Chief Learning Officer

3 weeks ago | chieflearningofficer.com | Elizabeth Loutfi-Hipchen

Learning and development professionals face unprecedented challenges in today’s rapidly evolving business landscape. According to LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report, 67 percent of L&D professionals report being “maxed out” on capacity, while 66 percent have experienced budget reductions in the past year. Despite these constraints, 87 percent agree their organizations need to develop employees faster to keep pace with business demands.

1 month ago | chieflearningofficer.com | Elizabeth Loutfi-Hipchen

I was struck by Work Friend’s initial response in their popular New York Times career advice column about working with a neurodiverse colleague. Though they ultimately reconsidered and offered thoughtful reflection, their first reply felt reductive: The letter described a colleague as lacking emotional intelligence and framed his behavior as a diversity issue because he was “on the spectrum,” prompting the columnist to dismiss him as a “lost cause” in need of intervention rather than support.

1 month ago | chieflearningofficer.com | Elizabeth Loutfi-Hipchen

You’ve probably seen people messing around with artificial intelligence lately. Every day, my social feeds are filled with AI-generated goofy cat memes or turning their selfies into comic book heroes. All of these examples are fun and exploratory.

1 month ago | chieflearningofficer.com | Ashley St. John

Chief learning officers are familiar with this reality: Billions of dollars are spent annually training people on technical skills, yet our performance still lags. As a scholar practitioner, my doctoral research focused on the lived experiences of firefighters, and I argue that it offers a transcendent warning: If you teach people to “do” but not to “think,” you set them — and your organization — up for failure. There is no other profession analogous to the American fire service.

1 month ago | chieflearningofficer.com | Elizabeth Loutfi-Hipchen

Since 2011, the LearningElite Awards Program has highlighted those at the cutting edge of corporate learning and development, from large and ingrained to tiny but mighty. We opened this year’s program iteration three days ago, and we are looking forward to receiving and reading the stories in this year’s submissions.