2023 was a tumultuous year for learning and development (L&D) professionals amid ongoing competition for talent, evolving workplace cultures and the rise of disruptive technologies. 2024 is gearing up to be just as transformative as L&D professionals contend with social and technological change on multiple fronts.

From hiring bottlenecks to budgets, 2023 showed a dramatic slowdown in many L&D areas. Companies were tasked with doing more with less, resulting in a wave of layoffs and counting every dollar. Today, 48% of U.S. workers say they’re “watching for or actively seeking a new job.” L&D departments face continuing pressure to support and engage employees as job openings remain high.

Workplace culture also remains in flux. L&D leaders must continue innovating to reach employees beyond the traditional office. At the same time, changing workplace dynamics are affecting how employees communicate and consume content.

And no 2024 outlook would be complete without considering the ongoing impact of generative artificial intelligence (AI) as it forces L&D professionals to adapt and drives demand for education on a technology that isn’t yet fully understood.

Here are some of the ways in which the L&D industry is poised to respond to these trends in 2024.

1. Microlearning will continue to rise.

Work no longer happens in one place. Although return-to-office mandates have gotten a lot of media attention, remote isn’t going away: Only 20% of remote-capable employees are working fully on-site, and this will change for many companies as they push for bringing employees back into the office. To reach employees no matter where they are, L&D departments are turning to microlearning: smaller, more informal chunks of easily accessible content.

Microlearning makes it easier to quickly deliver content to employees, whether they’re in the office, working remotely, conversing on Slack, working in a warehouse or flying to their next sales meeting.

Instead of a series of scripted and produced videos delivered through a traditional learning management system (LMS), an expert might record a selfie-style video on their cellphone and share it on Slack. Or an L&D department might play a sequence of videos on a screen in a fulfillment center.

The result is something more intimate and approachable that eliminates bottlenecks at the point of both production and distribution. With a headless LMS that allows for delivering content through channels such as email, Teams or Slack, organizations can still track engagement metrics to understand how well microlearning content is resonating.

2. Soft skills training will be more important than ever.

Generation Z is primed to overtake baby boomers in the workforce in 2024 — and they bring very different communication and learning approaches to the office.

Younger generations often favor digital platforms, such as Snapchat and Instagram, for asynchronous communication, often using a unique blend of shorthand and slang. This shift highlights the evolving landscape of interpersonal communication and underscores the growing importance of soft skills training in the workplace.

The younger demographic is also dealing with stress and burnout: 68% of Gen Z and young millennials report feeling stressed, compared to 40% of baby boomers. L&D departments need to help the newest workforce entrants develop the social skills to thrive in the workplace, from nurturing relationships to handling conflict.

3. AI will become increasingly core to L&D.

Today, every company uses technology, from tech giants to local plumbers. Similarly, every company will soon use AI — and this isn’t a matter of decades; it’s a matter of years. Gartner expects that by 2026, more than 80% of enterprises will use generative AI (up from less than 5% in 2023).

Soon, L&D professionals will be able to tell AI to develop a training course and get a result that is 80% complete. Course creators will be able to spend less time fighting with tools and more time understanding learners’ needs and tailoring content to meet them.

While AI will reduce the burden of content creation, L&D departments face challenges in helping their employees become AI experts. Boston Consulting Group found that 86% of workers believe they need training on AI, but only 14% of front-line employees have received any.

Training and upskilling technical employees is especially important given the intensely competitive job market for AI talent. Non-technical employees will also require training so they can effectively “prompt” generative AI tools to complete tasks for them.

Fortunately, though generative AI is a newer technology, L&D departments can rely on familiar training approaches and modalities, starting with setting clear goals and tailoring content to each specific audience.

The Key Is Keeping an Open Mind

The rapid pace of change in L&D can feel like whiplash. The best way to handle it is to keep an open mind. The most successful learning professionals are willing to try new things, whether that’s letting internal experts record and share their own microlearning content or testing out a new AI content creation tool.

The past several years have brought disruption and difficulty to the L&D industry, but they’ve also opened the door to entirely new opportunities. Anywhere there is change there is an opportunity to learn.