4 Ways Companies Can Align Learning with Business Goals

Benton McTaggart, chief people officer of fintech startup Meritize, has one piece of advice to help L&D teams be successful: “Really partner with business,” he says. “Be as involved and ingrained in everything that is happening as you can, and don’t be siloed.” 

Benton — who’s responsible for attracting, developing, and retaining talent at Meritize — is not the only one who thinks this, either. According to LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report, aligning learning programs to business goals is the No. 1 priority for L&D professionals in 2023. 

If you think about it, it all comes down to dollars and cents (and euros, yen, and rupees too). At a time when budgets are squeezed and L&D often vies for a seat at the table, there’s no better way to show the value of learning than by helping the company reach its objectives. 

We recently spoke with Benton about how he does this at Meritize. Here are his top four takeaways.  

4 ways companies can align learning with business goals:

1. Secure your seat at the table and get in on conversations early 

It’s important, Benton says, for L&D to be part of critical business conversations. He’s done this at the Texas-based Meritize in part because it's a relatively small company (64 employees), but also because it’s quickly growing, open to innovation and new ideas. 

Founded in 2017, Meritize offers loans for skills-based programs so that people can train for in-demand jobs such as pilot, data scientist, wind turbine technician, welder, or dental assistant. Even better, the company lends to students who might not otherwise qualify for loans by looking beyond credit scores and assigning a “merit score” based on work, educational, and military experience. 

As a member of Meritize’s C-suite, Benton has a seat at the table. He and his team, which he calls the “human capital” team, partner closely with business functions to understand the company’s goals and what employees need to learn. 

Benton is fortunate; at some companies, L&D struggles for a seat at the table. But that’s changing, as L&D increasingly collaborates with the C-Suite. Forty four percent of L&D professionals say that they now work closely with their chief human resources officer, compared to 39% the year before. And 50% say they work closely with other executive leadership, up from 43% in 2022.  

2. Work with business partners to identify strategic goals and objectives 

Meritize is working on several business strategies and goals at the moment. First, the company is creating an operational risk framework to identify their most pressing risks. That’s no small task. As a student loan company, Meritize is governed by complex U.S. financial regulations, which means they’re exposed in many ways. 

They’re assessing all parts of the company — including technology, loan originations, human capital, sales, and partnerships — to identify risks. “The training piece is super important,” Benton says, “so we can ensure that employees develop the skills they need to reduce those risks.” 

They’re also smart to work closely with other functions in the business. According to the Workplace Learning Report, 48% of L&D professionals are deepening their relationships with department heads (such as sales, finance, and marketing), while 41% are working with people analytics and 38% are engaging with employer branding. 

As for Meritize’s other big goals this year: They want to increase profitability and the volume of loans they originate. These goals are based on the growth Meritize has already experienced and expects in the future. From 2021 to 2022, for example, the company saw a 134% increase in loan-originated dollars. And in 2022 alone, they hired 25 new employees.

But to achieve these last two goals, Benton says, the company needs to increase both its efficiency and productivity. 

3. Create learning programs that upskill employees to achieve those goals

For the operational risk framework, Benton and his team already offer quarterly compliance training, which consists of micro-trainings personalized to each job group. Customer service representatives, for example, receive training in how to handle a customer who is cursing at them, and how to verify data in this tricky situation. But in the second quarter of 2023, Benton says, “we’re going to be building additional learning programs to ensure that our people can deliver higher quality work; meaning, work that minimizes the risk of operations.” 

To increase loan originations and profitability, Benton’s team has leaned heavily into training managers in coaching skills, with the idea that highly skilled managers can boost efficiency and productivity. A longtime leadership coach himself, Benton brought in a company called LifeLabs Learning to train middle managers in how to use coaching skills. 

Managers learned how to listen deeply, give clear and effective feedback, and develop talent in a distributed work environment. They also learned how to ask “solutions-oriented questions,” which encourage employees to actively seek solutions on their own, so they learn and grow more quickly. 

“The business strategy behind teaching managers coaching skills,” Benton says, “is that teams are going to grow, which means managers need to scale in terms of how they maximize productivity.” 

Meritize is wise to focus on managers as it upskills its workforce. LinkedIn data shows that only 35% of learners were encouraged to learn by their manager in the last six months, even though “supporting employee development” was one of the top three training topics for managers in 2023. So, Benton and his team have nailed this one.  

4. Prove your worth with metrics and results

Because Meritize is an early-stage company that’s still growing, Benton hasn’t had a chance yet to measure L&D’s impact on the business. 

So far, he has mostly assessed impact through the lens of team and individual performance. But Benton can point to one metric that matters a lot for a student loan company. His team has done training sessions with customer service representatives on how to handle complaints — and as a result, complaints have gone down.  

“This is an opportunity for me this year,” Benton says, “to do more return on investment activities, such as case studies. That’s a priority for us this year.” 

He’s not alone, either. The Workplace Learning Report shows that overall, L&D teams have a way to go, measuring success through business metrics, including productivity, retention, and and progress toward closing workforce skills gaps. 

Final thoughts: There’s more than one way to measure business success 

The company has seen L&D’s impact, however, in one significant way: through its Meritize Sponsorship Program. Meritize piloted the program in 2020 to help women and people from underrepresented groups advance into management roles through sponsorship, one-on-one coaching, and training in what Benton calls “tipping point skills.” 

The program aligns with Meritize’s goal of increasing the number of women and people from underrepresented groups across the company. And the results are in: All four employees in the pilot were promoted to management roles within 12 months. Company-wide in 2022, 46.1% of all of Meritize’s promotions went to employees from underrepresented groups, and 50% of promotions to leadership (VP roles and higher) went to women. 

So take your cue from this small startup in Texas: invest in learning to teach critical skills, increase representation of historically excluded groups in leadership — and future-proof your company.

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