At this year’s in-person Training Industry Conference & Expo (TICE), over 600 learning leaders came together to share their strategies and gain insights about all things learning and development (L&D). It was an inspiring meeting of the minds, and one thing was made very clear: L&D needs to be a priority in every organization. Or, as learning leader and author Loren Sanders, CPTM, announced to the entire room of attendees on the last day of the conference, “We don’t need a seat at the table. We are the table.”

A common issue all learning leaders face is that training can often be perceived as an afterthought rather than a necessity. Training professionals are often left out of business discussions and face pushback from stakeholders when proposing new initiatives. But why is that?

Often, business leaders are so far removed from the training process or spread so thin that they don’t fully understand or know what L&D contributes to organizational outcomes. To turn the tables and be seen as a trusted partner whom stakeholders respect, TICE attendees had several recommendations.

Prepare an “Elevator Speech”

To combat confusion or a lack of respect for what you do as a training professional, Sanders stressed the importance of preparing a brief but informative explanation of your role in the organization. Explain the reach you have across the organization and the value you bring to the business. Emphasize the impact skills development has on the business’s bottom line by promoting internal mobility, which increases retention and reduces the cost of onboarding new hires.

Remind them how you increase employee productivity and engagement with relevant learning strategies that help employees stay ahead of new technologies and tools while also giving them renewed purpose in their roles. Be confident about the amount of influence you have — don’t sell yourself short and they won’t either.

Prove It

Nothing speaks to stakeholders like data. If you can turn that data into a story, you will have an easier time conveying your worth. Chris Massaro, CPTM, HR manager, learning and development at Alight, explained that data storytelling makes the data more memorable and “takes you from order-takers to trusted partners.”

Massaro discussed the three essentials for telling a compelling story with data:

1. The data itself.

Demonstrate how training has positively impacted business outcomes through increased retention, internal promotions, reduced incidents or increased productivity with information from assessments, surveys, project completion rates or other quantitative elements. Also include qualitative data from employee engagement surveys, stakeholder feedback and observed behavior change to humanize the data.

2. The visual presentation.

Combine data with easy-to-digest visuals to help stakeholders see your impact. Use graphs and charts to showcase trends over time, highlight specific categories within the data, identify patterns and demonstrate the distribution of data points. Vary the visuals to match the impact you’re trying to convey. For example, if you’re showing many metrics and categories over time, a line graph will make it easier to follow trends than a bar graph.

3. The narrative.

Determine the message or theme you want stakeholders to take away from your presentation and let that guide your storyline. Establish the central conflict by targeting specific problems you want to address and selecting the corresponding data. As you present your visuals and key points, weave in real-life examples, case studies and anecdotes to make the data more relatable and give it practical context. Provide a resolution to your narrative with recommendations and potential solutions.

Crafting your data into a compelling story explains the data’s meaning for stakeholders and is essential to gaining their trust.

Speak Their Language

The business doesn’t know what the business doesn’t know. To get stakeholders on your side, you need to think and speak the way they do. In other words, focus on how your training ideas and initiatives bring value to the business.

In his session on tying learning strategy to performance results, Ajay M. Pangarkar, founder of CentralKnowledge.com and LRNOnline.com, stressed that 90% of L&D efforts must tie in with the organization’s mission. Use direct language from the mission statement to create learning objectives and determine metrics. If the business’s mission is to provide high-quality service that results in customer satisfaction, focus on initiatives that increase productivity, establish quality standards and improve communication skills.

Sanders encourages learning leaders to find a “champion” among key stakeholders who will support you in these conversations. Partner with someone who can provide testimonials that reinforce the value you’re bringing to the business. She also emphasized the importance of getting out of the proposal stage and trying your idea on a small scale to provide proof of concept. Compare small groups’ performance or outputs using the old and new ways to prove the initiative’s value and get buy-in.

Time to Overturn the Table

Through the recommendations shared at TICE, training professionals gained valuable insights on how to overcome the challenges they face, including being overlooked and encountering resistance from stakeholders. As the workforce continues to face a talent shortage where research consistently points to skills and career development as employees’ primary concern, business stakeholders must stop perceiving learning leaders as “nice-to-have” and start treating them like trusted partners. L&D is not merely a seat at the table, but the very foundation upon which organizational excellence is built.

If you weren’t able to attend this year’s conference, or if you’re looking for more opportunities to learn and grow alongside your peers, register for the upcoming virtual TICE, happening September 27-28, here.