Beyond pizza Fridays: How smarter L&D builds real employee buyin

Employers are facing a “buyin” crisis – and learning and development is fast emerging as one of the most powerful levers to fix it

From entry-level hires to experienced professionals, workers are asking a simple set of questions: Am I learning? Am I growing? Does this work matter? When the answer is no, they disengage – and quietly start looking elsewhere.

That’s the core warning from leaders across the L&D and people space, including Gabrielle Stevens, chief people and culture officer at Konica Minolta Australia and Dave Garrison, CEO and cofounder of Garrison Growth.

Both argue that employers need to completely rethink how they approach development if they want to tackle disengagement and turnover.

From engagement to real buyin

Garrison argues thattraditional notions of engagement no longer go far enough. Standard surveys and occasional culture initiatives may show a superficially positive picture, but they fail to capture whether people genuinely care about their work and their organisation’s success.

He described a widening gap between the energy people bring to highstakes events – such as a packed sports match – and the indifference many feel when they walk into the office. That disconnect has only deepened since the pandemic, as employees reassess how they spend their time and what they expect in return beyond a salary.

At the same time, many HR teams are left dealing with the fallout rather than the root causes. They manage endless cycles of hiring, onboarding, retraining and exit interviews, while the true cost of disengagement shows up in lost productivity, colleagues covering extra workloads and rising questions about why anyone should stay.

Garrison’s view is that genuine buyin comes down to three things employees now expect as a given, alongside fair pay,

1.Opportunities to learn and grow

2.Connection to a clear, meaningful purpose

3.The sense that their voice is heard in decisions that affect them

If these elements are missing, no amount of free lunches or social events will offset the drift towards disengagement and eventual resignation.

Humancentric development andrejecting “earn your stripes”

Stevens identified similar dynamics playing out from a different angle: the rapid evolution of early career expectations.

Working with emerging talent, she observed that new graduates are arriving with changing skillsets – particularly around AI – and very different assumptions about careers. Many have seen their parents experience redundancy and job insecurity, so they are acutely aware they need to stay marketable and adaptable.

For them, loyalty is no longer to an employer for life; it is to their own ongoing development. They are constantly asking themselves whether a role is helping them build skills and experience they can carry into the future. If not, they will move on – often much earlier than previous generations would have considered.

Stevens rejected the old “earn your stripes” mindset, where junior employees are expected to wait patiently before being given meaningful responsibility or development. In her view, organisations that cling to that model risk losing precisely the kind of ambitious, fastlearning talent they most need.

Instead, she advocates a humancentric approach to L&D that treats early careers employees as contributors from day one, with real autonomy and support.

That means involving them in crossfunctional projects and problemsolving, drawing on their uptodate knowledge (for example, with AI tools), and allowing their ideas and skills to ripple organically through the business via “reverse mentoring” and peertopeer learning.

The payoff is not just retention but genuine innovation, as fresh perspectives are invited in rather than kept at the margins.

Mentoring and leadership: the missing infrastructure

Both leaders see relationships – not just content – as central to effective development.

Stevens believes every emerging employee needs two distinct anchors: a capable manager and a mentor. The manager provides direction, performance clarity and daytoday support. The mentor offers a different kind of relationship – one where the mentee can be more vulnerable, test ideas and get impartial advice about their broader career path.

She noted that mentoring is still heavily underutilised in many organisations, despite being one of the most costeffective forms of development. It benefits not only the mentee but also the mentor, who sharpens their own thinking, gains exposure to new perspectives and builds their leadership capability in the process.

Garrison’s emphasis is on equipping leaders themselves. In his experience, most leaders have never been properly trained in how to create buyin. They fall back on telling rather than asking – a style that may feel efficient but ultimately undermines ownership and drains energy.

He argued that small shifts in how leaders show up – especially the habit of asking questions and involving employees in how work gets done – cost nothing but can dramatically increase buyin.

Leaders who keep control of every decision end up overloaded and frustrated, while their teams disengage. Leaders who invite input, listen and share decisionmaking create space for learning, commitment and growth.

In other words, leadership capability is inseparable from L&D. If managers aren’t equipped to foster psychological safety, invite ideas and support growth, even the best-designed programs will under-deliver.

Doing more with less: lowcost, highimpact L&D

Budget constraints are a constant reality for HR teams, particularly in the current environment. Both Garrison and Stevens are clear, however, that effectiveL&D does not require expansive spend– but it does require focus.

Stevens highlights several approaches to keep development both humancentric and budgetconscious:

·Peertopeer “lunch and learns”:Internal experts share skills or insights – from AI tricks to product knowledge or customer case studies – in short, informal sessions. This not only spreads knowledge but helps presenters develop communication and facilitation skills.

·Targeted capability building:Rather than rolling out generic programs, the organisation identifies key strategic priorities and invests in the specific teams and tools that will move those forward – for example, upskilling a data team in analytics software to improve automation and decision-making.

·Individual development plans:Employees work with both managers and mentors to map out learning priorities based on their strengths, aspirations and the organisation’s needs, ensuring development is personalised rather than onesizefitsall.

·Crossfunctional exposure:By involving people in projects that span departments, the company supports broader skill development and internal mobility, reflecting the more nonlinear career paths many employees now expect.

Garrison similarly stressed that listening to employees and arranging targeted learning – even something as simple as inviting an external expert to speak over lunch – often costs little or nothing. The critical step is asking staff what they want to learn and then mobilising free or lowcost resources accordingly.

He also encouraged HR leaders to use data they already have at their fingertips, especially turnover broken down by department. Highexit areas should be treated as priority zones for deeper conversations with both managers and employees about purpose, development and voice – long before the next resignation wave hits.

Strengths over deficits

When it comes to deciding what to focus learning on, Stevens favours astrengths-based approach.Rather than designing development purely around perceived gaps, she encourages organisations to identify where people already show aptitude and interest and then build on that.

She argued that learning is most effective when it amplifies strengths and aligns with genuine aspiration. Deficits still need attention – particularly in critical areas such as leadership behaviour – but overemphasising weaknesses risks disengaging the very people you are trying to motivate.

By contrast, when employees see a clear intersection between what they are good at, what they want to explore and what the business needs, they are far more likely to commit energy and stay invested over the long term.

L&D as a core riskand opportunity

The shift towards humancentric, targeted, strengthsbased development is not just a “nice to have”. It increasingly intersects with legal and psychosocial obligations, as regulators sharpen their focus on psychological safety and work-related stressors.

Stevens noted that as psychosocial risk legislation evolves, organisations will be expected to show they are proactively creating environments where people feel safe to speak up, supported to grow and not left in chronically undermining conditions. Development – especially mentoring, leadership training and opportunities for autonomy – is a key part of that risk management picture.

For Garrison, the risk is also purely commercial. With a significant share of employees actively scanning the market for better opportunities, employers that fail to offer meaningful learning, purpose and voice will simply bleed talent.

The good news is that the most effective responses are often the least expensive: listening deeply, involving employees in problemsolving, opening up mentoring relationships, and treating development as a personalised, relational process rather than a compliance tick-box.

For employers willing to rethink their approach, learning and development is no longer just a line item – it is one of the most powerful tools to rebuild trust, unlock innovation and turn quiet disengagement into genuine buyin.