From Performance Partners to Admins: What Happened to L&D’s Influence?

15 years ago, Learning and Development (L&D) teams sat at the centre of business performance. They were internal consultants, diagnosing capability gaps and designing tailored interventions that were precisely tuned to the needs of each role and department. Investment was serious, and intentional, with high performing businesses benchmarking around 3-5% of payroll towards what was regarded as the engine of productivity. 

Returning to the L&D industry of today is like stepping through a regressive time machine. What was once a creative, consultative function has become largely process-driven. L&D leaders now find themselves maintaining the administrative machinery of training instead of shaping productivity solutions. The ambition to act as performance partners has often been gradually snuffed out by the endless pull of compliance reporting, the administrative churn of learning management systems, and an internal culture that views L&D as an operational function instead of a strategic one.

The question is not where that ambition went, but how L&D lost the conditions that allowed it to thrive in the first place.

The twin forces that shifted L&D’s centre of gravity

L&D’s role has been changed by two forces: the evolution of the government-backed Growth & Skills Levy, and the mass availability of low-cost, off-the-shelf e-learning content.

Both have democratised access to learning and replaced inconsistency with structure. The Levy, in particular, has made skills development more equitable and measurable, giving organisations a clear mechanism for investment. But over time, its funding rules – or, more specifically, the way businesses interpret them – have narrowed focus, with the mandatory 0.5% contribution being treated as a ceiling for investment rather than the starting point. The priority is meeting the requirement, not building competence.

The same applies to technology. Back in the golden age of L&D, digital learning was used strategically as part of integrated performance consulting. Today, vast content libraries have made learning more available, but not necessarily more effective. Instead of diagnosing organisational needs and designing training around that, most L&D teams are left uploading ready-made modules, processing enrollments and ticking off compliance. 

The challenge is not that the Levy exists, or that e-learning has scaled, but that both have been applied narrowly. Each has the potential to elevate organisational capability – if they’re used as tools for growth, not constraints on what learning can achieve.

When learning becomes compliance

We’ve spoken before about the difference between investing 3-5% versus the obligated 0.5% that many businesses now cap themselves at. But the specific figures matter less than what they represent: a cultural change in how businesses perceive learning. 

Investment isn’t seen as an enabler of growth anymore, just another regulatory requirement. This has eroded the trust and influence of L&D leaders within their organisations. Senior leaders are increasingly turning to external consultants, because they ask better questions than L&D: “What problem are we solving?” not “What funding can we use?” The issue isn’t that L&D no longer thinks this way, but that compliance-led systems have boxed the function into operational parameters where funding, not performance, defines the agenda. 

This marks a dangerous transition. When learning becomes synonymous with compliance, curiosity disappears, engagement drops, and the organisation sidelines one of its most powerful levers of performance.

The path to L&D reclaiming influence

Rebuilding L&D’s influence starts with mindset. The first shift is to move internal conversations away from “What’s funded?” and towards “What’s valuable?” The second is to resist the comfort of generic e-learning and return to the craft of diagnosis: identifying the capability levers that genuinely drive performance.

Data is central to this. Every organisation already knows, in some form, where capability gaps exist: in productivity data, engagement surveys, performance reviews. L&D should own that analysis. There is a clear role for artificial intelligence (AI) tools here. From there, it can design targeted, blended programmes that embed learning within teams and build the enduring capability the organisation needs for sustainable growth.

The next step is to re-educate the business and its stakeholders on what “real learning” looks like. Content access is not capability building if it isn’t anchored to the organisation’s real capability gaps and strategic priorities. Sustainable performance comes from learning that is contextual, continuous and applied in the flow of work: coaching built into team routines, peer learning linked to live projects, and development that responds to actual business challenges.

That understanding must start at the top. A fish rots from the head down, and so does a learning culture. When leaders view development as a compliance activity, the entire organisation follows. Influence will only return when senior decision-makers treat learning as a strategic advantage, not an administrative obligation.

The power of partnerships in rebuilding L&D

The right partnerships make a tangible difference to how L&D regains its strategic footing. Providers who act as performance partners rather than content suppliers help L&D teams turn funding mechanisms like the Levy into strategic growth tools.

This means working with internal L&D teams, not around them – co-diagnosing capability gaps, designing modular programmes that flex around business needs, and aligning every intervention to measurable outcomes. By combining an organisation’s internal insight with an external perspective, learning strategies that are both context-specific and commercially grounded can be created.

When partnerships work this way, L&D stops being an administrative function and starts being a strategic one again. The relationship becomes symbiotic: L&D regains the space to lead with intent, and benefits from external expertise, agility and delivery power to make that intent real.

Back to the future of learning

L&D once had the authority to advise leaders on where to invest, what to prioritise and how to build resilient, skilled organisations. If the last decade pulled L&D towards systems and governance, the next must bring it back towards purpose. It’s time to restore the consulting mindset that gave this discipline power. 

That influence can return, but only if the profession reclaims its original identity as a performance partner. We’ve got to flip the switch back, because the future of your organisation, and our entire economy, depends on learning being a lever.

L&D reclaiming its influence makes the entire system stronger. When learning stops being something to administer and becomes something to drive with intent, the time machine can finally move forward again.

By Al Bird, CEO at Instep