Continuous rollouts of new tools without sufficient time to adapt is leading to change fatigue, fragmented adoption, and disengagement. When employees are overwhelmed or feel unsupported, productivity drops and performance stalls.

Yet, your business still needs the adoption to stay relevant, see the ROI, and grow your business.

As a leader, you can make it easier.

In moments like these, you need a united front and a confident workforce more than ever. Organizations where CHROs and CIOs align on AI upskilling, cross-functional collaboration, and ethical governance, companies are three times more likely to develop a Gen AI-ready workforce. 

To get there, key members of the C-suite have to band together and give employees the leadership and guidance they need to grow. 

Why CHROs, CLOs, and CIOs for AI Adoption?

As you start to see this large-scale workforce transformation for what it is—people who need to learn a new technology—it’s obvious why the key stakeholders here are Chief Human Resource Officers (CHROs), Chief Learning Officers (CLOs), Chief Talent Officers (CTOs), and Chief Information Officers (CIOs). 

Framing it this way also showcases why these teams have to come together to be effective at readying their workforce for AI.

The Art of AI Alignment

Employees aren’t resisting AI, they’re resisting the confusion that comes with it. 

They’re tired of unclear expectations, shifting tools, and too few answers. To drive meaningful adoption, align HR, L&D, and IT around a common goal: delivering clarity and direction that ties directly to business outcomes. When people understand the “why” and the “how,” adoption becomes progress instead of pressure.

Once you’ve got buy-in from all the leaders, here’s what you have to work together to do:

1. Establish a framework with clear AI guidance.

Above all else, people need to know what they can do with AI and what they can’t. No employee wants to be the one putting the company at risk, but without a clear strategy and framework, they’re left to guess. Whether it’s what platforms they use, how they use them, or what they can use them for, people need the guardrails. 

Here are some questions you can consider when creating AI guidance:

• What is safe AI use? 
• What does it mean to use AI responsibly at your company? 
• Are there any AI regulations your company is subject to? (e.g., the EU AI Act)
• Which platforms can they use? Which can’t they? Why?
• What work can be done by AI and what can’t? (This one may require a little experimentation.)
• What are the expectations for employees?
  

2. Establish a plan of action.

As the leaders in the midst of a full-scale workforce transformation, you need clear delineation for which departments will handle which aspects of adoption. For example, there may be some portions of the transformation that are best-served by certain teams and other components that could be owned by any function. Clarity is key.

Here are some questions to consider as you make your plan:

• Who will be responsible for AI tool governance?
• Who will communicate AI guidance, news, and information with the workforce?
• Who will create the learning and upskilling opportunities in AI?
• How will your employees learn to use AI appropriately?
• How will you all work together on a daily, weekly, or monthly cadence to stay in sync?

Boost AI Adoption with a United Front

Why are organizations with aligned leaders so much more likely to have a team that’s ready for AI? Because that alignment gives employees two key components of successful Gen AI learning: Support and infrastructure.

Once aligned, you can empower your employees to develop the confidence needed to easily adopt AI through learning experiences—both hands-on AI practice and self-guided learning resources.

As part of that learning, they can also experiment with AI within the new guardrails. Experiential learning is one of the best ways to develop skills and in the process of trial and error, your employees will also be able to suss out the value of different AI tools for different use cases across your organization.

That confidence they’ll develop is the key to beating AI fatigue. Compared to others, Very Confident Gen AI users are:

• Nearly twice as likely to use Gen AI daily
• 4x more likely to apply it to real problems
• 32% more likely to learn on the job
• 38% more likely to get support from peers and mentors
• 77x more likely to engage with and become proficient using Gen AI

With confidence, your employees are no longer wasting brain power trying to figure it all out. Instead, they have the resources, the limitations, and the expectations. They approach AI refreshed. They can experiment and grow with renewed energy.

The post Align Your CHROs, CLOs, and CIOs to Grow AI Adoption appeared first on Degreed.

This course isn’t Econ 101 or the History of Western Civ, but it is learning. We’re digging into how corporate learning has changed more in the last decade than in the previous few combined and why the syllabus looks nothing like it used to.

Corporate learning has changed more in this decade than it has in the previous few decades combined. And the pace of change accelerates daily. Even just a few months ago, “personalization” in training meant surface-level recommendations from an algorithm that suggests courses based on your department or job title. Helpful, but often generic.

With AI, personalization has finally caught up to its promise. Modern platforms can understand an employee’s current skills, career goals, and even how they like to learn, then adapt in real time as those needs evolve. It’s not just matching people to content anymore. It’s building truly individualized and adaptive learning journeys that grow with them. 

Class is officially in session; let’s dive into the first lesson.

Lesson 1: AI-Powered personalization is more efficient.

The shift isn’t just theoretical, it’s already transforming businesses. Companies using AI-powered learning platforms report a 57% jump in training efficiency, with employees completing courses faster, retaining more knowledge, and applying it more effectively on the job.

Personalized training speeds up AI transformation and compliance requirements, fosters behavior change, and ramps up leaders in record time. For leaders, this is a game-changer. Learning is no longer a “nice to have.” It’s a direct lever for performance, agility, and retention in the face of AI. 

Lesson 2: The new way to personalize is nothing like the old way.

Here’s how AI redefines personalized learning compared to traditional approaches:

AI is now woven into nearly every business function–78% of companies report using AI somewhere in their operations, according to McKinsey. Training and development shouldn’t be the exception.

Lesson 3: There are a lot of places you can weave AI into learning strategy.

For this lesson, we’ve brought in our learning strategy expert, Stephen Elrod, SVP of Global Delivery. According to Stephen, the question is no longer if you should adopt AI for learning, but how. Here are small, tangible steps you can start with today:

1. Audit your learning stack: Invest in platforms that go beyond content delivery. Look for systems that adapt to individual needs and build capabilities, not just information sharing.
2. Pilot AI-driven pathways: Start with one skill area (e.g., compliance, leadership, or digital skills) and test with a small group.
3. Integrate learning into workflows: Add micro-learning resources where people already work.
4. Raise AI literacy: Run a short workshop to help employees understand AI in learning.
5. Protect trust: Establish a clear data and ethics policy so employees know how their information is being used.
6. Secure executive sponsorship: Share one business case (like improved retention or reduced training costs) with leaders to get buy-in. 

Lesson 4: AI can be the new 24/7 workforce coach.

AI isn’t replacing human learning, it’s enhancing it. It’s giving every employee the equivalent of a personal coach, surfacing opportunities that are timely, relevant, and actionable. And it’s helping organizations scale that level of personalization across the entire workforce.

The takeaway: AI has turned personalized learning from an aspiration into a reality. Companies that embrace it won’t just keep up with change—they’ll lead it.

Homework Assignment for L&D Leaders

What’s a good lesson without a little reflection?

1. Choose one high-priority skill area in your organization (e.g., leadership, compliance, or digital skills).
2. Map how employees are currently trained in this area eg.what tools, content, and methods are used.
3. Identify at least two gaps where personalization could improve outcomes (for example, tailoring by role, adding real-time feedback, or integrating into workflows).
4. Draft a one-page plan for how AI could close those gaps.

Bring this back to your next team meeting and share one idea you could pilot in the next 90 days.

The post Personalized Training 101: Your Guide to Using AI for Learning appeared first on Degreed.

Whatever work you do to get leaders behind skill development, whatever resources you secure for learning, and whatever successes you see with retention or innovation—everything eventually falls apart if your efforts lack skill coaching.

To lean into skill coaching, you’ll need to prioritize skill-building opportunities and lean on the managers who oversee employee learning. Unfortunately, our research shows that 26% of employees say their managers don’t support their professional growth, and nearly half of employees aren’t connected to work that stretches their skills.

“Most managers want to help their employees develop skills, but many managers have not received great coaching themselves,” said Ben Cowan, Director of Skills Strategy at Degreed. “They need training on how best to drive skill success, time and resources to do it right, and recognition that their skill coaching efforts are critical to the success of the business.”

Here’s why—and how—L&D can help managers be better skill coaches to help achieve critical company skill goals.

Why Managers Should be Skill Coaches

Ideally, managers have a profound and positive effect on employees in all aspects of their work, especially in learning. In a positive learning culture, people are 92% more likely to say their manager supported their development.

Our research also shows that 18% of employees say one of their favorite ways to learn is directly from their managers. Furthermore, 70% of employees learn from managers frequently, and 28% learn from managers daily.

And can you imagine implementing experiential learning like special projects, mentorships, and internal internship programs without manager support? We can’t. In fact, we’ve found that the most successful learning happens at companies where managers are excellent skills coaches.

“Managers are critical, not just because they find and connect learning to the members of their teams, but because they also contextualize and reinforce it within the workflow,” said Hali Linn, Learning Strategy Consultant at Degreed.

“By serving as both mentors and coaches, managers help bridge the gap between formal learning and the application of skill development. This is how managers foster an environment where continuous learning is part of the organizational culture.”

Managers are also critical to everything else in your company—operations, productivity, employee engagement, and more. And that’s a problem. Why? Because managers are time-starved, caught between competing priorities, and missing critical guidance. They need support too, and that’s where L&D comes in. Here’s how you can help.

No 1. Save managers time: prioritize critical skills.

Research shows the average manager already spends 30 minutes with each direct report every three weeks, and great managers spend even more. If your organization is anything like those studied, it means managers are some of the busiest people in your company.

So if you ask a manager to add more skills development to their plate, don’t be surprised if you get the corporate equivalent of a shrug. 

Also consider that the number of tasks skill coaches could add to their plates—from discussing career goals and giving feedback to finding and assigning stretch projects—can quickly become overwhelming. Now multiply that by the number of direct reports and the number of skills each direct report needs to develop. 

It becomes clear that this is going to be a lot of work. This means that, if you want skills coaching to succeed, you’ll need to remove as many multipliers that you can and shorten the list of skills.

3 Ways to Help Managers Prioritize Critical Skills

To keep managers (and employees) from feeling overwhelmed, help them narrow their focus to the most important skills.

Which skills will have the most impact? Your managers may not know or have time to find out. But you can help them prioritize in one of three ways:

1. Top-down: Translate business objectives into high-priority skills using the first part of our workbook How to Win Learning and Influence the C-Suite.
2. Bottom-up: Democratize skill prioritization by asking individual contributors which skills would help them in their daily work.
3. Combination: Give managers and employees a list of high-priority skills from the business—then let them decide what to learn first.

“A combination approach has worked well for many of our clients,” said Stephanie Lyras, Director, Change Management, Engagement & Adoption. “It allows us to be clear about the skills most important at an organizational level, while respecting the need for flexibility and autonomy to focus on the aspects of the global strategy that are most critical for different business areas.” 

No 2. Incentivize managers: connect skills to successes.

Executives need to drive profit. Managers need to show impact. Employees need to provide quality work. Everyone wants your company to succeed. It’s your job in L&D to bring them together.

If you’ve prioritized skills using a top-down or combination approach, you’ve already aligned with the C-suite on skills. When you share these priorities with skill coaches, connect those coaches to available resources, pathways, and tools. Give them ready-made learning packages.

If you’ve taken more of a democratized approach to skill prioritization, coordinate efforts across teams. Pool resources to share among multiple teams—and provide the social learning that 75% of workers crave.

Celebrate the wins.

However you help managers prioritize skills, keep the focus dialed and the energy high by celebrating wins. Simply pointing out skills and expecting managers to take it from there won’t cut it. Prove to them that the skills highlighted will help them succeed.

Celebrate team members who complete stretch assignments related to high-priority skills. Track progress like increases in productivity, quality improvements, and skills assessments—and share them often. You’ll help reinforce that skills development is part of success, not incidental to it.

No 3. Build habits: give managers a manual.

Coaching is a skill like any other, and even the most seasoned managers need help leveling up their workers. L&D can help by infusing more conversations with skills terminology, creating new guidance, and leveraging learning tools.

Add skills conversations to existing guidance.

There are already existing processes in place at your company:

• Most managers address employee development and performance with evaluations, career development conversations, and annual reviews.
• Most executives likely already schedule recurring company events like strategy rollouts and quarterly kick-offs.

Your job is to ensure that these practices address skill-building. Work with HR and Talent executives to make discussions about skills a part of performance evaluations and raises. Provide skills talking points for career development conversations.

For example, you could add a task at the end of existing coaching or performance evaluation forms to align two priority skills to work on—and outline how progress in those skills will be measured at the next evaluation.

Create new guidance.

After incorporating more skill coaching language in existing processes, start outlining the specifics of new processes that help managers get the most out of the time they spend on skill coaching.

For example, managers coaching each direct report can: 

1. Schedule a 1:1 with the employee to identify one or two skills to focus on.
2. Set developmental goals with a clear timeline and measure of success.
3. Schedule regular 15-minute check-ins to discuss progress and challenges.
4. Reach out to L&D for support as needed.

Help managers leverage learning tools.

With the rise of learning technologies, AI, and vast content libraries, employees have more ways than ever to develop their skills. But without manager guidance, even the most advanced technologies are reduced to tools that sit on a shelf.

Letting learning tools sit on the shelf is a mistake. Gartner research shows that managers who connect employees to the right resources at the right time see 26% more performance and 3x the likelihood their employees will be high performers.

Managers need to be empowered to become skill coaches and be the connectors between those technologies and employee skill development. Help managers understand how L&D resources make skill coaching easier.

Focus on tools like these if you have them:

Degreed Skill Coach

Managers use Degreed Skill Coach to help track and analyze the skills their team members have—and to understand the gaps. Managers see employee skills ratings and set developmental goals. 

“Managers don’t often know where to start when it comes to facilitating coaching conversations,” Linn said. “But Degreed Skill Coach is designed for just that, a place to start. Skill Coach gives managers the view of their team member’s skills, where they want to focus their development, and how to help them achieve their goals.” 

Degreed Focus Skills

Degreed Focus Skills presents employees with learning and skill-building content based on relevance to their work, company, and manager goals.

“So often we, as L&D admins, get a bit too excited about selecting a bunch of skills for employees to focus on,” Linn said. “But the truth is that often leads to overwhelm, and employees tune out. Managers helping their teams choose just a few skills to intentionally work on is what yields results. Too many and employees will disengage.”

Degreed Button

Degreed Button is a plug-in managers use to share learning content on the fly.

Everybody needs a coach.

Turning managers into skill coaches is critical for skills development. With coaching, employees are 93% more likely to use career planning tools, 67% more likely to use skills, and 379% more likely to have opportunities to stretch their skills on the job.

Coaching itself is a skill, and it’s one L&D can cultivate by giving managers the support they need to succeed. And if you find yourself in need of a little coaching, Degreed can help with that. Our Professional Services team partners with L&D professionals like you to explore your learning strategy, technology goals, and questions about coaching managers. Book a free, private consultation.

Contributors

Ben Cowan

Director of Skills Strategy at Degreed

Hali Linn

Skills & Talent Expert at Degreed

Stephanie Lyras

Director of Change Management, Engagement, and Adoption at Degreed

The post How to Turn Managers into Skill Coaches appeared first on Degreed.