Purpose – To highlight six commonly cited employee criticism of learning and development initiatives in organisations and recommend six innovative learning and development strategies that counter the common criticisms. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a finding of an international survey of 517 white-collar employees with regards to learning and development in their organizations. Findings – Employees appear to have numerous complaints about the learning and development opportunities they experience at work. Often learning and development specialists may never know what these grievances are. There is a range of inexpensive and easy to implement alternate strategies that overcome the commonest complaints of employees as reflected in the survey. Practical implications – The paper offers a description of six practical learning and development strategies that organizations can adopt to help develop their employees. The paper also provides practical advice on getting management support for t...