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Developing talent in the workplace has become a critical strategy for organizations. Talent development (TD) professionals — practitioners who help others achieve their full potential by improving their knowledge, skills and abilities in the workplace — spent last year creating a learning culture, upskilling and reskilling employees, improving engagement and retention and aligning learning programs to business goals.
Over the last few years, TD has increased its strategic value in the workplace. When seeking new work, two main considerations for employees are opportunities for growth within the company and opportunities to learn and develop new skills, according to LinkedIn’s 2023 Workplace Learning Report. “People who aren’t learning will leave, especially younger workers,” the report explained.
To keep up with the pace of change, TD professionals are helping to shape the future of work and future-ready organizations that are prepared to identify and tackle current and emerging trends in the economy, legislation, competition and technology, as well as confront employee expectations.
Who Are TD Professionals?
“Talent development includes a rich history of theories and practices, and its practitioners have varied backgrounds and expertise,” according to ATD’s Capabilities for Talent Development: Shaping the Future of the Profession.
TD professionals are trainers, instructional designers, coaches, HR professionals, TD managers, workplace learning professionals and performance consultants with myriad titles, including executive, vice president, manager, supervisor or learning and development specialist. They are highly educated, with 92% having at least a two-year college degree and 55 percent having a master’s degree or above, according to the Association for Talent Development’s TD Salary and Benefits Report 2023.
ATD’s TD as a Second (or Third) Career 2023 research report finds that 84% of TD professionals started in another career — education, HR, sales management, healthcare or financial services — before turning to or ending up in TD. The TD field continues to grow, outpacing all other industries by 3%.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), employment opportunities for training and development specialists are projected to grow 8% between 2021 and 2031. This is faster than the average for all occupations (estimated to be 5% growth),” ATD’s TD Salary and Benefits Report 2023 noted. As a result, the BLS is projecting approximately 36,500 openings each year, including those replacing employees who leave the field or retire.
For several decades, ATD has defined the competencies and capabilities needed to increase the profession’s strategic contribution to an organization’s business performance. Rapidly advancing technologies, demographic shifts in the workplace and the pace of globalization have put more importance on the skills and knowledge necessary for TD professionals to succeed in their current roles. ATD’s Talent Development Capability Model™ is a research-backed framework that guides TD professionals in what they need to know and do to develop themselves and others and influence the organization.
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“The role of talent development is to tie development to the organization; drive the learning agenda; optimize the learning environment; collect, interpret and analyze data to achieve organizational goals; and leverage the technology and science of learning,” noted ATD’s Capabilities for Talent Development: Shaping the Future of the Profession.
TD professionals have strategic roles in employee well-being, engagement, inclusion, change management, safety and compliance and leadership development, so having the professional, personal and organizational capabilities to find solutions for current and emerging trends is critical for today’s TD practitioners.
By providing trusted content in the form of research, books, webcasts, events, conferences and education programs, ATD is committed to helping TD professionals gain the knowledge and skills they need to meet today’s needs and plan for tomorrow’s challenges.
What Is the Association for Talent Development (ATD)?
ATD, previously known as the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), is a professional membership organization that serves those who develop the knowledge and skills of employees, improve performance and help to achieve results for the organizations they serve. Established in 1943, this global association has members in more than 100 countries who work in public and private organizations in every industry sector.
The ATD Certification Institute, an independent organization created by ATD to set industry standards for TD professionals, administers two credentials based on ATD’s Talent Development Capability Model: the Certified Professional in Talent Development (CPTD®) and the Associate Professional in Talent Development (APTD®).
Explore ATD’s content and membership benefits at td.org.
Paula Ketter is senior manager of content strategy and communications at ATD; [email protected].
