L&D & Talent Development Business Language

Learning and Development (L&D)

The organizational function focused on developing employee knowledge, skills, capabilities, and performance.

Talent Development

Organizational efforts to develop employees' capabilities, growth, performance, and career potential.

Organizational Learning

The processes through which an organization develops, shares, retains, and applies knowledge.

Upskilling

Developing additional or more advanced skills to improve performance or capability in a current or related role.

Reskilling

Developing new skills that prepare an employee to perform a substantially different role or type of work.

Capability Building

Developing the knowledge, skills, processes, behaviors, and organizational capacity needed to perform effectively.

Competency

A defined combination of knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors associated with effective performance.

Competency Model

A structured collection of competencies required for successful performance in a role, function, or organization.

Career Development

Activities that help employees build capabilities and progress toward career goals.

Succession Planning

Identifying and developing employees who may be prepared to fill important roles in the future.

Onboarding

The process of integrating a new employee into an organization, role, culture, systems, and expectations.

Employee Development

Ongoing efforts to improve employees' skills, capabilities, performance, and career growth.

Learning Culture

An organizational environment that encourages continuous learning, knowledge sharing, experimentation, feedback, and development.

Continuous Learning

The ongoing development of knowledge and skills rather than learning occurring only during formal training events.

Time to Competency

The amount of time required for an employee to reach an established level of proficiency.

Proficiency

The demonstrated ability to perform a skill or task to an established standard.

Performance Enablement

Providing employees with the learning, resources, tools, processes, and support needed to perform effectively.

Business Alignment

Ensuring learning initiatives support organizational priorities, performance needs, and measurable business goals.