The L&D Responsibility Revolution: Why This Matters Now

Recent Ipsos research with UK adults presents a telling contradiction. When asked about artificial intelligence in the workplace, 40% of UK adults feel comfortable with AI personalising training programmes for employees. Yet 56% are uncomfortable with AI monitoring employee performance. We want help, but we fear judgment.

This isn’t just an AI problem. It’s a symptom of where we are in 2025. We’re finding ourselves in a mire of multiple tensions – cutting costs AND improving value, leaning more into technology AND being more human. The question isn’t whether they exist, but how we step up and choose to navigate them. This is what we’ll explore at OEB’s Plenary on Friday, December 5th: “The Responsibility Revolution: How Learning Leaders Shape Tomorrow’s Workplace.“

Three tensions reshaping workplace learning

These aren’t abstract concerns. They’re measurable realities creating urgent pressure on learning leaders right now.

The first is what we might call the AI Adoption Paradox. Employees are using AI three times more than their leaders realise. Nearly half want formal training that they’re not receiving. Meanwhile, 92% of companies plan to increase their AI investment, yet only 1% have reached what they’d consider AI maturity (McKinsey 2025). We’re racing ahead whilst standing still.

The second tension sits between the transactional and the transformational. Nearly half of employees view their work as purely transactional, a way to earn money and nothing more. Employee engagement hit an 11-year low in the US last year. Yet research consistently shows that high-performing organisations focus on transformative innovation, not incremental gains. How do you transform when your workforce is in survival mode?

The third tension circles back to that Ipsos finding, but it extends far beyond AI. People want support but fear surveillance. This plays out in every feedback system we design, every performance mechanism we implement, every change we introduce into people’s working lives. We’re asking people to develop agency whilst creating systems that feel like monitoring.

These tensions won’t resolve themselves. They won’t be resolved by deploying new tools, buying new platforms, or waiting for the next model or methodology. They require learning leaders who see their role fundamentally differently.

From responsibility to, towards responsibility for

Whether we realise it or not, today’s learning leaders now wield unprecedented influence. From the feedback we provide to language models, to the cultural shifts we foster within our organisations. But that influence only matters if we choose to use it.

For too long, we’ve defined our responsibility too narrowly. We’ve seen our role as being responsible to our organisation rather than responsible for its success. But what does that actually mean in practice?

Responsible to means delivering the AI training course that’s been requested. Responsible for means shaping how AI is introduced so people develop capability, not just compliance.

Responsible to means proving return on investment through completion rates and satisfaction scores. Responsible for means improving value by focusing on whether people can actually apply what they’ve learned to solve real problems.

Responsible to means keeping pace with the latest trends and tools. Responsible for means creating the conditions where continuous adaptation becomes normal, not a constant scramble to catch up.

Responsible to means supporting our teams through change. Responsible for means designing change in ways that preserve psychological safety and build agency alongside capability.

Responsible to means managing budgets and justifying our existence. Responsible for means investing strategically in what will help the organisation navigate uncertainty.

The difference is profound. Responsibility to is reactive. It waits for requests, responds to demands, justifies decisions. Responsibility for is proactive. It shapes outcomes, influences how change happens, takes a position on what matters.

This is why we need a revolution, not just a shift. It’s not about adding responsibilities to our existing role. It’s about fundamentally redefining who holds agency, where legitimacy comes from, and what learning and development exists to do. When the ground is shifting this fundamentally, incremental improvement isn’t enough.

Here’s the critical mindset shift –  this responsibility isn’t given to us, we need to take it. That’s what separates service providers from changemakers. Service providers wait for permission. Changemakers see what needs to happen and act, regardless of their formal authority.

This isn’t about heroic transformation or grand gestures. For me, twenty years of benchmarking research shows that meaningful change often comes through small, intentional actions. The daily choices we make. The questions we ask. The way we frame a problem. How do we design an experience. Who we partner with. What we measure.

The shift from service provider to changemaker isn’t optional anymore. It’s how learning and development stays relevant when the ground keeps shifting beneath us.

But what does this look like in practice? How do you take this responsibility in different organisational contexts, cultures, and constraints? In a world of interconnected complexity, there isn’t one right answer. We need to learn from multiple perspectives.

Four perspectives on taking responsibility

That’s what makes this year’s OEB Corporate Plenary compelling. It brings together four leaders who’ve each made this shift in distinctly different contexts.

Anja Schmitz, Professor of HRM at Karlsruhe University, bridges academic research with corporate practice. Her work with organisations like Deutsche Bahn on learning ecosystems shows what happens when we take responsibility for entire systems of learning, not just individual programmes. She explores how we empower learners in workplaces being transformed by AI.

Kerri O’Neill, Chief People Officer at Ipsos, brings both data on workplace realities and practical examples of transformation. Her organisation has redesigned their entire leadership model, integrated energy into their skills frameworks, and built connection through intentional design choices. She demonstrates what it means to take responsibility for the whole employee experience.

Niyazi Arda Aygül leads learning for over 20,000 employees at İşbank, Turkey’s largest private bank. His team’s award-winning reskilling programmes transformed bank tellers into UX designers and data analysts. That’s taking responsibility for people’s futures, not just their current roles.

Avinash Chandarana, Chief Learning and Transformation Officer at MCI Group, demonstrates what’s possible with a lean team that positions itself strategically rather than reactively. He’s spent 25 years proving that influence comes from the value you create, not the resources you control.

An invitation to explore

This 90-minute interactive session won’t offer aspirational rhetoric. Instead, it brings together these four leaders navigating real tensions in real organisations to explore what this expanded responsibility actually looks like in practice. From Turkey’s largest private bank to a global polling organisation, from academic research to lean corporate teams, these perspectives will help us understand how learning and development can lead transformation whilst preserving what makes us human.

Come curious. Curious about how others navigate your same tensions. Curious about what taking responsibility looks like across different contexts. Curious about the one small step you might take differently when you return to work.

OEB’s theme this year is “Humanity in the Intelligent Age”. This plenary sits right at the heart of it. Keeping humans at the centre whilst technology accelerates around us requires learning leaders who see their responsibility differently.

The responsibility revolution starts with each of us choosing to be changemakers. Join us on 5th December at 9:30.

Written for OEB 2025 by Laura Overton.