework and know what you are talking about. And make sure to include data about the industry as a whole, not just your training programme, previous experiences or current training needs.
For instance, Deloitte found that 76% of C-suite executives think it makes more sense to train existing staff. Similarly, 84% were about to increase their L&D investments. Including these kinds of industry figures helps your leaders to understand they cannot afford to fall behind.
These cold, hard numbers are extremely effective when included in your abstract or key findings. After all, it will help your leaders to identify what’s in it for them with a quick glance.
6. Determine Your ROI
Gaining leadership buy-in will require projecting and measuring the return on investment of your L&D project. ROI is a key performance indicator that helps your leaders to determine the profitability of your training investment.
Sounds simple, doesn’t it? However, as explored, L&D professionals have struggled to determine their ROI accurately. After all, there is no one set formula, and some of the benefits are hard to quantify.
Yet, it’s one of the most essential parts of your proposal. We would even argue that it’s the figure your leaders are most interested in when determining the necessity of the training investment. After all, it helps them to determine how your programme will impact their growth.
Luckily, we have a full article devoted to the topic! It runs you through different models for evaluating the ROI of your training.
7. Communicate and Collaborate
While your business case includes all the necessary information, it’s essential to keep both your leaders and teams in the loop. This helps you to explain and share the rationale behind your vision, decision-making and actions.
Open communication enables your leaders to understand your way of thinking and working. The more transparent the process is, the better trust you can build between yourself and your leadership.
Similarly, collaboration with your organisation’s other subject matter experts (SMEs) is an excellent way to future-proof your vision. After all, you can get relevant suggestions for potential actions and approaches.
This shows your leaders that you have done your research and value feedback and other people’s opinions.
8. Address Challenges That May Occur
Introducing a new training programme doesn’t always go without hiccups. To prevent these hiccups from influencing the success of your training programme, you need to be aware of them in the first place.
As such, you should identify challenges, obstacles and risks that you may face after introducing your training initiative. For instance, your technology might not work as it should, or you might struggle to engage your learners with your content.
Including these insights in your proposal creates an honest, upfront conversation about possible, perhaps even expected, issues. Similarly, this helps you to showcase to your leadership audience that you are prepared and have quick solutions if these issues arise.
Executives and top-level managers will want to see a calculated risk strategy from you. Ultimately, a good risk management strategy will show them that you have a backup plan.
9. Build a Compelling Case
Knowing what information to present is one thing. But, building a solid business case for your training programme is in another league.
After all, you are looking to include all your most important statistics, research and plans while still keeping your proposal concise and high impact. As such, you need to make a clear division between essential and ‘nice to have’ information to get your balance right.
Let’s have a look at the points that you should include:
- Problem statement: In a few sentences, state the specific business problem you wish to solve with your new training programme.
- Objectives: Present measurable goals for your training initiative. These can be listed as bullet points.
- Background information: Determine where the need for your training programme stems from and indicate organisational issues or problems that need to be solved.
- Requirements: List down all resources you will need to complete the project. This could include anything from special expertise to new technology or software.
- Potential risks: Identify any short-term or long-term risks that could arise in the process and provide a likelihood and solution for each.
- Action plan: Outline the concrete steps you need to take. These should include both short-term and long-term action plans.
- Executive summary: Provide a one-page summary of your proposed plan. Make sure to include hard statistics and present your facts quickly and visually.
But as you know, all business cases are unique to the needs of your project. The above list gives you guidance on what to include, but don’t let it limit you.
10. Report
This is where that ‘+1’ comes in! There is an important step to conduct after gaining buy-in from your leadership team and implementing your L&D initiatives.
You need to assess the performance of your training programme and report to your leadership team. After all, they need to see if their investment is paying off.
Similarly, it helps them to contrast your initial evaluation to your real data and analyse how accurate your projections were.
This helps you to gain buy-in for any future training initiatives or tools you are proposing. Your leaders can rest assured that you conduct in-depth research and know what you are talking about.
What Does a Training Programme with Full Leadership Support Look Like?
We have explored how to gain buy-in from your leadership team. But what does it really look like to have their full support for your training efforts?
Let’s explore some indicators!
1. Your leaders are actively engaged.
Active and engaged leaders are a sure sign that they are confident in your training programme, its benefits and its effectiveness.
In the best-case scenario, your senior management team will also be growing their skills and knowledge because of your training efforts. This will help them to understand the true value your training initiatives bring to learners.
As a result, they will be active promoters of your training programme. This will help your learners to follow their lead and participate and engage with their training.
2. They understand your contributions.
While most of your leaders will know your basic job description and tasks as an L&D professional, it does not mean they understand your contributions. This is the true difference between a senior management team whose buy-in you have or do not have.
When your organisation’s leadership truly understands why you spend X amount of hours completing task Y, they understand the true power behind your training programme.
And the more they seek to understand your efforts and contributions, the stronger indicator it is that they believe in the training initiatives you are creating.
3. You can ask for help, and receive it.
Asking for help is not necessarily easy, especially if your leaders do not understand the value of your contributions. However, when you have true leadership buy-in, you will feel like you have a board of experts by your side.
This could mean tapping into their specialist knowledge if needed or simply requiring their assistance on a project.
Open and honest communication will lead to a caring organisational culture. Furthermore, your company leaders will also feel more comfortable to make suggestions and ask questions about your training programme.
4. Your leaders are interested in your performance metrics.
Leadership buy-in does not only mean a signature at the bottom of your proposal. It means your leaders are interested in what you do and how well your training efforts are paying off.
As such, they are eager to explore your performance metrics and share their insights about what can be improved to reach overarching organisational goals. That’s why you need to provide them with detailed reports and data.
This will create an efficient feedback loop and a means to tweak and improve your training programme where needed.
5. You are confident in the value your training programme brings.
While different organisations exist and bring value for different reasons, the truth is that most companies need to bring in revenue. Your training efforts are ultimately tied to this mission.
If you feel confident in the value training provides for your organisation, your leaders are likely to agree. Especially when this information is backed by hard evidence and numbers. Overall, it’s a sure sign that you are doing alright in your leaders’ eyes.
Final Words
Gaining leadership buy-in for your L&D initiatives is not easy. And gaining true leadership support is even more difficult. After all, you want much more than just signatures on your proposal.
Luckily, there is a lot you can do to help this process. Our top tips give you the advice you need.
And don’t forget to use your Business Case Checklist! It’s your go-to resource for proving the value of your vision, all in one handy interactive document.
