5 Tips to Expand L&D’s Strategic Influence Across Your Organization

The case for decentralizing efforts of your learning and development (L&D) team

Need to deliver effective employee training faster? Is demand for training outpacing what your team can produce alone? Want the rest of the business creating training that builds real capability, not just more content? Shifting L&D from creator to capability architect might be the answer.

Traditionally, learning and development teams have been the sole architects of employee training programs. But this centralized approach can lead to bottlenecks and untapped organizational expertise.

Cross-departmental managers and team members possess valuable knowledge that could enrich training programs. Empowering these internal subject matter experts (SMEs) to contribute directly to course creation can relieve pressure on L&D teams, accelerate the training pipeline, and ensure content is highly relevant.

In this post, we’ll explore practical strategies to help non-L&D teams create training courses while maintaining quality and consistency.

Who else might contribute to training development initiatives? 

Non-L&D contributors may include any team at your organization that doesn’t formally serve the roles of learning and development specialist, training coordinator, instructional designer, chief learning specialist, e-learning developer, etc. Identify department heads and senior, or even junior-level employees, who have deep or direct knowledge of specific training areas. They likely already share knowledge informally with their reports, in forms such as slide decks, video overviews, and ad hoc update messages.

The following table provides examples of how different teams across the organization can contribute to different areas of training expertise.

Non-L&D Team	Subject matter expertise
Legal and IT Teams	Compliance training and cybersecurity courses
HR Teams	Onboarding, company culture, and leadership training
Marketing, Sales, and Product Teams	Branding communications, sales enablement, and product training
Operations Teams	Standard operating procedures (SOPs) and productivity tools training

Why enable teams outside L&D to create employee training materials?

Involving non-L&D contributors in course development can create a win-win scenario for all stakeholders—including L&D specialists, non-L&D contributors, and the greater business. Here’s how.

Ease the burden on L&D teams

Getting other departments to contribute streamlines the course creation process. When SMEs contribute content directly, it eliminates extra steps and frees L&D leaders to focus on strategic support, oversight, and quality assurance.

L&D teams can focus on strategic efforts. There’s time for SME interviews, drafting, and feedback loops for critical projects, and assurance that learning and brand standards are built in when SMEs create their own training. L&D experts can worry less about what’s happening in the shadows and bring all training into one central tool and workflow. 

Articulate’s Frontline makes this easier than ever. With kit generation, non-L&D contributors can upload existing documents or describe what the training needs to achieve, and Frontline will create a complete, ready-to-share training kit.

Give non-L&D contributors career development opportunities 

Contributors gain personal and professional development opportunities as they share their expertise and see their knowledge valued.

Accelerate training program development times and promote a learning culture

The greater business benefits from faster, more relevant training that leverages the collective wisdom of its workforce. This approach fosters a company culture of continuous learning and knowledge sharing, breaking down information silos and enhancing employee engagement and retention.  

5 tips for L&D to support other teams in effective course creation

When well-supported, other teams can make impactful contributions to the course development process. However, it’s up to L&D leaders to ensure these teams have the necessary tools, resources, motivation, and coaching to contribute effectively. Consider the following strategies for setting non-L&D course authors up for success.

1. Get buy-in and establish clear roles and processes upfront

Start by answering, “What’s in it for me?” for potential contributors. Help them understand that working within L&D best practices helps them move from dumping knowledge to engaging learning that will actually change behavior. Using shared tools and processes gives them access to training performance insights, which they can partner with your team to address. 

Also, define clear roles and review processes early on to nip potential misunderstandings in the bud. Establish your role as a strategic and expert guide, not an order taker. For instance, you might position contributors as subject matter experts responsible for providing the main content and creating a first course draft. L&D team members could then act as consultants, offering guidance, tools, and course design feedback or polishing.

2. Equip teams with intuitive, collaborative authoring tools and training 

User-friendly e-learning authoring tools enable contributors to start creating right away. Platforms built with learning science best practices and that require minimal technical expertise give you and your collaborators confidence in output that’s better than output from generic tools. Robust collaborative authoring features are also a must-have for streamlined review and feedback cycles. 

Once you have the right learning solutions in place, offer video tutorials or quick-reference guides that teach the basics of using these technologies effectively.

3. Offer basic course design best practices or resources

Those with less experience designing learning assets could benefit from resources on effective learning design. Keep the guidance simple and actionable. Sample topics might include:

• Identifying and using learning objectives to provide focus to training
• Structuring workplace learning content for clarity
• Using relevant interactive content to enhance engagement
• Developing effective knowledge checks

4. Create team templates

Save time and ensure consistency by providing ready-made course templates tailored for other teams. Custom templates can include pre-designed course elements, placeholder text, and branding pre-sets to give contributors a head start.

By using templates, non-L&D contributors can focus on adding their expertise rather than worrying about design or formatting, ensuring the final product looks polished and professional.

5. Leverage the power of integrated AI

Knowing your subject matter is one thing—translating it into engaging and impactful course content is another. Non-L&D teams may find this transition challenging. Articulate’s AI Agent Nova is purpose-built for workplace training and simplifies the process. Your collaborators can upload documents, prompt AI with outcome goals, and get a solid draft to edit to perfection, with your guidance as appropriate.

Transform L&D from sole providers to strategic capability architects

Involving other teams in course creation transforms the role of learning and development departments from sole creators and providers to the organization’s strategic capability architect. 

This approach reduces the administrative burden on L&D, empowers SMEs, and accelerates the delivery of impactful employee training. By providing the right tools, resources, and guidance, L&D teams can support non-L&D contributors while maintaining course quality and consistency.

The following table provides a before-and-after summary of how the L&D department might function:

Discover how L&D teams can enable others and scale their reach across the entire organization without adding headcount. Start a trial with Articulate Frontline.

Updated 9/30/26