Nikoleta and Associates

Market signals | Learning leadership

Chief Learning Officer (CLO)

Building the capabilities and learning culture that help leaders and teams deliver on strategy.

Overview

The CLO’s remit: capability that improves work

The Chief Learning Officer leads how the organization develops the capabilities people need to perform and progress. The remit brings together learning strategy, leadership development, professional skills and the systems that support learning. Its purpose is to connect development investment with the work the business must be able to do.

Today, that requires understanding operating priorities before designing programmes. A new service, management responsibility or technology can change what people need to know and practise. The CLO works with business and people leaders to distinguish a learning need from a process, information or authority problem that a course alone cannot resolve.

The role also establishes the conditions for useful learning. Relevant content matters, but so do access to practice, feedback from managers and opportunities to apply new skills. Learning teams need subject expertise, design capability and an understanding of the environments in which participants will actually use what they have learned.

A strategic review therefore asks what changed in work, not only who completed training. Can managers describe the capability required and recognize improvement? Do people have time and support to apply it? The CLO's contribution is strongest when learning becomes an intentional part of business performance and career development, with clear responsibility shared by the function and operating leaders.

Role signals

What is shaping the role now

Capabilities the business needs

Capabilities the business needs

49% say executives see skills shortages affecting delivery of business strategy.

What this asks of the role

Agree which capabilities teams need to deliver business priorities before choosing courses or learning programmes.

2025 | Learning and HR professionals.

Designing and delivering learning

Practice that reflects the job

36% report mature career development programmes that deliver results.

16% describe their last manager conversation as extremely meaningful.

What this asks of the role

Design opportunities to practise the situations people will meet at work, with feedback that helps them improve.

2025 | Learning and HR professionals; 2026 report | Nearly 15,000 surveyed workers | Separate findings; not parts of a total.

The role today

  • Capabilities the business needs

    Agree which capabilities teams need to deliver business priorities before choosing courses or learning programmes.

  • Understanding the learning need

    Find out why work is not producing the intended result before deciding whether learning is the right support.

  • Practice that reflects the job

    Design opportunities to practise the situations people will meet at work, with feedback that helps them improve.

  • Making learning accessible

    Make learning available in formats and at times that fit different roles, locations and working patterns.

  • Managers helping learning stick

    Help managers create opportunities for people to practise and discuss new capabilities after the formal learning ends.

  • Checking learning is being used

    Look for changes in how people perform the task after learning, rather than relying only on course completion.

Pressure Points

The CLO’s pressure: development expectations without practice time

The CLO faces a recurring tension between the organization's ambition to build capability and the time available for people to learn. Teams may be expected to adopt new tools, improve management practice and maintain output simultaneously. Learning can then become an additional activity squeezed around the work it is supposed to improve.

Requests often arrive already framed as courses. A business leader wants better collaboration or faster service, but the underlying constraint may be unclear decisions, conflicting measures or an unusable process. Accepting the requested solution without understanding the conditions can produce a well-attended programme whose participants return to conditions that prevent different behaviour.

Evidence is another challenge. Completion and satisfaction are accessible measures, while applying a skill takes time and depends on managers, assignments and feedback. The learning function may be held responsible for performance it cannot influence alone. At the same time, fragmented programmes can compete for attention without a coherent view of critical capability needs.

A useful response is to narrow the development objective to observable work. Agree what people should do differently, provide realistic practice and involve the manager who will reinforce it. Review whether the operating environment supports the change. This helps the CLO direct resources toward capability that matters rather than filling a calendar with learning activity.

Common pressure points

Learning requests and business needs

  • Requests framed as courses

    A request for training may arrive before the business has clarified what people need to do differently.

    What to look atAsk which task or decision should improve and why it matters.

  • Learning asked to solve operating conditions

    Performance may depend on tools, authority or workload as well as knowledge and practice.

    What to look atObserve the work before choosing a learning response.

Learning that fits everyday work

  • Practice too far from the task

    People may complete learning exercises that do not resemble the decisions they face at work.

    What to look atCompare practice activities with representative working situations.

  • Content lagging operating changes

    Materials can describe tools or processes that have already changed in the business.

    What to look atCheck review dates and feedback about outdated examples.

Managers and career development

  • Learning without manager reinforcement

    People can return from a programme to routines that give little room to use what they learned.

    What to look atReview practice assignments and follow-up conversations with managers.

  • Leadership programmes detached from responsibility

    Development can remain abstract when participants do not practise relevant leadership decisions.

    What to look atCheck the connection between learning and current leadership assignments.

Evidence and learning team capacity

  • Completion treated as application

    Attendance and completion can be reported without evidence that the capability is used in work.

    What to look atReview observed practice and manager examples after the learning.

  • Business results attributed too quickly

    An improved result may reflect several changes happening alongside learning.

    What to look atDiscuss other influences before attributing the outcome to a programme.

Selected external benchmarks

Research note: These figures describe the groups studied. They do not measure your organization’s performance or set goals for it.

  • Manager availability
    50%

    cite managers’ time or resources as leading barriers to career development.

    2025 – Learning and HR professionals

  • Time for career development
    45%

    cite team members’ time or resources as leading barriers to career development.

    2025 – Learning and HR professionals

  • Career programme participation
    31%

    report career programmes with low participation.

    2025 – Learning and HR professionals

  • Meeting ongoing learning needs
    8%

    say their organization meets continuous learning needs highly effectively.

    2026 – Human Capital Trends respondents

Conditions to Deliver

Learning reinforced through work

The learning leader contributes best when development priorities come from the work people need to perform, not only from a catalogue of programmes. Managers need time and guidance to set expectations, create opportunities to practise and give feedback after formal learning has ended.

The role also needs access to workforce plans, operating changes and evidence of where capability affects performance. Learning, people, technology and business leaders should agree which abilities matter, who needs them and how progress will be observed in real work. Protected practice time and manager reinforcement turn learning investment into capability the organization can use.

Reflection questions

Is learning becoming capability people can use in real work?

  1. Which critical capabilities come directly from future work and workforce plans rather than the existing programme catalogue?

  2. What are managers expected to do before and after learning, and do they have the time and guidance to do it well?

  3. What evidence in work quality, confidence or performance would show that learning has transferred beyond participation?

  4. Where should AI provide immediate task support, and where do people still need practice, feedback and reflection to develop judgement?

  5. How are development opportunities connected to internal movement, succession and the assignments where new capability can be demonstrated?

Future Evolution

The CLO’s evolution: learning within the flow of real work

The CLO's role may evolve toward a closer connection between capability development, work design and career movement. Formal programmes retain a place, especially where structured practice or shared understanding matters. The broader opportunity is to make learning available when people encounter consequential tasks and to create routes for applying it in real assignments.

Technology can support access, guidance and practice, but the quality of the learning experience remains important. An AI assistant may answer a question without helping someone develop judgement. The CLO needs to distinguish immediate task support from deeper capability building and assess how each contributes to performance, confidence and professional growth.

Managers become central partners in this approach. They can provide feedback, choose developmental assignments and make time for reflection. Learning leaders can equip them to do so while connecting development priorities with succession and internal mobility. That requires cooperation with people and business leaders rather than a separate programme catalogue.

A practical starting point is one critical role or capability. Map the situations in which it is used, the opportunities to practise and the evidence of improved performance. Then design support around that journey. This gives the CLO a strategic basis for investment and helps the organization build capability that remains useful as tools and responsibilities change.

Role evolution

Capability as part of business planning

  • Capability following strategy

    Faster task changes may require capability priorities to evolve with business direction rather than annual learning cycles alone.

    What to watchLearning priorities updated as work changes.

  • Business ownership of application

    Greater emphasis on application may give operating leaders clearer responsibility for practice, time and learning support.

    What to watchManagers making space to apply new capability.

Learning within everyday work

  • Practice within the task

    Frequently changing roles may bring short practice, guidance and feedback closer to everyday work.

    What to watchLearning available within current tasks.

  • Continuously maintained content

    Fast-changing tools may require learning resources to stay current between formal programme updates.

    What to watchContent refreshed when underlying work changes.

Development through managers and careers

  • Managers as development partners

    Work-based development may strengthen managers' role in coaching, practice and recognizing applied capability.

    What to watchManagers supporting learning after the course.

  • Leadership learning through decisions

    Unpredictable conditions may bring real business decisions and their consequences more directly into leadership development.

    What to watchDevelopment using current leadership decisions.

Learning value beyond participation

  • Application over time

    Learning through repeated use may require follow-up beyond the event to understand what people sustain in practice.

    What to watchFollow-up examining continued use of learning.

  • Interpreting business contribution

    Greater emphasis on contribution may require joint evaluation with operating leaders, recognizing other influences on performance.

    What to watchEvaluation connecting application with business context.

Selected external benchmarks

Research note: These figures describe the groups studied. They do not measure your organization’s performance or set goals for it.

  • AI in learning work
    71%

    are exploring, testing or using AI in their own work.

    2025 – Learning and HR professionals

  • Internal career moves
    55%

    are giving internal mobility higher priority next year.

    2025 – Firms with mature career programmes

  • Feedback and engagement
    ~7 in 10

    are engaged among those strongly agreeing they received meaningful feedback last week.

    2026 report – Seven feedback studies

  • Skills for AI work
    48%

    are designing and implementing skills programmes in response to AI.

    2026 – Leaders at AI-active firms