Headspring, the joint venture between the Financial Times and IE Business School, recently announced the launch of a new suite of bespoke consulting services, Headspring X. Devised to help businesses integrate learning and development within their core strategy, the solution meets the needs of clients with different levels of L&D sophistication. The launch comes as the company consolidates its footprint in the executive development market, after growing nearly 60% in Europe and the Middle East last year.

The cost-benefit ratio of L&D has always been difficult to measure. While investment in people is always valuable - helping with business innovation, as well as the attraction and retention of talent - aligning L&D efforts to a strategy, as well as measuring and understanding the impact that L&D investments have on business performance, are harder to manage.

Headspring X offers bespoke solutions to enable clients to align their L&D practice to business needs more effectively, allowing businesses to identify deep-rooted performance gaps, instil innovation, and create a programme of tailored learning experiences that can deliver quantifiable results.

"One of the key reasons why certain L&D initiatives don't lead to change is the fact that decision makers often jump to conclusions about what their team needs", says Malek Adjerad, Director of Learning Design at Headspring, who has over 25 years of experience in L&D and works with organisations globally to co-create leadership development programmes.

He continued, "This happens because businesses tend to address the most visible problems, but, too often, these problems are merely the symptoms of more complex issues. If you try to identify learning needs with a pre-defined solution in mind, your diagnosis will inevitably be biased. The most effective way to create the right learning solution is to start with a blank canvas and conduct a deep assessment of the organisation's learning needs - and this requires methodology."

Built upon the foundation of Headspring's discovery and design approach, as well as the experience of working with organisations globally, Headspring X has been created to help businesses with more diverse and complex L&D needs. Working at a strategic level, Headspring X is a flexible, truly bespoke solution that will work to meet the unique needs of each client. And it begins not with problem solving, but problem identification, helping businesses to discover where and why their L&D solutions are falling short, and how these issues can be successfully remedied.

Gustaf Nordbäck, CEO of Headspring comments, "Until this point, Headspring has been all about helping businesses to co-create the customised learning journeys their employees need to succeed. Our clients have seen transformative results from our programmes, particularly when they already understand both their objectives and what they need to do to attain them. Not all businesses, however, are in that position.

"While Headspring will continue to provide tailored L&D programmes, Headspring X is a new service created to support those businesses that are unclear about what their needs are, as well as those with more complex needs. We are on a mission to help companies that are struggling to identify why their L&D solutions aren't providing the results they need and those looking for unbiased advice on what areas of development they should invest in and prioritise."

Targeting companies across all industries, Headspring X is a hybrid L&D service delivered digitally and face-to-face, in English, Spanish, German, and French.