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What does a Director, Learning And Development do?

Updated January 8, 2025
9 min read
Quoted Expert
Michael Baker

A director of learning and development is primarily in charge of spearheading efforts to improve the workforce in a company. Their responsibilities revolve around conducting strategies to find out areas that need improvement, coordinating with departments and staff, producing various training programs that will sharpen the employee's skills, and crafting skills assessment activities. There are also instances when a director must create progress reports and presentations, manage schedules, and liaise with clients and stakeholders. Furthermore, as the director, it is essential to implement the policies and guidelines of the company.

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Director, learning and development responsibilities

Here are examples of responsibilities from real director, learning and development resumes:

  • Manage RFP process to identify best-in-class e-Learning development providers.
  • Lead the implementation of eLearning courses design to support trainer certification process.
  • Base on results, ask to serve in newly create CLO role.
  • Maintain accurate training records and documentation to report ROI statistics.
  • Increase organizational commitment to development of human capital, and increase ROI of programs and initiatives.
  • Customize eLearning curricula base on role - individual contributor-, manager-, and senior manager-level courses.
  • Lead organization that supports multiple business channels with training, quality analysis, internal communications and project leadership.
  • Develop and market management training programs and leadership initiatives base on ongoing assessments of enterprise-wide needs and client consultations.
  • Provide management with information or training relate to interviewing, performance appraisals, counseling techniques, or documentation of performance issues.
  • Provide graphic design and site rebuild for SharePoint intranet site.
  • Captain the team's Sharepoint migration of electronic files, ensuring that all documents are recovered, file and categorize appropriately.
  • Lead corporate base company initiatives -including selecting the first HRIS system for the company.
  • Implement new payroll system (Alio) and continue to work on implementation of HRIS.
  • Establish and measure quality objectives and KPI ` s ,.
  • Budget development with successful oversight and cost containment.

Director, learning and development skills and personality traits

We calculated that 7% of Directors, Learning And Development are proficient in Human Resources, Training Programs, and Project Management. They’re also known for soft skills such as Business skills, Collaboration skills, and Instructional skills.

We break down the percentage of Directors, Learning And Development that have these skills listed on their resume here:

  • Human Resources, 7%

    Worked with leadership, human resources and functional organizations to develop criteria for design, delivery and evaluation of developmental activities.

  • Training Programs, 6%

    Work with department management to develop and facilitate specific training programs and where appropriate select and train department internal instructors.

  • Project Management, 6%

    Established a new development process introducing best practices in performance consulting, project management, blended design, and development methodology.

  • Instructional Design, 5%

    Provide coordination and communication management between the instructional design ad program management teams, as well as, executive management reporting.

  • Blended Learning, 4%

    Identified and established learning technology and tools to support the needs of a dispersed population utilizing blended learning solutions.

  • Learning Management System, 4%

    Implemented Canvas Learning Management SystemProject Manager/Individual Contributor; Grant-funded position

"human resources," "training programs," and "project management" are among the most common skills that directors, learning and development use at work. You can find even more director, learning and development responsibilities below, including:

Business skills. To carry out their duties, the most important skill for a director, learning and development to have is business skills. Their role and responsibilities require that "training and development managers must understand business operations in order to match training with business goals." Directors, learning and development often use business skills in their day-to-day job, as shown by this real resume: "launched and led corporate university, developed and implemented learning and professional development strategy aligned to corporate strategy and business objectives. "

Collaboration skills. Many director, learning and development duties rely on collaboration skills. "training and development managers need strong interpersonal skills because delivering training programs requires working in concert with staff, trainees, subject matter experts, and the organization’s leaders," so a director, learning and development will need this skill often in their role. This resume example is just one of many ways director, learning and development responsibilities rely on collaboration skills: "lead collaboration and learning processes around a 4k-8 literacy and math curriculum review and development. "

Instructional skills. directors, learning and development are also known for instructional skills, which are critical to their duties. You can see how this skill relates to director, learning and development responsibilities, because "training and development managers need to understand the fundamentals of teaching and lesson planning." A director, learning and development resume example shows how instructional skills is used in the workplace: "work closely with subject matter experts to ensure excellent content and learning strategies to support instructional goals. "

Communication skills. For certain director, learning and development responsibilities to be completed, the job requires competence in "communication skills." The day-to-day duties of a director, learning and development rely on this skill, as "training and development managers must clearly convey information to diverse audiences." For example, this snippet was taken directly from a resume about how this skill applies to what directors, learning and development do: "introduced cross-functional work teams to open communication across departments to help define process improvement opportunities. "

Leadership skills. A commonly-found skill in director, learning and development job descriptions, "leadership skills" is essential to what directors, learning and development do. Director, learning and development responsibilities rely on this skill because "managers are often in charge of a staff and programs." You can also see how director, learning and development duties rely on leadership skills in this resume example: "created learning and development function for the equities division, implementing leadership, sales, product knowledge and professional skills curricula. "

Most common director, learning and development skills

The three companies that hire the most director, learning and developments are:

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Compare different directors, learning and development

Director, learning and development vs. Hse manager

A health, safety, and environmental (HSE) manager is primarily in charge of spearheading and overseeing a company's health and safety programs. Their responsibilities typically revolve around coordinating with different departments to gather data, assessing existing programs and policies to identify areas needing improvement, implementing solutions on issues and concerns, developing strategies to execute programs, and creating new safety policies as necessary. Furthermore, as an HSE manager, it is essential to lead and encourage team members to reach goals, all while enforcing the company's policies and regulations.

The annual salary of hse managers is $6,889 lower than the average salary of directors, learning and development.While the two careers have a salary gap, they share some of the same responsibilities. Employees in both director, learning and development and hse manager positions are skilled in training programs, project management, and continuous improvement.

There are some key differences in the responsibilities of each position. For example, director, learning and development responsibilities require skills like "human resources," "instructional design," "blended learning," and "learning management system." Meanwhile a typical hse manager has skills in areas such as "regulatory agencies," "osha," "environmental regulations," and "safety program." This difference in skills reveals the differences in what each career does.

Hse managers really shine in the construction industry with an average salary of $105,683. Comparatively, directors, learning and development tend to make the most money in the finance industry with an average salary of $148,776.On average, hse managers reach lower levels of education than directors, learning and development. Hse managers are 9.4% less likely to earn a Master's Degree and 3.3% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.

Director, learning and development vs. Educational manager

An educational manager is responsible for organizing educational strategies and managing learning resources, following the standard curriculum and guidelines. They coordinate with instructors and other educational institutions to develop teaching practices and adjust curriculum objectives as needed. Educational managers also handle department budgets, allocating adequate resources and materials to support students' learning and activities. An educational manager must have excellent knowledge of the teaching strategies, as well as educational disciplines, to handle concerns related to educational objectives.

Educational manager positions earn lower pay than director, learning and development roles. They earn a $16,365 lower salary than directors, learning and development per year.While the salary may differ for these jobs, they share a few skills needed to perform their duties. Based on resume data, both directors, learning and development and educational managers have skills such as "training programs," "project management," and "blended learning. "

While some skills are similar in these professions, other skills aren't so similar. For example, resumes show us that director, learning and development responsibilities requires skills like "human resources," "instructional design," "learning solutions," and "development strategy." But an educational manager might use other skills in their typical duties, such as, "patients," "education programs," "patient care," and "powerpoint."

On average, educational managers earn a lower salary than directors, learning and development. Some industries support higher salaries in each profession. Interestingly enough, educational managers earn the most pay in the manufacturing industry with an average salary of $105,157. Whereas directors, learning and development have higher pay in the finance industry, with an average salary of $148,776.educational managers earn similar levels of education than directors, learning and development in general. They're 1.3% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 3.3% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.

What technology do you think will become more important and prevalent for Director, Learning And Developments in the next 3-5 years?

Michael BakerMichael Baker LinkedIn Profile

Founder & Partner, m3 Development

The non-profit sector, like every sector, has been impacted greatly by technology. I believe innovation and disruption from technology is a key tool for making non-profits more efficient and effective. AI is already being used by the big non-profits and will become more common throughout our sector in mid-sized and small non-profit organizations when it is more cost-effective. The current, future and recent graduates are mostly Generation Z. This is the generation that was born into and has grown up with the internet and technology. The most important technology is and will continue to be online and mobile. Non-profits need to continue developing and investing in technology, tools, and support systems to meet the needs of their mission. Technology has brought us the internet, social media, the cloud, cashless forms of payments, automating work, evaluation tools creating dashboards that automatically monitor performance, electronic health records, and will continue to evolve. I believe machine-based learning and artificial intelligence are technology now and for the future. Technology that supports transparency, engagement, impact, and data analytics will be what is important in the next 3 to 5 years for non-profit organizations.

Director, learning and development vs. Manager & instructor

A training manager is responsible for directing new staff with the tasks and training programs, leading the business to its growth and profitable development. Training managers' duties include supervising the staff's performance and improvement, facilitating knowledge assessment and developmental training, sharing strategic plans and techniques, creating effective training manuals, monitoring training expenses, and evaluating areas of improvement. A training manager must have excellent leadership and communication skills, as well as extensive experience on how to improve the team's performance and enhance their capabilities.

On average scale, managers & instructor bring in lower salaries than directors, learning and development. In fact, they earn a $37,865 lower salary per year.directors, learning and development and managers & instructor both have job responsibilities that require similar skill sets. These similarities include skills such as "training programs," "blended learning," and "subject matter experts," but they differ when it comes to other required skills.

The required skills of the two careers differ considerably. For example, directors, learning and development are more likely to have skills like "human resources," "project management," "instructional design," and "learning management system." But a manager & instructor is more likely to have skills like "course curriculum," "safety procedures," "payroll," and "cpr."

Managers & instructor make a very good living in the health care industry with an average annual salary of $55,999. On the other hand, directors, learning and development are paid the highest salary in the finance industry, with average annual pay of $148,776.managers & instructor typically earn lower educational levels compared to directors, learning and development. Specifically, they're 9.3% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 2.7% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.

Director, learning and development vs. Training manager

Training managers average a lower salary than the annual salary of directors, learning and development. The difference is about $19,280 per year.While their salaries may vary, directors, learning and development and training managers both use similar skills to perform their duties. Resumes from both professions include skills like "human resources," "training programs," and "project management. "While some skills are required in each professionacirc;euro;trade;s responsibilities, there are some differences to note. "learning solutions," "development strategy," "learning programs," and "continuous improvement" are skills that commonly show up on director, learning and development resumes. On the other hand, training managers use skills like customer service, leadership, brainstorming, and food safety on their resumes.In general, training managers earn the most working in the government industry, with an average salary of $71,976. The highest-paying industry for a director, learning and development is the finance industry.training managers reach lower levels of education compared to directors, learning and development, in general. The difference is that they're 11.9% more likely to earn a Master's Degree, and 2.9% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.

Types of director, learning and development

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Research Team
Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

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