Formal training methods are cost-prohibitive, often lack the ability to sufficiently improve learner performance, and lack the required agility to address the increasing complexity of the L&D portfolio and learners themselves. In the current environment of decreasing budgets, L&D must leverage on-the-job learning as a cost-effective delivery method to reinforce and accelerate formal, classroom-based training back on the job, to replace entirely or shorten the length of formal training, and to boost the development value of the informal learning that occurs continuously across organizations. Beyond being a cheaper alternative to formal training, on-the-job learning is also a more effective means to boost the performance of learners and, in turn, the organization.

Unfortunately, most organizations sub-optimize on-the-job learning as a delivery method; while L&D is aware that on-the-job learning happens de facto within the organization, the function does not understand how to both leverage the drivers of and remove the barriers to effective on-the-job learning across all segments of the workplace, and is content to leave on-the-job learning in the hands of the line.

L&D should play an active role as a partner to the line in enabling and managing on-the-job learning with the same rigor and consistency as other types of learning. By creating and sustaining the conditions that support on-the-job learning, organizations can realize the full cost and performance benefits of on-the-job learning over time.