TLB #54🧠 Your managers are drowning. Can L&D help?
A bi-weekly inside scoop on all the hottest events, juicy discussions, and oh-so-many other exciting things happening in our dynamic L&D community. 🧡
Hello Shaker,
Here’s all that you’ll experience in today’s issue:
💡Learning Bites: 5 Signals for L&D from Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace Report
🗓️ Community Calendar: Be part of local hub meet-ups, book club and other events happening in the Shakers Community
🖌️ Community Creations: Tune into Unscripted for the latest episode, Wrap on the Career Leap and a small surprise for you!
🔖 Resource Reel: A collection of resources on AI and Psychological Safety many more.
Learning Bites 💡
Each year, Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report acts like a workplace pulse check. This year, the findings are hard to ignore:
Global employee engagement dropped from 23% to 21%, mirroring the steep decline seen at the peak of the COVID-19 lockdowns. But here's the twist: this drop isn’t about frontline workers or Gen Z. It’s being led by managers, whose engagement and well-being have sharply declined, especially among young and female managers.
This matters deeply to L&D. Managers are the linchpins of employee experience. When they’re thriving, their teams are engaged and productive. When they’re burned out or unsupported, it cascades down to disengagement, absenteeism, and turnover. This isn’t just a leadership challenge — it’s our terrain.
Reading this report, I’ve identified five key signals for L&D. For each, I’ve outlined practical ways we can respond and reimagine manager development in our organisations.
🔔 Signal 1: Manager disengagement is driving global productivity losses.
Manager engagement dropped from 30% to 27%. Female manager engagement dropped by 7 points. Individual contributor engagement remained flat.
What this means for L&D practice:
Prioritise first-time manager programs that focus on navigating ambiguity, leading hybrid teams, and balancing strategic vs. tactical work.
Use persona-based learning design — create differentiated learning paths for managers based on seniority, age group, and life stage.
Go beyond performance goals. Address identity shifts and relational challenges that come with being “the bridge” between top and bottom.
🔔 Signal 2: Manager wellbeing is eroding — and it’s contagious.
Older and female managers reported the largest drops in life satisfaction. Meanwhile, 40% of workers globally report high daily stress, and 1 in 5 report loneliness, sadness, or anger.
What this means for L&D practice:
Redesign manager learning around energy, not just efficiency. Like using learning formats that invite pause, movement and a chance to reflect.
Design facilitated peer circles where managers reflect on shared emotional challenges
Bring wellbeing into performance conversations.
🔔 Signal 3: Basic manager training is still missing — and it shows.
Less than 44% of global managers have received any formal training for their role. Those who do are significantly less likely to be actively disengaged.
What this means for L&D practice:
Audit your manager learning ecosystem: Do all people managers know what’s expected of them? Do they have the tools to deliver on it?
Create essential programs that are short, practical, covering the “Manager Minimum Viable Toolkit.”
Make core training mandatory for new managers, and refresh it annually for everyone.
Audit L&D’s own programs for wellbeing impact.
🔔 Signal 4: Coaching is the multiplier L&D isn’t using enough.
Manager coaching training improved individual manager performance by 20–28%, and team engagement by up to 18%.
What this means for L&D practice:
Shift manager learning from “telling” to “coaching.” Teach skills like active listening, developmental feedback, and growth conversations.
Use practice-based learning — include live coaching simulations, role plays, or reverse feedback exercises.
Build internal coaching networks where senior leaders or HRBPs can mentor mid-level managers over time.
Audit L&D’s programs for wellbeing impact.
🔔 Signal 5: Development + encouragement = manager thriving.
Training alone raises manager wellbeing from 28% to 34%. Add encouragement, and that number jumps to 50%.
What this means for L&D practice:
If possible, include peer learning cohorts or action learning groups in every program, so support becomes systemic, not one-off.
Train senior leaders and HR to recognise and celebrate manager growth, not just results.
Encourage reflection rituals: “What’s one thing I did this week that made me a better manager?” Prompts like these foster progress visibility.
What’s one thing you’ve done recently to support a manager, not just in their role, but in their wellbeing?
Gallup’s report doesn’t just highlight a crisis. It puts a mirror up to the systems we’ve built. Manager burnout isn’t a surprise — it’s a predictable outcome of complexity, constant change, and chronic underinvestment in the people holding it all together.
As L&D professionals, we’re to some extent in a position to shift that. Not through more content or one-off workshops, but by asking deeper questions about how we design support, clarity, and community into every learning experience.
Coming Up Next
Community Calendar 🗓️
Growth. Connection. A-ha moments.
Discover what’s coming up—from thoughtful conversations in local hubs to community gatherings that stretch your thinking.
All curated by your L&D Shakers crew.
Community Creations 🖌️
🎧 Another episode just landed on L&D Frameworks: Applied with Daria Rudnik on how she applies the 4Cs framework from Training from the Back of the Room (by Sharon L. Bowman) to design learning that sticks.
🎙️She shares how she:
Ditches the slides
Uses 5-minute theory bursts
Creates space for learners to teach each other
It’s practical, inspiring, and a must-listen for anyone designing learning experiences.
Tune in on Spotify or Apple Podcasts—and bring fresh energy to your next learning project.
That’s a wrap on Career Leap 2025! 🤸♂️
Thank you to everyone who showed up with curiosity, energy, and commitment—we’re so grateful for this vibrant community! 💛
Here’s a quick look at what we achieved together over the past 2 months:
🎙️ 29 speakers & facilitators
🖥️ 20+ online learning sessions
👥 700+ sign-ups
Thank you for being part of this journey!
The Career Leap team
Fiorenza Rossini, Pamela Chávez, Anamaria Dorgo and yours truly
Care to share your feedback? It will just take 2 minutes.
💌 Have something on your mind about learning, growth, or the messy middle of figuring things out?
You’re not alone—and we’d love to hear it.
Over time, many of you have asked:
"Can I contribute to The Learning Brief?"
Or shared that you’d love to write a guest piece, but weren’t sure where to begin.
So we’re opening up the space.
To all Shakers. To anyone who’s been reflecting, experimenting, exploring.
✨ If you’ve been sitting with a question, learning from a project, or connecting dots between ideas—this is your space to share.
✨ Whether it’s a story, a case study, a fresh perspective, or even a gentle rant—you never know who might need to read it.
We’ve created a simple guide to help you get started—with what, how and etc on writing something real and meaningful.
We can’t wait to learn from you. 💛
Let’s build The Learning Brief together—as always, let’s keep spicing up the learning.
Cool Stuff You Don’t Wanna Miss Out
Joyful Learning Dashboard – A colorful, interactive dashboard with 100+ playful activities to foster connection, reflection, and curiosity in families, powered by the joyful learning initiative at Stanford.
AI Readiness Assessment Tool – Built in just a week by Ross Stevenson using an AI app builder, this prototype tool helps L&D teams assess their AI maturity. Watch the demo, try it out, and share your feedback with him!
Transitioning into L&D - A 30-Day Resource Series by Kylie Sturday. Perfect for those just stepping into the field. This warm and practical series encourages curiosity, reflection, and the courage to ask big questions.
AI Fluency - A Free 12-Lesson Course by Anthropic. Go beyond basic prompting with a full framework on how to collaborate with AI meaningfully in your daily work.
People Skills in Microsoft 365 Copilot – Microsoft’s new "Skills Agent" uses AI to understand your people and your business. It helps build dynamic, skill-based teams and boosts internal collaboration in the flow of work.
StoryGPT – A GPT built by Jeremy Connell-Waite from over 20,000 words of storytelling insights, this tool offers free coaching for presentations, storytelling, and even TEDx talks. Choose between Quick Answer, Deep Dive, or 1:1 Coaching modes and upload slides, audio, or video for real-time feedback.
The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety™ Behavioural Guide – From LeaderFactor, this guide features 120+ practical behaviors to build trust, inclusion, and healthy team dynamics. Ideal for anyone driving performance through culture.
〜See you soon
Till then, keep spicing up your learning! 🧠🧂
Sejaal