Why Personalized Learning and Development Matters for Retention

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Nicole Belyna: Your company invested in learning programs, built leadership workshops, and even spent hundreds of dollars per employee on development, and yet, engagement is low and retention remains a challenge. What's going wrong? Often it's not the learning itself, it's the connection between development and career growth.

Welcome to Honest HR, where we take real challenges facing today's HR teams and turn them into honest conversations with actionable insights. I'm your host, Nicole Belyna. Let's get honest.

Today we'll cover how career pathing can make learning stick, why employees skip available development, and how HR can equip managers and build credible paths.

Joining us to unpack these questions is Elizabeth Egan, director of Talent Management and Organizational Development (OD) at Seren ai. Elizabeth has deep expertise in shaping and executing talent strategies that drive growth, workforce planning, and organizational performance. Welcome to Honest HR Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Egan: Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

Nicole Belyna: We're so excited to have you. So I want to jump right in here and talk about why career pathing matters. In SHRM's 2026 State of the Workplace Report, HR workers were asked to consider their department's top priorities in 2026. Learning and development ranked third most important, right behind employee experience and total rewards. So how does career pathing sit at the intersection of all three?

Elizabeth Egan: I think that no matter what your employee experience is, your top priority, and that's going to have all of those pieces combined. When your employees are happier, they're more productive. That's a given.

So when you're able to bring them into a space of learning and growing and continuing to challenge themselves, they're more likely to be engaged. They're more likely to continue to want to be a part of the work that's going on, and I think that's a perfect intersection. That's where they are telling you: Here's what I'm interested in. Here's the work that I'm doing and here's where I want to move forward. And you can, as a company, also then pair your career pathing.

I just want to take a moment to say too, that career pathing does not always mean hierarchical move up or promotion up. Career pathing for a lot of people might be a technical path. They might be looking for more information on becoming a subject matter expert. They might be looking at getting a certification or making patents. There's different ways of doing it.

It also might look like a managerial path and a promotion upwards in that space versus the individual contributor. So I think that whatever the pathway is, there should be one designed for all types of employees that you want to retain, and you are going to want to retain your top employees. Those are the people who are looking for those challenges, those learning areas, the growth opportunities, the new projects, things that are going to keep them challenged and engaged throughout their day to day.

Nicole Belyna: I love what you just said there. You brought up a lot of really great points, particularly that the biggest point being, there's a lot of different paths. It's not just straight up and down. You know, they may want to continue to be an individual contributor, but really become a subject matter expert. They could go in a completely different direction and just reskill. And so it really is more like a lattice rather than kind of up and down.

And then you also brought up a really good point that learning opportunities are a great way to retain our best employees. And so that brings me to my next question, which is, many organizations may offer learning opportunities, but then they may still struggle with retention. And so from your experience, what's missing when learning isn't clearly connected to career progression?

Elizabeth Egan: It is a common problem and I think that it's something that takes a step back as an organization to really look at, are we answering the question people are asking? So do we just have something that we've labeled as learning? But it's not really applicable to what the groups are using, what the leadership is asking for, what onboarding people need. Where is it that we are missing that gap?

And people will tell you they are vocal. You have different aspects that you can use for feedback. So it might be your engagement survey. It might be your exit survey. It could be focus groups, it could be Q and A sessions during all company calls, things like that. That's where you're going to gain that information to understand what is it that people want and how can we build programming around that.

So again, it might look like a promotion cycle and having people understand what that promotion cycle looks like. It might look more like, how do I challenge or give more opportunities to a technical path? It might look like bringing in outside speakers. It might look like sending people to conferences. This will look different depending on what your company is doing and what the projects that you're handling are, what the clientele that you're working with is. So there will be some dependencies there.

The biggest thing is to listen to your members, hear what they're saying and what they're asking for. And then when you do have those great programs, because I'm sure there are a lot of our audience members here who are saying, you know Elizabeth, I swear we've built those. We listened, but it's not quite hitting. And some of that is the marketing of it. Some of it is people understanding whether it's a resource or a tool that they have licensing access to, it might be understanding how to use that license or resource, or it might just be understanding how to build out time during the day or week, month, year to dedicate to that.

And that might be the hardest piece. Time is a huge component of this and I think it's often put on the back burner. So for some organizations they may have a great program but haven't built out that time. So being able to communicate and work with leaders on what does this look like? Are we able to say every third Friday of the month, there's going to be a two hour block and it's dedicated to learning? So that might be the piece as well.

So there's different levers that you can pull and push as an organization and then as leadership to make sure that people feel supported in the journey that they're looking to make, and it might be your internal resources external, but making sure that you're also then getting that data back to say, who's using what, how can we utilize this more in the future? What is getting us an ROI, where are the resources that really are working for our employees? How can we invest more in that?

Nicole Belyna: I love a lot of what you just said. You know that learning really is personal for each employee. It's very individualized, and learning looks different for everyone, or every employee has different expectations. And so you gave some really good examples of opportunities for organizations to collect data that can be really valuable to HR teams and leaders to understand what growth looks like to your employees, how to market it properly. That's a really, really good point that you brought up. And you know how to allocate your time to learning.

And so what are the most reliable signals HR can look for that indicate employees are disengaging due to unclear or non-existent career paths?

Elizabeth Egan: Great question. I mean, I think the biggest thing is to listen, there's a lot of listening points. I mentioned a few of them. You have your engagement surveys, you have your Q and As during your all company calls, the big one too. And you know, I hate to bring it up, but organizations see it, your exit surveys.

Where are people that are leaving going? What are they citing as their reason? They will tell you, people will tell you exactly what they're looking for and what they're leaving for. So I think it's great to make sure to listen to that data, look at it, and you can gain more information than just the fact of, oh, they ticked this reason as they're leaving, but more so is it at a specific year. Are there a group of people that are, every three years you're seeing people that are leaving because they're not growing? Is it a certain region? Is it a certain project line might be a certain leader or manager?

Where are there areas that you can take that data to say, we need to address this pocket, and you can then be specific about it and be vocal. I think people really like the transparency to say, we heard you. We saw this information and now we're moving forward in a tangible, accountable manner that we want to give you what you need. I mean, I think people respond really well to that, and I think when that also helps when people know that you're listening, you're watching. You're giving them the resources, the support that they need. They will then be more likely to share, but also they're more invested because they know it's made for them. It's not just a package deal.

And I think it's important to remember that too. Just because you have something doesn't mean it's exactly what people are asking for. You need to marry those two things in order to make it work.

Nicole Belyna: Really good point. I mean, you may have someone who is very interested in going from, you know, an engineer to a cartoonist, but if your organization doesn't have a need, and or it doesn't align with your strategy, then perhaps, you know, you have to redirect them towards a different learning path and manage their expectations.

And so I want to talk about enabling career pathing. So even when employees are motivated to grow, many aren't sure what opportunities actually exist within the organization or what paths are possible. And so, you know, you've already spoken a lot about transparency and marketing the learning opportunities the right way. And so what roles should HR play in helping employees articulate their career goals?

Elizabeth Egan: Sure. I think goal setting is your number one. It's having the conversations. If you're an organization that hasn't yet built out, typically it's going to be your Q1 sessions, you're setting your goals. During that time, the organization should be very clear about what their goals are, tell the people, make sure they understand. When I come into work every day, I know what my job is. Tying into this teamwork, and then I know what my team is doing and every day we come in and we do these things and it's tying into the organization in this way. Having that understanding really helps to make sure people feel motivated and connected. So I think that's step one.

Step two is to make sure they understand every day, you know, I'm coming in, doing this job to achieve these goals. It's a motivator for a lot of people. It has that connection point. It's also the conversation piece between managers and employees. That is where a lot of this is going to start. Employees will be very clear. Most of the time if they are talking to their manager on a regular basis, they're able to hear feedback in a much better way because they have that open, trusting, transparent relationship. If you can build on that, that is going to be the key for a people manager.

And so once you're able to have those conversations on a regular basis, you're able to then say, okay. Where are my strengths? Let's build on them. Of course. Where are there areas that maybe I need to test my skill set a little bit, build my skill set a little bit, and then you can start looking at what is outside of that for me? What are stretch areas? Where is something I'm interested in? And it may not be your day-to-day work. That's okay. In fact, I think that's a really good place for people to start just because you don't, let's say, do speaking engagements where you're not a team lead in some way, and maybe you don't give presentations every day. It is a very good skill set for you to have to know how to publicly speak, whether it's virtually or with an audience. That's a great skill set that you might not encounter every day.

But a development of that is going to bring you further down your career. So it's not maybe a six month goal or one year goal. Maybe that's in your five year goal, but those are places that you can stretch as a person yourself. That's a development goal for you. That will help you in your career and your managers then aware. So if there is some place where they might say, we need somebody to present this project to a team, and we don't have somebody in there. Let me give you that opportunity, that challenge, that new experience that you didn't have before. If you haven't expressed that. They have no idea to put you into that spot.

And so I think it's really important to continue having those conversations. And the earlier you start, the better. And also, I just want to be so clear that goals can change. It's okay. Your career pathing can change. There are jobs right now that exist that did not exist five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago. So if you're beginning your career journey now. Know that it is okay to change your path and you can shift, adjust, change new skills. That's always a really good kind of mentality to keep, and it might be deepening your knowledge that you already have and becoming that subject matter expert. Or it might be engaging in things outside of your expertise currently, that will just make you a stronger team MEMBER, a stronger leader, a stronger presenter. It could be fact finder. All of those things are going to come under that umbrella, but they challenge you as a person and keep you evolving. And that's going to be not only important but fun. I mean, it's fun to challenge yourself and learn new things, so that's something to keep in mind as well.

Nicole Belyna: I mean, and I guess as it, we should try to make it fun, right? And engaging and obviously attach, ensure that the learning is attached to career goals and things that motivate our employees. And so really love what you said there. We'll continue the conversation in just a few moments. Stay with us.

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According to the SHRM Learning and Development executives benchmarking report. Organizations spend over $400 per employees annually on learning and development with this level of spending. Why do employees often underuse learning opportunities and what needs to change for L and D to feel truly relevant for their growth?

Elizabeth Egan: That's such a good question, and I think a lot of organizations are asking themselves that. I think I'll answer it in twofold. The first is, like I talked about earlier, whether your learning package is actually addressing what people are asking for. So that's the first thing. I think sometimes organizations may either, you know, pay for licensing or they invest in X, Y, Z, and they then wipe their hands of it and say, well, there's something out there. That's all I have to do. And I think that's the wrong approach. We do want to continue to make sure we are actually addressing and giving the resources to the people that they need. So that's the first thing, is to make sure to listen to that data focus group Q and A feedback from surveys. Listen to what people are saying. Is it actually addressing the problem or the request that they're asking for? Is that the right tool for you? Is that the right resource? That might be the first piece.

The second is time and time will always be a huge factor for everyone. Everyone is busy. You are at your job, you're doing everything. You're coming in. You are either, you know, making your widget or you're having your project meeting, or you're leading projects, whatever you are day to day looks like, and it's often really difficult to take a step back and spend time on learning. And I think that it also comes down to people, sometimes this is going to sound silly, but sometimes not knowing how to take time to learn. And they might see, oh, we have a license to do these, or tool sets, but in resources. But I just get overwhelmed. I look at it and I say, I log in. There's so much, I'm just not sure where to start. And that can be a reality for a lot of people.

And I think that's where the goal setting comes in. Having those conversations, knowing ahead of time what they're trying to work on. So they have a pathway, they have an understanding, a goal that they can then translate into, oh, I need to look for the resource that we have that talks about how to be a project manager. That's the goal for this year, and that's what I'm working on. And now I can actually take the time that I've dedicated to this, to researching it within this tool that we have. And now this tool works for me. But before, if they're just looking at every sort of learning available, it's really difficult.

And the other is, of course, again, if you have an organization that has the capability and has the culture to carve out learning time, I think from an organization standpoint, that can be a great tool. If not leaders, managers. Like, have that conversation with your team. That should be something that you are also driving forward. It helps you. We know this, it's statistically proven, so if you are a manager, even a lower level manager, maybe you have one or two people under. You have them dedicate one day a month where there's two hour block that they are going out and learning something new.

As a team, we have special teams that are our company that come out and will also come back and say, we had a learning round table within our group where we just said, oh, well I went to this webinar, or I attended this learning, or I took this course, and they share their learning. That's a really good habit to get into as well, to make it part of your everyday and your culture, and that will help drive some of this as well for organizations is really just building in that. This is packaged for you. We've built this resource for you based on your feedback to us and your asks, and we're giving you the time to actually invest in yourselves the same way that we've invested in you monetarily speaking. And I think those two things together are really important. Without one, you're going to be a little lopsided. So it's helping balance that expectation from the company side and the person.

Nicole Belyna: You know, if organizations are going to invest in employees, then certainly, as you said, we have to give them permission to allocate the time. And it is interesting to see how often employees feel guilty about walking away from their day-to-day, or they don't want to leave their co-worker for a couple of days. They're worried that they're going to add too much to their workload. And so it was a really great tip to recommend allocating a certain amount of time each week or each month, or something like that to make learning feel very accessible and not so much of a big time constraint, but rather, if they prefer to learn in smaller bites, it feels a little more doable and doesn't feel like they're taking too much time away from their work every day.

And so what foundational elements need to be in place before career pathing efforts can be credible and trusted by employees?

Elizabeth Egan: Most of it will look like, are the efforts true to what people are looking for? Are they in line with the ask, are they truly packaged for the people or are they simply stamping something that says learning on it and pushed out and not really applicable to the work being done? I think people are very apt to know the difference. They know if something has been made for them or if there was time dedicated to it, or if they have been consistently giving feedback on a tool set or a program that's been introduced that is it working and there's no changes there. It will become very clear.

I think that this is, again, the important piece of looking at your data, hearing what people are seeing. Getting that feedback, understanding what works, what doesn't, but also marketing internally correctly to say, here's what we've heard. Here's the change we made. This is the resource that we have available to you. And I think that's going to be important.

And I do want to note, there's probably people out there who are saying, I try and we send out the emails and then people don't look at the emails. And that's true as well. And I think the more that you can make that a consistent part of your culture and your messaging, the more likely people will buy into it and understand it is something that is an investment in them. So the more you can tie that messaging together and really give it the understanding for each person that this is based on what they are asking for, then they're more likely to be engaged. And that takes time for some organizations, it takes understanding, it takes culture piece.

And again, that's where you can have leaders and managers who also really assist in that, who are allowing for the people to take off time, as you mentioned, or push to say, yes, this is a conference you should be looking at, or, you know, half day for learning in these webinars or taking a part of this program. That maybe you step away for a week, whenever that might look like. And I think those are also going to be very big tools that you need is having those leaders, managers, and even all the way up through executives who are backing this experience and understanding that it benefits overall.

Nicole Belyna: And, you know, creating a culture of learning, right? Because that's essentially what you've kind of talked about here over the last few minutes is it does take time if it's not something that already exists in your organization. And I think that combination of identifying employees, hiring employees who are naturally smart and curious and have this lifelong learning mindset. And so even if it's not something directly tied to what they're doing today. They're still interested in learning about public speaking or project management or something along those lines. And then giving them permission to find, allocate the time to learn. Also another great point, and then of course, collecting the data and actually listening to the data to further the culture, I think is kind of that final point to keep that culture of learning going and thriving.

And so I want to move on and talk about some common workplace scenarios. So we hear a lot of reoccurring challenges when it comes to career growth and development. And so I would love to read you a few scenarios that are common. And for each one just give us a quick answer. What should HR do to change it? So our employees say they want growth, but don't have the capacity to sign up for training. What would your advice be?

Elizabeth Egan: Don't have the capacity to sign up for training. I guess I want to know a little bit more about that, whether it's a budget constraint, which could be true. Or if it's time. I mean, I think those are the two largest things. So I think budgeting, of course, that is a reality, especially at smaller organizations, nonprofits. Areas like that, that is absolutely true, and I think those are areas where you can hopefully as an organization build a budget in, if not becoming more creative with finding the materials online, especially, I think there's a lot of organizations that will give out some of their learning free. There's a lot of things. Even Microsoft will give a lot of their trainings for free directly. Universities will give a lot of free trainings and especially they'll prepare you for certifications all the way through in different aspects, especially in the technology space. So I think there's areas there.

The other, if the other piece would be time, that's going to be something a manager can certainly step in on and hopefully be a proponent of, or again, a culture piece that the organization can help change. And I think that's going to be a very important piece for not only HR. And I want to kind of separate those things just because L and D comes out of the HR space, does not make it an HR thing. Learning and development is an individual thing for each person, but it is for an organization. Incredibly important. This should be important to executives, leaders, managers, employees. This should be important because it's your career. It is your development, it is your journey, and I would want to own it. I certainly own mine. I would want you to have that ownership. So putting the time and effort and energy into that is going to be your responsibility, and you should be the one to say, I want to own my own L and D. This is just the group that packages it up to help me a little bit with that. That's how it should be viewed.

Nicole Belyna: And so what about managers who say they support development but then they don't discuss career growth with employees? What's your recommendation there?

Elizabeth Egan: It's a tough spot. I think for a lot of people there might be an area where maybe they have a high performing person who wants to move up and there's maybe not a position. We hear that a lot, and that's a reality. There's not always going to be what we call a business need for every position to have a promotion at all times. What you do want to do is put yourself in as best position as possible so that if something does open up. You are best suited for that role, you are best suited for that opportunity. And that doesn't always look like a straight line. And I want to be so clear about that. I have made moves in my career that are lateral, that are zigzag, that have crossed different areas you might start in one area. I started in operations and finance and have moved over into the people space and there are areas that you might build a skill set and it's transferable. Those are just as important.

So I think having a manager who is having those conversations is of course going to help. As much as possible. If you happen to have a manager who does not have those conversations, certainly try. If they're not putting them on the calendar, put them on the calendar yourself. You own your career. If not, find another mentor or leader who is more capable or comfortable having those conversations and discuss what that looks like. Your organization all probably has some sort of career path also on available in their intranet or listed somewhere that they talk about. Make sure you're familiar with what it looks like, what you need to do to get to the next steps, and continue having those networking opportunities if you can, and hearing from people who maybe have gone down the path that you would like to go to. Connect with them. People are always happy to talk about their own experience. I promise you. They are thrilled. If you email and say, Hey, I saw that you have this career. I'm looking for that too. Can you tell me a little something? They will help you out if you happen to have a manager who that's not their forte.

Nicole Belyna: And you bring up a great point, which is learning is not always necessarily a formal activity. It might be in mentor through mentorship and conversation. Just building a connection with a co-worker who has a path that you're interested in following.

So looking ahead, how do you see employee expectations around career growth and development? Evolving over the next few years. So, you know, we're asking you to get out your crystal ball and what should HR leaders be thinking about now to stay ahead of the curve?

Elizabeth Egan: Sure. I mean, I think technology is going to play a pretty big part. AI is always thrown around. It's our new buzzword and I think that's going to be a tool. I think that people that use it as a tool and a resource are going to be far better off than the people who name it as a villain in their story. This is going to be something that can help you, it can help you take some things off your plate that maybe were manual before and allow you some of that time. So it might be, you know, compiling reporting, maybe that it can take on some of that piece that you were doing before and allow you to learn some of the skills that you need to move into your next role or to have a piece into your corporate puzzle that you didn't have before. So I think people who are going to understand how to utilize the upcoming technologies that come to them through their workplace or otherwise are going to be best set up for this.

And I think the other is having that understanding again, that it is your career. Nobody is going to do this for you except you. So stop waiting for people to come to you with the next golden opportunity. Start understanding where it is that you want to be and building the blocks to get there. And that can be a shorter term or a longer term situation.

And you know, that might be within your organization, it might be outside of that. You have to be the one to make that call for yourself and understand, is this a place that can challenge me, that I want to grow with, that I enjoy the culture, people leadership, the work that I'm doing every day. Those are only things that you can answer. And I think it's important for people to take a minute to step back and really assess that. And that's not often done. And it really should be a part of that internal conversation of what does this look like for me? Where do I want to be? What's the work I want to be doing? And now how do I use a learning path to get there and build that new skill set or strengthen the current set that I have right now?

Nicole Belyna: Learning really starts with us and our own personal accountability, so thank you for pointing that out. Thank you, Elizabeth, for sharing your insights with us.

Elizabeth Egan: You're welcome. This has been a great conversation, so that's going to do it for this week's episode of Honest HR and we will catch you next time.

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