We’ve got a wonderful guest for this edition of Leading L&D as Tomislav Vujec, Director of Learning at Red Hat, joins us to discuss aligning L&D with corporate strategy.
When a company begins shifting its focus, that can be a tough ship to steer — but ultimately, L&D is the sail for creating those foundational changes.
With more than 20 years of experience at Red Hat, Tomislav has some excellent perspective and insight!
Find Leading L&D anywhere you listen to podcasts, including Apple and Spotify, where you’ll be able to find our past conversations with learning leaders.
Here’s a full playlist:
Summary
Adrian West welcomes Tomislav Vujec to discuss aligning Learning & Development (L&D) with corporate strategy. Tomislav, with 23 years at Red Hat (15 in learning), discusses how accelerating market changes require L&D departments to be more agile and responsive. He emphasizes the shift from traditional onboarding focus to continuous skill development across entire organizations. Tomislav explains how aligning L&D with corporate strategy helps justify investments, demonstrates value, and secures L&D’s position during business downturns. He also shares insights about operating in an open-source environment at Red Hat and discusses the future impact of AI on L&D, suggesting that AI will enhance rather than replace L&D professionals’ capabilities.
Highlights
The Importance of Aligning L&D with Corporate Strategy
Tomislav introduces the critical need for L&D alignment with corporate strategy in today’s rapidly changing business environment. He emphasizes how accelerating change forces companies to constantly adapt their operations, requiring L&D to shift focus from traditional onboarding to continuous development of the entire workforce.
Overcoming Traditional L&D Challenges Through Strategic Alignment
Tomislav addresses how strategic alignment helps protect L&D from being first in line for budget cuts during downturns. He explains that by focusing on company-wide skill development and connecting directly to revenue and profit goals, L&D becomes an integral part of business success rather than a side consideration.
Balancing Custom Development with Off-the-Shelf Solutions
The discussion explores how L&D teams can effectively balance custom content development with readily available learning resources. Tomislav emphasizes focusing custom development efforts on specific application scenarios while leveraging existing content for foundational skills.
Open Source Culture’s Impact on L&D at Red Hat
Tomislav shares his experience with Red Hat’s open source culture and its influence on L&D initiatives. He explains how the collaborative nature of open source creates stronger alignment between stakeholders while acknowledging the need to balance inclusive input with decisive action.
Future Predictions and AI’s Role in L&D
The conversation concludes with Tomislav ‘s perspective on AI’s impact on L&D’s future. He presents an optimistic view, suggesting that AI will enhance L&D professionals’ capabilities rather than replace them, allowing them to focus on higher-value activities like practice design and skill application while AI handles content generation and explanation tasks.
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
I’m a storyteller!
Exactly how I’ve told stories has changed through the years, going from writing college basketball analysis in the pages of a newspaper to now, telling the stories of the people of TimelyText. Nowadays, that means helping a talented technical writer land a new gig by laying out their skills, or even a quick blog post about a neat project one of our instructional designers is finishing in pharma.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.