HRD practitioners must also be open to taking on a more organic role than they are perhaps used to and be willing and available to undertake unplanned interventions to support, coach and mentor employees in their efforts increase knowledge productivity and to enhance social capital within their organisations. Park et al.’s study shows that recent work on HRM and ambidexterity (e.g. Patel et al., 2012; Swart, 2012) is highly applicable to HRD practitioners. In particular, not only do HRD practitioners working in organisations that have an objective of being highly innovative must ensure that a culture of learning and knowledge sharing is in place but that interventions must be regularly undertaken so that employees remain highly engaged and that spill-overs of this engagement are channelled at delivering innovative behaviours.