Voices of the Learning Network
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Voices of the Learning Network is the official podcast of The Learning Network. We are a Community Interest Company (CIC) and exist solely to support you as a learning professional – so whether you are a seasoned professional or have just entered the field, the Learning Network exists to help you no matter what stage of your career you’re in.
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Voices of the Learning Network
Even Great Learning Fails When People Don’t Engage
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What if the real reason learning fails has nothing to do with content and everything to do with attention?
In this episode of Voices of the Learning Network, host Bill Banham sits down with Ashley Hinchcliffe, Founder of MAAS Marketing, and one of the strongest voices challenging how learning and development shows up inside organisations.
Ashley has spent the past decade working at the intersection of L&D, behaviour change, and internal communications. Her work centres on an uncomfortable truth: even great learning fails when people don’t engage with it — and engagement doesn’t happen by accident.
Together, Bill and Ashley unpack why traditional L&D campaigns struggle to cut through in the attention economy, what learning teams can borrow from marketing without becoming salesy, and how to shift from assumption-driven programmes to behaviour-led design grounded in real user discovery.
The conversation explores learning as a product: clear value propositions, intentional curation over content overload, and messaging that helps employees choose learning because it helps them do better work today — and build the career they want tomorrow.
They also go deep on impact. Beyond attendance and completion rates, Ashley outlines the outcomes leaders actually care about: time to proficiency, error reduction, tool adoption, first-contact resolution, and attrition in critical roles — and how L&D teams can tell a credible ROI story in language CFOs understand.
This is a practical, challenging episode for anyone ready to declutter their catalogue, sharpen their message, and make learning genuinely business-critical.
In this episode, we explore:
- Why engagement fails before learning even launches
- Behaviour-led design vs intention-led programmes
- Treating learning as a product with a value proposition
- Borrowing from marketing without getting salesy
- Curation over accumulation in noisy learning libraries
- Measuring impact beyond completions and smile sheets
- Proving ROI in operational and financial terms
- The future skill stack for influential L&D leaders
Subscribe, share with a colleague who owns a major programme, and tell us: which outcome will you measure first?
Voices of the Learning Network is the Learning Network podcast connecting the learning and development community. https://thelearning-network.org/