.svg)
.svg)
Imagine unlocking a 9% boost in global GDP, just by helping people feel more engaged at work.
That’s the potential we’re sitting on, according to Gallup. Their State of the Global Workplace report revealed that engagement has receded for the first time in four years… but as leaders search for complex fixes, the real solution is staring them in the face: Learning and Development.
Why are people shutting off?
Simply put, when you’re not engaged, you’re not productive. And when you’re not productive, you’re less innovative and more likely to leave your job.
Gallup’s report shows that 77% of employees worldwide are either not engaged, or actively disengaged. This lack of engagement is a poison to your company culture, and has a global impact: Gallup’s report also found that lost productivity cost the global economy $438 billion last year.
Meanwhile, companies with highly engaged workforces:
If we scaled that globally, we’re talking about trillions in economic value.
L&D is in a unique position. Far from siloed, they sit at the crossroads of people, performance, and culture… and wield the influence needed to make a real difference.
Here’s how:
Building career confidence from day one
Disengagement often comes from uncertainty. People want to know they’re progressing; to clearly see the road ahead of them.
L&D has the power to bridge that gap. And it’s important that this starts from day one, with learning that supports people throughout their entire career journey. A great way to embed this from the start is with Skills and Goals pathways that can be personalised to each individual. The ability to see their progression in black and white is an invaluable motivator… and gamified elements like badges and certificates provide the much-needed dopamine that drives learners to keep going.
While we’re on the subject of career confidence, we can’t bypass the topic of coaching and mentoring. Pairing learners with a suitable coach or mentor helps the path forward feel more navigable (and even exciting.) Their trusted guides help turn uncertainty into momentum.
Creating a culture of autonomy
Employees who feel trusted are more engaged and productive.
That’s not a hunch based on anecdotal evidence; it’s been proven by research.
Everyone’s favourite unusual GIF provider and occasional deliverer of work-related messages, Slack, ran a survey that found the following:
Desk workers who feel trusted show exceptionally higher performance and report a better work experience than those who don’t feel trusted by their employers. Trusted employees report:
It follows, then, that autonomy is one of the key drivers of success when it comes to productivity. Those employers who are entrenched in traditional ways of working may think that constant supervision bordering on surveillance is the answer to the productivity puzzle.
But the opposite is true. Autonomy = productivity.
So, where does L&D fit into this?
When it comes to autonomous learning, self directed and user generated content are your best friends. You probably won’t need much convincing of the fact that one of the best ways for learners to engage with the material is through a sense of ownership, and infusing your learning experiences with this from the beginning sets your learners up to actively take part.
This is another tool backed by research. The Joy in Learning research paper found the following:
"Collaborating with others, being able to create, fantasise, think independently, or make different choices bring joy and are different ways to “own” the learning process.”
Equipping managers to engage
We’ve covered the hidden cost of disengaged managers on the Thrive blog before, and it’s still relevant now – especially when we’re talking about declining employee engagement and productivity. Did you know that 70% of a team’s engagement is directly influenced by their manager? Unsurprisingly, if your managers are struggling, this creates a ripple effect that spreads out to their direct reports, and the entire company culture.
And what can L&D do about it? It might feel eye-rollingly obvious to say “train them”, but it’s not a given in all organisations. Only 44% of managers globally have received formal training; it seems that many are being promoted on the basis of competence or length of employment and expected to figure the rest out on their own.
Everyone needs guidance, no matter how naturally skilled they are. Developing great managers who can engage their teams isn’t about throwing a crash course at someone the same day they get promoted. It’s about methodically mapping their journey from first-time leader to seasoned senior, and designing learning that grows with them.
Along the way, coaching skills deserve center stage; as Gallup makes crystal clear, managers who coach drive performance everywhere you look.
An LMS can make this practical by guiding would-be managers through structured skill pathways that actually feel achievable. But let’s not forget the human side: manager burnout is on the rise, so wellbeing shouldn’t be an afterthought. It should be baked into training, with boundary-setting and resilience skills woven right in.
To move the dial on global productivity, L&D teams must go beyond learning content and become real drivers of performance. That means:
Aligning learning with business goals
If learning feels like something that happens inside a bubble, it’s already lost half its power. A good L&D programme shouldn’t just teach for the sake of teaching; it should push the business forward in a noticeable and measurable way.
For example, imagine onboarding that trims weeks off time-to-competency instead of piling new hires with an avalanche of PDF’s. Or sales training that nudges the sales team to close bigger deals because they’re sharper in the moments that matter, not because they memorised product specifications.
Using data to guide decisions
Let the numbers do the talking. Learning data should be about more than just vanity metrics; it should act as the trail of breadcrumbs that shows where people succeed and where they stumble. Maybe the analytics reveal that learners check out halfway through a module, or that a handful are constantly outperforming their peers because of how they apply new skills.
Those clues allow L&D teams to double down on what works and fix what’s broken. It’s less about guessing what people need, and more about building a living, breathing strategy that evolves.
Partnering across the business
No single department holds the keys to productivity. It’s a shared playground where multiple leaders get to collectively shape the experience.
When those groups actually talk to each other, development feels less like a siloed side project and more like part of the company’s rhythm. A manager spots a recurring skill gap, Ops knows where efficiency is lagging, HR understands the employee pulse — and together, that picture becomes the blueprint for learning that sticks.
The beauty of this approach is that growth doesn’t happen in isolation; performance and engagement start feeding each other in a loop that keeps the whole system humming.
The productivity puzzle won’t be solved by working longer hours or buying new tech. It’ll be solved by unlocking the potential of people – and that’s exactly what L&D is built to do.
Interested in more insights? Follow Thrive on LinkedIn.
Explore what impact Thrive could make for your team and your learners today.
%20(1).webp)
Imagine unlocking a 9% boost in global GDP, just by helping people feel more engaged at work.
That’s the potential we’re sitting on, according to Gallup. Their State of the Global Workplace report revealed that engagement has receded for the first time in four years… but as leaders search for complex fixes, the real solution is staring them in the face: Learning and Development.
Why are people shutting off?
Simply put, when you’re not engaged, you’re not productive. And when you’re not productive, you’re less innovative and more likely to leave your job.
Gallup’s report shows that 77% of employees worldwide are either not engaged, or actively disengaged. This lack of engagement is a poison to your company culture, and has a global impact: Gallup’s report also found that lost productivity cost the global economy $438 billion last year.
Meanwhile, companies with highly engaged workforces:
If we scaled that globally, we’re talking about trillions in economic value.
L&D is in a unique position. Far from siloed, they sit at the crossroads of people, performance, and culture… and wield the influence needed to make a real difference.
Here’s how:
Building career confidence from day one
Disengagement often comes from uncertainty. People want to know they’re progressing; to clearly see the road ahead of them.
L&D has the power to bridge that gap. And it’s important that this starts from day one, with learning that supports people throughout their entire career journey. A great way to embed this from the start is with Skills and Goals pathways that can be personalised to each individual. The ability to see their progression in black and white is an invaluable motivator… and gamified elements like badges and certificates provide the much-needed dopamine that drives learners to keep going.
While we’re on the subject of career confidence, we can’t bypass the topic of coaching and mentoring. Pairing learners with a suitable coach or mentor helps the path forward feel more navigable (and even exciting.) Their trusted guides help turn uncertainty into momentum.
Creating a culture of autonomy
Employees who feel trusted are more engaged and productive.
That’s not a hunch based on anecdotal evidence; it’s been proven by research.
Everyone’s favourite unusual GIF provider and occasional deliverer of work-related messages, Slack, ran a survey that found the following:
Desk workers who feel trusted show exceptionally higher performance and report a better work experience than those who don’t feel trusted by their employers. Trusted employees report:
It follows, then, that autonomy is one of the key drivers of success when it comes to productivity. Those employers who are entrenched in traditional ways of working may think that constant supervision bordering on surveillance is the answer to the productivity puzzle.
But the opposite is true. Autonomy = productivity.
So, where does L&D fit into this?
When it comes to autonomous learning, self directed and user generated content are your best friends. You probably won’t need much convincing of the fact that one of the best ways for learners to engage with the material is through a sense of ownership, and infusing your learning experiences with this from the beginning sets your learners up to actively take part.
This is another tool backed by research. The Joy in Learning research paper found the following:
"Collaborating with others, being able to create, fantasise, think independently, or make different choices bring joy and are different ways to “own” the learning process.”
Equipping managers to engage
We’ve covered the hidden cost of disengaged managers on the Thrive blog before, and it’s still relevant now – especially when we’re talking about declining employee engagement and productivity. Did you know that 70% of a team’s engagement is directly influenced by their manager? Unsurprisingly, if your managers are struggling, this creates a ripple effect that spreads out to their direct reports, and the entire company culture.
And what can L&D do about it? It might feel eye-rollingly obvious to say “train them”, but it’s not a given in all organisations. Only 44% of managers globally have received formal training; it seems that many are being promoted on the basis of competence or length of employment and expected to figure the rest out on their own.
Everyone needs guidance, no matter how naturally skilled they are. Developing great managers who can engage their teams isn’t about throwing a crash course at someone the same day they get promoted. It’s about methodically mapping their journey from first-time leader to seasoned senior, and designing learning that grows with them.
Along the way, coaching skills deserve center stage; as Gallup makes crystal clear, managers who coach drive performance everywhere you look.
An LMS can make this practical by guiding would-be managers through structured skill pathways that actually feel achievable. But let’s not forget the human side: manager burnout is on the rise, so wellbeing shouldn’t be an afterthought. It should be baked into training, with boundary-setting and resilience skills woven right in.
To move the dial on global productivity, L&D teams must go beyond learning content and become real drivers of performance. That means:
Aligning learning with business goals
If learning feels like something that happens inside a bubble, it’s already lost half its power. A good L&D programme shouldn’t just teach for the sake of teaching; it should push the business forward in a noticeable and measurable way.
For example, imagine onboarding that trims weeks off time-to-competency instead of piling new hires with an avalanche of PDF’s. Or sales training that nudges the sales team to close bigger deals because they’re sharper in the moments that matter, not because they memorised product specifications.
Using data to guide decisions
Let the numbers do the talking. Learning data should be about more than just vanity metrics; it should act as the trail of breadcrumbs that shows where people succeed and where they stumble. Maybe the analytics reveal that learners check out halfway through a module, or that a handful are constantly outperforming their peers because of how they apply new skills.
Those clues allow L&D teams to double down on what works and fix what’s broken. It’s less about guessing what people need, and more about building a living, breathing strategy that evolves.
Partnering across the business
No single department holds the keys to productivity. It’s a shared playground where multiple leaders get to collectively shape the experience.
When those groups actually talk to each other, development feels less like a siloed side project and more like part of the company’s rhythm. A manager spots a recurring skill gap, Ops knows where efficiency is lagging, HR understands the employee pulse — and together, that picture becomes the blueprint for learning that sticks.
The beauty of this approach is that growth doesn’t happen in isolation; performance and engagement start feeding each other in a loop that keeps the whole system humming.
The productivity puzzle won’t be solved by working longer hours or buying new tech. It’ll be solved by unlocking the potential of people – and that’s exactly what L&D is built to do.
Interested in more insights? Follow Thrive on LinkedIn.
Explore what impact Thrive could make for your team and your learners today.
.png)
.jpg)
%20(1).jpg)
.svg)
.svg)