Rewriting the L&D Playbook for AI: Closing the Gap Between Training and Performance with Jennifer Baker of Foot Locker
In this episode of Learning Leader Spotlight, host Leigh Anne Lankford sits down with Jennifer Baker, Director of Talent and Leadership Development at Foot Locker North America and founder of Jen+AI, to explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping learning and development. The conversation moves beyond common discussions about AI tools and focuses on a larger question: What value will L&D create in a future where content generation is increasingly automated?
Throughout the discussion, Jennifer offers a thoughtful and practical perspective on the future of workplace learning. Drawing from her experience in retail, leadership development, and AI experimentation, she emphasizes that the role of L&D is evolving from content creation toward performance enablement, strategic problem solving, and human-centered design.
Jennifer has helped frontline employees, first-time managers, experienced leaders, and organizations build capability and improve performance. Her expertise sits at the intersection of learning, leadership development, talent strategy, and emerging technology. As AI rapidly transforms the workplace, she brings a grounded perspective on how learning leaders can adapt while continuing to drive business results.
Building a Career Through Learning
One of the most compelling moments in the conversation is Jennifer’s story about how she entered the field of learning and development.
Before entering corporate learning, Jennifer owned two fashion boutiques with her family. Running a small business required her to wear multiple hats, including owner, buyer, trainer, and even technology support. When the business eventually closed, she transitioned into a retail store management role.
While managing a retail store, she noticed a recurring challenge. Great employees were joining the business, but they were not receiving the onboarding, development, or guidance needed to succeed. Seeing this gap, she independently created standard operating procedures and designed an onboarding framework to support new hires.
When she presented the program to senior leadership, the response was immediate. Leaders recognized the value of what she had built and created new training-focused roles within the organization. That opportunity launched her official career in learning and development.
Looking back, Jennifer describes this experience as “building her way into” L&D. The story highlights an important lesson for aspiring learning professionals: expertise often develops through solving real business problems before a formal role even exists.
Learning Is Moving Closer to Work
One of the central themes of the discussion is the growing integration of learning into daily work.
Historically, organizations approached performance issues with a familiar solution: build a training program. If managers were struggling with a process or employees were missing key skills, a workshop, course, or seminar often became the default intervention.
Jennifer believes that modern L&D functions are taking a different approach. Rather than immediately creating training, learning professionals are increasingly asking what is preventing employees from performing effectively.
This shift changes everything about how solutions are designed.
Instead of focusing solely on delivering information, successful learning teams are looking at how support can be embedded directly into the workflow. AI is accelerating this trend by making it possible to provide guidance exactly when employees need it.
Jennifer shared the example of writing SMART goals. Traditionally, organizations might offer a workshop explaining the SMART framework and then expect managers to apply it later. Today, AI can function as a real-time assistant, guiding managers through the goal-setting process while they are actively writing their goals.
This approach shortens the distance between learning and performance. Employees receive support not after the work occurs, but during the work itself.
For learning leaders, this represents a significant strategic shift. The focus becomes helping people perform better, not simply helping them complete training.
AI Is Changing the Nature of L&D
Although AI is often discussed as a content generation tool, Jennifer argues that its impact is much broader.
AI is influencing what employees need to learn, how learning is designed, how skills are developed, and how organizations define the value of learning itself. The implications extend far beyond simply using ChatGPT.
One of the most important realities Jennifer highlights is that learning content has never been easier to create. A user can provide a prompt and quickly receive a workshop outline, facilitator guide, speaker notes, or learning program.
However, faster content creation does not automatically lead to better learning outcomes.
Jennifer cautions against assuming that AI-generated content is inherently effective. While the output may appear polished, it still requires human expertise to determine whether it is accurate, relevant, and aligned with organizational goals.
This creates an interesting paradox. As content becomes easier to generate, the value of human judgment increases.
L&D professionals remain essential because they understand the business context, learner needs, organizational culture, and performance challenges that AI cannot fully grasp. Their role shifts from creating every asset themselves to orchestrating, evaluating, refining, and validating the work that AI helps generate.
Rather than replacing learning professionals, AI is changing how they contribute.
Defining Value in the Future of Learning
Jennifer predicts that one of the defining challenges of the next five years will be demonstrating the value of learning and development.
For decades, many organizations have measured success using metrics such as training attendance, completion rates, course catalogs, or learning hours. While these indicators provide useful information, they do not always demonstrate business impact.
As AI democratizes content creation, learning leaders will be pushed to answer a more important question: What value does L&D create?
Jennifer believes the answer will increasingly be tied to performance outcomes rather than training outputs.
Organizations will expect learning teams to show how their work helps employees become more capable, improves execution, drives business performance, and supports organizational goals.
This transition represents a significant opportunity. Learning teams that position themselves as strategic partners rather than content producers will be better equipped to thrive in an AI-enabled future.
The Biggest Challenge Facing Learning Leaders
When discussing current challenges, Jennifer identifies AI-driven transformation as the most significant issue confronting learning leaders today. What makes this challenge unique is that multiple changes are occurring simultaneously. Jobs are evolving. Skills are changing. Learning methods are shifting. Employee expectations continue to adapt. New technology arrives at a pace that can feel overwhelming.
Learning leaders must prepare employees for work that is actively transforming while those employees are still performing it. At the same time, L&D teams are experiencing change within their own functions. Instructional designers, for example, can now create first drafts much faster with AI assistance. This efficiency creates an opportunity to rethink how learning teams spend their time and where they create value.
Jennifer suggests that future learning organizations will devote more attention to strategic thinking, experimentation, creativity, consulting, and performance improvement. The challenge is not simply adding AI into existing workflows. The challenge is redesigning those workflows to take advantage of what AI can do while strengthening the uniquely human contributions that remain essential.
In many ways, the conversation is less about technology and more about change management.
Learning Agility as the Defining Workforce Skill
If one skill emerged as the most important throughout the conversation, it was learning agility. Jennifer believes that learning agility, combined with adaptability, curiosity, judgment, and personal agency, will become increasingly valuable as workplace change accelerates.
Few professionals can confidently predict what their jobs will look like five years from now. Because of that uncertainty, success depends less on having all the answers and more on being willing to learn continuously.
According to Jennifer, the people thriving today are not necessarily those who possess perfect expertise. They are the individuals who are willing to experiment, ask questions, remain curious, and try new approaches. She reflects on her own AI journey as an example. Much of her learning occurred through hands-on experimentation during evenings and weekends. Rather than waiting for formal instruction or guaranteed certainty, she immersed herself in exploration and practice.
This mindset allowed her to build expertise and uncover new opportunities that may not have emerged through traditional learning approaches. For organizations, fostering learning agility may become one of the most important investments they can make in workforce development.
Staying Connected to Industry Trends
Jennifer emphasizes the importance of community and continuous learning for professionals who want to stay current in a rapidly changing field.
Among the resources she values most is the Association for Talent Development (ATD). She highlights both national resources and local chapters as valuable opportunities to build connections, learn from peers, and stay informed about emerging trends.
She also recommends SafeSpace by Workweek, an online community for HR professionals. The platform allows practitioners to discuss real-world challenges, exchange ideas, and seek advice from others working through similar issues.
LinkedIn remains another significant source of insight. Jennifer not only shares her own thoughts and experiments on the platform but also uses it to follow thought leaders and practitioners across the learning and talent landscape.
Together, these communities provide real-time access to ideas, discussions, and evolving practices.
Book Recommendation: Hidden Potential
When asked to recommend one book for aspiring learning leaders, Jennifer chooses Hidden Potential by Adam Grant.
Interestingly, she notes that she does not consume many learning-specific books. Instead, she looks for broader ideas about growth, leadership, and human capability.
The central message of Hidden Potential resonates strongly with her philosophy of learning and development. The book argues that success is not reserved only for naturally gifted individuals. Growth occurs when people are given opportunities, support, practice, and the right environment to develop.
Jennifer connects this idea directly to the work of learning professionals. Their role is not simply identifying people who already excel. It is creating conditions that allow more individuals to reach levels of performance and capability they may not have thought possible.
She also reflects on a lesson from the book that influenced her own career. Confidence does not necessarily come before action. Often, confidence develops through action.
Her decision to begin sharing ideas publicly on LinkedIn before feeling completely ready ultimately led to opportunities including teaching, consulting, and becoming a LinkedIn Learning instructor. The experience reinforced the value of stepping into growth opportunities before certainty exists.
Practical Takeaways for L&D and Business Leaders
- Focus on performance challenges before designing training solutions.
- Explore opportunities to embed learning and support directly into workflow processes.
- Develop employees’ ability to evaluate and apply AI output, not just use AI tools.
- Reposition learning teams around business impact, performance improvement, and consultation.
- Encourage experimentation and curiosity as core workplace behaviors.
- Invest in learning agility as a critical capability for navigating future change.
- Help employees build confidence through practice rather than waiting for complete readiness.
- Use professional communities to stay informed and connected to emerging industry trends.
Resources Mentioned
Closing Reflection
Jennifer Baker presents a forward-looking vision of learning and development that is both practical and optimistic. While artificial intelligence is transforming how content is created and how work is performed, she believes the most valuable contributions of learning professionals remain fundamentally human.
The future of L&D will belong to practitioners who understand people, solve business problems, exercise judgment, and help organizations build capability in the face of uncertainty. As technology continues to evolve, learning agility, adaptability, and curiosity may become the most important skills of all.
Ready to Work with Us?
Does your L&D team have more projects than people? At TrainingPros, we match organizations with experienced consultants who lead with strategy, so you can connect learning decisions to real business goals. We support teams across compliance, customer service, leadership and supervisory development, product knowledge, and sales, as well as information technology, software, and learning platforms. Whether you’re rethinking onboarding, scaling a program, or upgrading the tools behind it, we help you move from reactive delivery to results-driven capability building.
TrainingPros has been named a Top 20 Staffing Company internationally by Training Industry, and recognized as a Champion of Learning by the Association for Talent Development (ATD)—an international honor that reflects our dedication to excellence in corporate learning. These accolades underscore TrainingPros’ unwavering commitment to delivering high-quality, tailored training solutions.
If your projects need instructional design consultants, eLearning developers, or other learning & development consultants for your custom content projects, reach out to one of our industry-expert relationship managers today.