Mark Stern |
When Sherry got a job at her company four years ago, she had a felony record and no high school diploma. Since then, she’s excelled as a machine operator, parts buyer, and orientation trainer. And that's all before she got her high school diploma through Guild. Next up for Sherry: Collegiate program applications in HR and, if her dedication is any indication, yet another career to add to her resume.
Guild shares stories like Sherry’s at the start of almost every quarterly business review or ROI meeting with employer partners. The reason? Because qualitative stories of employees who successfully learned new skills provide essential context for quantitative data on the impact of learning-and-development (L&D) investments, add human emotion and depth, and give organizational stakeholders a reason to care beyond the numbers. In other words, they bring the impact of L&D to life, deepen trust in programs, and inspire both investment and participation.
In a time of increased scrutiny on L&D spending, these “learner stories” can become one of your most effective tools for securing buy-in, increasing adoption, and scaling programs with confidence. In our experience, the benefits of storytelling accrue in three ways.
1. Contextualizing data
The acceleration of AI and automation has raised the bar for what business leaders
expect from L&D. With personalized content and adaptive platforms increasingly
commoditized, executives are asking tougher questions: What changed? What has improved? Where’s the business value? The CHROs and L&D leaders who stand out can answer confidently — drawing on operational metrics, performance baselines, and clear alignment to business priorities. But as new Guild research reveals, delivering — and tracking — the real impact requires a multifaceted approach. Just as metrics like skills attainment, talent retention, program adoption, and investment ROI show impact, stories of how an employee overcame a career obstacle and learned a new skill bring that data to life in more human ways.
Remember, your audience may not remember specific statistics, but humans are wired to remember stories. We have been communicating through stories for upwards of 20,000 years, back when our flat screens were cave walls. For HR metrics like retention and engagement that may take time to demonstrate impact, a well-told employee story can capture more than early insights. It can capture the why behind the work.
2. Increasing employee participation
Storytelling isn’t just a tool for punching up a report on the impact of L&D. Employees themselves are just as critical an audience. In one survey of Guild employer partners with high adoption rates, about half of employees said they were more likely to take advantage of an education benefit if they heard about it from colleagues participating in the program. At one Guild employer partner in particular, 80 percent of members said they heard about their benefit from either a coworker or manager.
3. Appealing to prospective employees
Employee stories can also make your company more appealing to prospective talent on the job market. Some 92 percent of consumers want brands to make ads that feel like a story, and infusing employee stories into your talent acquisition strategy can create positive connections with people who want to know their next company is willing to invest in their career growth.
Start small and keep it simple.
Incorporating qualitative storytelling into your L&D strategy is easier than you think. The key is to embed it into moments that already exist — team meetings, manager check-ins, internal newsletters — and build from there.
Empower managers and leaders to help source (and share) stories.
At the executive level, leaders may not have direct connections with the employees benefiting most from a major L&D initiative, but managers and directors do. Store managers, site supervisors, district leads, department heads, and similar positions can be your connection to the most impactful stories. Use regular communications, monthly team meetings, or 1:1s as an opportunity to identify the people who are taking advantage of your learning and skilling benefits.
Leadership and senior management play a pivotal role in reinforcing the value of learning benefits — and it often starts with a simple conversation. Asking questions like “Have you noticed anyone actively engaging with their learning benefit?” or “Who on your team seems newly energized by their development journey?” can help surface early signals of growth. Similarly, spotlighting success stories — such as employees applying new skills in real time or quietly working toward stretch roles — can unearth a great story and reinforce a culture of advancement.
Want to take it a step further? Work with your communications teams to feature learner stories in internal newsletters, company-wide meetings, and your website’s careers page. Or partner with your social team to encourage employees to share their stories on LinkedIn or other social networks.
Enlist senior leaders in the cause.
Not all learners come from the frontline. Executives can be learners as well, and their stories can legitimize L&D across the organization in profound ways.
At a nationwide retail organization we interviewed for our report, “From Cost to Catalyst: An HR leader’s guide to maximizing the business impact of L&D,” employees didn’t see the relevance of training, and executives weren’t visibly engaged.
The CHRO and L&D teams strongly encouraged senior leaders to become learners themselves. The CEO and executive team publicly committed to completing key training modules, from leadership development to frontline customer-service simulations. Leaders shared weekly reflections on what they learned, setting an example of continuous growth. The company introduced “Leader-Led Learning” sessions, where executives facilitated workshops on topics like coaching, communication, and strategic thinking. The result: Training participation rose 60% and retention improved by 15%.
Don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good.
You might not have a big marketing budget or a bench of creatives to make a flashy video series. The good news is that you don’t need it, especially if you’re talking to the Millennials and Gen-Zers that comprise your workforce. One Meta study found an 84 percent likelihood that self-recorded, mobile-shot videos outperform those professionally created in a studio. And in the case of the aforementioned retailer, simple, short, and straightforward can work just fine.
Remember, you also don’t need a perfect story arc that encapsulates everything you’re trying to do in your program. Just like Erica’s, an impactful story isn’t always one that’s over yet.
Once you’ve found the data story you’re trying to tell, identify the right learners, ask the right questions, and use stories to make the case even stronger. When you do it well, you can move hearts and budgets. It also makes the ROI of your program feel real, especially for executives who need to see an impact before they scale.
When story meets strategy.
In the main, while data shows what’s working, stories show why it matters. Numbers can make the case, but stories make it stick — especially with the leaders who need to see real impact before they approve additional spending requests. When you wrap strategy in a human narrative, you don’t just inform. You move people. And in today’s environment, that’s how HR leaders turn insight into action.
