10 L&D Podcasts to Power Up Holiday Skill Building

Most learning plans fail in the last two weeks of December. Not because people don’t care—because calendars get weird, teams go half-online, and “we’ll pick it up in January” becomes the default.

Here’s the better move: use the holiday slowdown as a low-pressure, high-leverage window for workforce development. Podcasts (and podcast-style webinar episodes) are perfect for this moment. They fit into errands, travel days, and quiet mornings, and they’re one of the easiest ways to keep momentum on skills development without asking people to block off two-hour training sessions.

This post is part of our Education, Skills, and Workforce Development series, and it’s built for leaders who want learning to show up in real work outcomes. Below, you’ll find 10 expert-led L&D podcast episodes—organized by what they help you do—plus a practical way to turn “listening” into measurable progress by early January.

Why podcasts work so well for workforce development

Podcasts are a training format that matches how adults actually learn at work: in small bursts, close to the moment of need. They don’t replace structured programs, but they’re excellent for building shared language, sparking new approaches, and nudging behavior change.

Three reasons I’m bullish on podcasts as part of a digital learning strategy:

1. They reduce friction. No logins, no course shells, no lengthy prework. Just press play.
2. They model expert thinking. You don’t just get tips—you hear how experienced practitioners reason through trade-offs.
3. They’re culturally contagious. If one leader shares an episode and asks a good question, you’ve created learning pull instead of learning push.

If you’re dealing with skills shortages, retention pressure, or uneven manager capability, podcasts are an easy “always-on” layer that supports a broader workforce training plan.

The 10 L&D podcast episodes (and what each is best for)

These picks come from a single series—eLearning Unscripted—and they cover a surprisingly complete spread: AI, ROI, learning platforms, maturity models, and real production workflows. The real value is choosing episodes based on your current constraint.

If your 2026 plan includes AI in learning

Pick these when your team needs clarity, not hype.

1. The Path To Agentic AI And Building Knowledge That Works (Ryan Macpherson)

Agentic AI is the phrase everyone’s using, and most companies are overestimating what it can do today while underestimating how fast capability will compound. This episode is most useful for one idea: AI should accelerate good learning design, not replace it.

Practical way to apply it next week:

• Audit one course or onboarding track.
• Identify the most repetitive content maintenance task (updates, rewriting, summarizing).
• Pilot AI there first—then measure time saved and error rate.

1. AI Feedback In Scenario-Based Learning (Tiffany Lombardo & Dan Parker)

This one stands out because it’s grounded in a large-scale retail scenario (100,000 associates). The point isn’t “AI is cool.” The point is feedback is the bottleneck in scenario-based learning, and AI can help scale feedback so learners build confidence faster.

Try this:

• Take one customer-facing or manager scenario.
• Define what “good” looks like in 5 observable behaviors.
• Use structured AI feedback to reinforce those behaviors consistently.

If you’re tired of “training” that can’t prove impact

Pick these when leadership asks, “So what changed?”

1. The Link Between Organizational Culture And Measuring Training ROI (Sanja Damiani)

A stance worth repeating: you can’t spreadsheet your way out of a toxic culture. This episode connects culture to training ROI in a way many orgs avoid. If managers punish experimentation or don’t make space for practice, your learning outcomes will plateau.

Use it to run a quick reality check:

• Ask learners one question after training: “What stopped you from using this?”
• Categorize blockers into time, tools, manager support, psychological safety.
• Fix one blocker before building more content.

1. Performance-Driven L&D And Professional Development (David James)

This is a helpful reframing: L&D isn’t a content factory; it’s a performance function. If your learning team is measured on completions, you’ll get completions. If your team is measured on performance lift, the design choices change.

A concrete action:

• For your next program, define one performance metric (quality, speed, sales conversion, ticket resolution).
• Build practice that mirrors the job.
• Check the metric 30 days later, not just day-of surveys.

If your platform stack is messy (LMS, LXP, content, creation)

Pick these when you’re paying for too many tools and still hearing “it’s hard to find training.”

1. Experience-Driven Learning Cultures And The Evolution Of L&D Tech (Justin Seeley)

This episode tackles the shift from traditional LMS thinking (assignments and tracking) toward experience-centric ecosystems. The real takeaway: if learning isn’t easy to access in the flow of work, it won’t stick—no matter how good the content is.

Quick win you can implement:

• Identify the top 10 “repeat questions” employees ask.
• Build a lightweight learning path or resource hub around them.
• Make it searchable and manager-shareable.

1. Modern Unified Learning Solutions (Justin Seeley)

Unified platforms sound attractive because they reduce complexity: create, curate, deliver, measure—ideally in one place. The caution: unification only helps if governance is clear (owners, standards, lifecycle, analytics).

A practical evaluation checklist for unified learning solutions:

• Does it support rapid creation and quality review?
• Can you personalize learning by role or skill level?
• Can managers see progress without becoming admins?
• Can you retire content cleanly (expiration dates, versioning)?

If you’re building L&D capability inside your team

Pick these when your learning function is growing up fast.

1. Talent Development Certifications (Morgean Hirt)

Certifications get a bad reputation when they’re treated like trophies. Used well, they’re a capability baseline—especially in fast-scaling L&D teams where quality varies by who built the course.

How to make certifications actually matter:

• Tie certification paths to job expectations (designer, facilitator, program manager).
• Require a portfolio artifact (needs analysis, measurement plan, scenario).
• Use peer review so learning quality becomes a team sport.

1. The New L&D Maturity Model (David James)

Maturity models are useful when they help you choose what not to do yet. This episode helps leaders diagnose whether they’re operating as order-takers or strategic performance partners.

A simple way to use a maturity model in January planning:

• Rate your org on 5 dimensions (alignment, capability, tech, measurement, culture).
• Pick one dimension to level up this quarter.
• Fund that, and deprioritize the rest.

If you want to tighten your development process (and ship faster)

Pick these when projects drag, SMEs are overloaded, and quality is inconsistent.

1. Taking An eLearning Development Road Trip (Anja Pavlović)

This episode emphasizes steps too many teams skip: upfront goal clarity and needs analysis. The unpopular truth: speed comes from decisions, not from templates.

Try this workflow shift:

• Before design, write a one-page brief: audience, job tasks, success metric, constraints.
• Get sign-off within 48 hours.
• Then build. Less rework, fewer meetings.

1. eLearning From The POV Of A Sales Professional (Sara Vidić)

Even if you’re not in sales, this episode is useful because it reveals how projects succeed commercially: clarity on scope, expectations, and the customer journey. L&D teams inside organizations have the same problem—stakeholders want everything, fast.

A tactic I’ve found works:

• Run a “scope trade-off” conversation early.
• If stakeholders want faster timelines, reduce modules or interactivity.
• If they want higher quality, accept longer timelines.

A simple holiday listening plan that turns into January results

Listening is only valuable if it changes decisions or behavior. Here’s a lightweight plan you can run during the holiday period (or launch for your team right after):

The 30–30–30 method (designed for busy weeks)

• 30 minutes listening: pick one episode aligned to a real pain point.
• 30 minutes capture: write down:
  • one idea to stop doing
  • one idea to start doing
  • one metric that would prove it worked
• 30 minutes action: schedule a single follow-up step (a pilot, a meeting, a draft brief).

That’s 90 minutes. In December, that’s doable.

Make it social without making it a “program”

If you want this to support workforce engagement, don’t over-engineer it.

• Ask managers to share one episode with their team
• Add one prompt in Slack/Teams: “What’s one thing we should change in how we train or support performance?”
• Collect answers for January planning

One sharp discussion beats ten passive listens.

People also ask: what should L&D leaders listen for in 2026 planning?

Listen for decisions, not trends. Trends come and go. Decisions change outcomes.

Here are four “signals” to listen for across these episodes:

1. Where is performance breaking down? (Not “what training do we need?”)
2. What’s the smallest pilot that proves value? (Before a full rollout)
3. What can AI safely accelerate right now? (Without damaging quality)
4. What cultural blocker is quietly killing ROI? (Manager behavior is usually the culprit)

If an episode helps you answer one of those, it’s worth your time.

Keep learning alive through the holidays—then cash it in

Holiday learning isn’t about being busy. It’s about staying ready. When teams treat late December as dead time, January becomes a scramble. When teams use it for light, relevant inputs—like L&D podcasts—they start the year with clearer priorities and better options.

If you want to tie this into your workforce development strategy, pick two episodes: one about measurement and performance, one about platform or production. Then run a small pilot in January that you can measure in 30 days. That’s how continuous learning becomes credibility.

What would change in your organization if every manager started Q1 with one concrete idea to improve performance—not just another course assignment?