Download the full Cost to Catalyst report for more insights and actionable takeaways.
An HR leader named “Kelly” walked into her company’s boardroom with something her team had never been able to show before: a clean, executive-ready dashboard connecting learning initiatives to operational goals: Time to proficiency, internal mobility rate, productivity increase rate, even production cost reduction — it was all there. And the data spoke for itself.
“I needed to show how learning matters for the business — like, is it going to save us money? Is it going to improve things?” Kelly said.
The reaction from executives in the room was swift. A vice president who had previously pushed back on backfilling a critical learning-and-development (L&D) role reversed his decision after seeing a one-page summary of how Kelly’s team delivered operational impact across the business.
Yet just six months earlier, the tone was different. As head of L&D for the pharmacy operations division at a major healthcare organization, Kelly had stepped into a team in crisis. Learning was viewed as a cost center, disconnected from the business. Engagement scores were static, turnover remained high, and the CEO, COO, CFO, and others in the C-suite were asking a now-familiar question: “Where’s the ROI?”
Rather than defend learning with engagement metrics or anecdotes, Kelly made a different choice: She repositioned L&D as a performance function.
“Kelly”, like so many others in the HR and L&D field, is facing a familiar but urgent challenge: Prove the business value of learning or risk being deprioritized. Her story illustrates a broader shift unfolding across the profession — one backed by data.
Turning L&D from cost center to growth engine
Guild today released new research, “From Cost to Catalyst: An HR Leader’s Guide to Maximizing the Business Impact of L&D,” that highlights the power of embedding employee learning and development (L&D) directly into the heart of an organization's business strategy.
Based on a survey of 500 CHROs and L&D leaders, along with in-depth interviews with leaders like Kelly across industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, retail, and technology, the research shines a light on the current state of L&D, identifies the strategies that distinguish top performers, and connects the dots to creating tangible business value.
What is the true impact of L&D?
To put this challenge in perspective, our survey found that as much as 28% of CHROs and L&D leaders said L&D investments had unknown, little, or no impact on revenue or profit margin, suggesting the field has a long way to go to be a real catalyst for business growth.
To be fair, this conundrum isn’t new. But it’s an increasingly pressing one for CHROs and L&D leaders, with profound implications for how people learn, how L&D content is created, and what skills will shape the future of work. With learning now cheaper, faster, and more personalized than ever before, HR leaders and L&D teams that focus only on engagement and delivery metrics risk becoming irrelevant. The pressure to prove strategic value is higher than ever.
Meet the ‘Difference Makers’.
As part of our research, Guild has identified a set of CHROs and L&D leaders who are not only harnessing their learning initiatives to generate maximum business value — but also finding credible ways to measure and show that value in ways that matter most to the business. As a result, these leaders (whom we call the “Difference Makers”) are outperforming their peers across various key performance indicators (KPIs).
In fact, these leaders are 122% more likely to meet or exceed their highest-priority metrics than laggards.
This disconnect highlights the need for HR and L&D leaders to champion their own cause and ensure business leaders understand L&D’s contribution to growth. In the words of one HR leader interviewed as part of the research, “When you start with business KPIs, you stop being a cost center and start becoming a growth engine. That’s when L&D becomes indispensable.”
Though these Difference Makers all work within their own distinct contexts — different industries, challenges, and cultures — the linkages between their actions and outcomes are striking. Our analysis of these leaders identified four shared priorities, behaviors, and mindsets.
We call them the “4 I’s”: Integration, Influence, Internal Mobility, and Impact. These “I’s” are not mutually exclusive nor collectively exhaustive; however, taken together, they create a framework for L&D success.
1. Integration
Difference Makers embed learning into enterprise-planning cycles and position talent development as a lever for growth and agility.
They are 30% more likely than laggards to say their L&D investments are linked to the organization’s biggest priorities.
2. Influence
Difference Makers earn trust and support among senior executives through the value they create.
They are 53% more likely than laggards to say the organization’s CHRO collaborates extremely closely with the senior leadership
3. Internal Mobility
Difference Makers not only enable talent to build necessary skills — they connect the talent with those skills to the places where the business needs them the most.
They are 31% more likely than laggards to say their L&D investments prioritize soft (or durable) skill development and 27% more likely than laggards to say their L&D investments support senior and middle managers’ careers.
4. Impact
Difference Makers measure what matters. They use data to reinforce the connections between learning and business outcomes.
They are 40% more likely than laggards to report using tech and data analytics to guide their L&D strategies.
As organizations navigate AI disruption, economic uncertainty, and workforce transformation, Guild’s research shows that those who integrate learning into their core business strategy are poised to lead — not follow — through change.
