Sign in Subscribe
2 min read

5 Ways Managers Support Learning Without Formal L&D

Many teams operate without a formal L&D function. This post outlines five practical ways managers support learning directly inside day-to-day work.
5 Ways Managers Support Learning Without Formal L&D
Photo by TECNIC Bioprocess Solutions / Unsplash

If your company doesn’t have an L&D team, you’re in the majority.

Most organizations don’t have a dedicated function to design training, run programs, and track development. Yet leaders are still expected to grow people, keep them engaged, and adapt to change faster than the job descriptions were written.

So learning doesn’t disappear. It just shows up differently.

It happens inside the work—through problems, rework, handoffs, new tools, customer situations, and decisions people have to make before they feel ready.

What learning looks like without L&D

In practice, development tends to show up in fragments:

• People learn when something breaks
• Coaching happens when time allows
• New hires rely heavily on observation and trial-and-error
• Progress depends on who someone works with

This isn’t theoretical. CIPD reports that fewer than half of mid-sized organizations maintain a dedicated L&D team. Yet expectations for adaptability, skill growth, and internal mobility continue to rise.

What to do without building programs

None of the following requires an L&D department.

1. Make learning visible in existing work reviews
After a project, incident, or heavy week, capture:

  • One thing that worked
  • One thing that didn’t
  • One adjustment to carry forward

Three bullets. No deck. No facilitation.

2. Define “good work” for one role at a time
Choose a role where quality matters. Document:

  • 5 observable behaviors
  • 3 common errors
  • 2 examples of strong output

This becomes the baseline for coaching and onboarding.

3. Install one consistent feedback loop per person
Examples:

  • weekly 10-minute review of live work
  • biweekly check-in focused on one improvement target

Consistency matters more than length.

4. Protect a small window for improvement work
Execution alone sustains output. Improvement sustains capability.
Even 30 minutes every other week to refine a process or clarify a handoff changes outcomes.

5. Equip managers to coach in the moment
Coaching doesn’t require long conversations. A usable structure:

  • What are you working on?
  • Where is it getting stuck?
  • What’s the next step?

This keeps development inside the work instead of around it.

What changes when this is working

You’ll notice:

  • fewer repeat issues
  • faster ramp-up for new hires
  • clearer ownership
  • less reliance on a small number of experts

And you’ll hear different language:

  • “Here’s what we learned.”
  • “Here’s what we’ll adjust.”
  • “Here’s the standard.”

That’s learning operating inside execution.

Organizations without L&D don’t need to recreate one. They need a small set of repeatable% practices to make learning visible, discussable, and tied directly to the work people are already doing.

If this resonates, feel free to forward to your peers and colleagues.