Learning & Development Manager Debbie Hayler sits down with Senior Associate Jessica Alebiosu to discuss how Workman is transforming development: making it personal, accessible, and built for real work.

Forget everything you think you know about workplace training. At Workman, we’re scrapping the old playbook and building something that actually works for how people learn today.

“We’re taking a shift away from focusing on your experience or your academic background and looking at the skills you have,” explains Debbie Hayler, our Learning & Development Manager. “Your skills are your capital. They’re what you bring with you.”

Development isn’t just about climbing the ladder anymore. Debbie breaks it down into three clear paths: progression (moving up), diversification (moving across), and mastery (getting brilliant at what you already do).

“We’re living longer, which means we have multi-generational workforces,” she notes. “The third quarter of your life – when you’re getting into your 50s – used to be thinking about retirement. Now people are thinking: what’s next?”

This skills-first approach means our people won’t have to start over or take steps backwards to try something new. We can look at what our employees are good at and help them apply those skills differently.

Remember when learning meant sitting in an off-site classroom all day to master Excel? Those days are ending. “We want learning to be as organic as it is outside work,” Debbie explains. “We all Google stuff. We all watch YouTube tutorials. We all ask AI. We have information at our fingertips, and we want it quicker. This is what our learning platform will deliver.”

The new approach tackles two things: pain points (when our people are stuck on something) and desires (when they want to grow). Whether someone is a visual learner, prefers podcasts, or needs time to reflect and absorb new information, the platform adapts to how individuals learn.

Here’s what gets us excited: our people will be creating content too. “I’m a firm believer that L&D within a company isn’t the centre of distributing all knowledge across the company,” Debbie says. “We have a lot of subject matter experts here and we intend to make use of them.”

If our people have been to a conference? They can share what they’ve learned. Discovered a better way to handle something? Add it to the platform. The L&D team will support them to make it learner-friendly, but the expertise comes from our experts.

From apprentices just starting out, to seasoned professionals navigating digital change, the approach stays personal. “Development is a very personal journey,” Debbie emphasises. “It can’t be something people are told to do. It’s got to make sense to your role, and you’ve got to see value in it.”

Even compliance training – the stuff we all have to do – will be relevant to employees’ actual jobs, not just generic box-ticking.

The platform launches soon, and it’ll be completely personal. Even if someone sits next to a colleague with the same job title, they might see totally different content based on their skills and development path.