Report Highlights
- 6 out of every 10 employees today say they have never had any training at their workplaces and that their skills are largely self-taught.
- 94% of employees say they would remain at the same company if it invested in their learning and training.
- CEOs spend 20% more time training and learning soft skills compared to the average time a normal learner spends.
- In 2020, 16% of learning and development professionals used surveys to evaluate learner satisfaction from training programs as compared to 27% this year.
- 6 out of every 10 employees worldwide believe that training allows them to be more capacitive to accommodate change.
- Half of the employees say they do not have time for training at their workplaces, and 61% of learning and development professionals acknowledge the lack of time as an obstacle.
- Trainees find out about 56% of learning programs from within the corporate circle.
- Online course provider Udemy says that by 2025, 50% of employees will require reskilling.
The Push for Learning and Development
- 27% of learning and development professionals say their CEOs are actively pushing for learning and training.
- 55% of these professionals further say that they take their executives as channels of encouraging training.
- Executives in large enterprises (over 5,000 employees) are the biggest proponents of learning and training; 60% of learning and development pros leverage them to enable learning.
- In comparison, for mid-market companies (1,001 to 5,000 employees), the percentage is 51% and 50% for small organizations (200 to 1000 employees).
- 27% of small organizations believe that learning and development is a key priority to their business while this percentage is 29% and 38% for mid-size and large enterprises respectively.
- 26% of small organizations build up corporate mandates and executive initiatives targeted at employee learning. In comparison, 28% of mid-market companies and 36% of enterprises do so.
- 68% of learning and development pros in Canada, 66% in the US, and 67% in South East Asia say that CEOs are actively pushing for such programs.
Numbers in Finances
The Training Industry Report by Training magazine surveyed 202 respondents; 40% from small companies, 34% from mid-sized companies, and 26% from large companies.
The report found that:
- Training in the US took a hit from the COVID-19 pandemic as spending in it declined to $82.5 billion, and laid off employees caused the training payroll to drop by about 18% to $42.4 billion.
- The average amount spent in training by the large companies (more than 10,000 employees) was $22 million in 2020, a rise from the $17.7 million in 2019.
- The figure was $900,000 for mid-sized companies (1,000 to 9,999 employees) and an average of $808,000 for small companies (100-999 employees).
- Other training expenditures, for instance, travel expenses, increased to $29.4 billion in 2020 from $23.8 billion the previous year.
- Last year, organizations allocated an average of 16% of their budget to training tools and tech.
- 29% of learning and development budgets are spent on creating or buying the content or programs to be used in the learning. 17% is spent on building and assuring compliance training to employees.
- 16% is invested in pushing the learning programs to employees, 15% to identify the skills lacking, and another 15% in investing time with managers to determine the learning gaps.
- A final 10% is used to push the ideas of learning programs to the company executives.
The Adoption and Impact of Learning Management Systems (LMS)
- 83% of companies use a learning management system.
- 72% of companies become more competitive after adopting an LMS.
- Four out of five companies in the Fortune 500 employ the extensive use of an LMS to retain competitiveness.
- Tech companies are the biggest buyers of LMSs globally, with a proportion of 30%.
- Organizations that use LMSs have retained it for more than two years, with 88% of those switching citing a poor user experience.
Online Training Statistics
- Nine out of ten employees are champions of flexibility saying they would do training from anywhere or at any time.
- 85% of employees prefer to have training plans that slot into their schedules.
- 80% of employees see frequent and regular training to be more important than formal workplace training.
- A third of employees find training methods employed by their companies to be outdated.
- 91% of employees prefer having employee-specific training, with the opinion that it is more beneficial and relevant, and 75% of training professionals believe their companies are taking steps to achieve that in the future.
- While three-quarters of employees believe employees should receive training on digital skills, only under half of them have received such training from their employers.
Leadership and Compliance Training
- There is a 60% higher probability of employees who are outsourced to be released from their jobs as compared to employees who are internally promoted.
- Six in ten millennials at companies are proponents for leadership training, as compared to 67% of Generation X who prefer external coaching.
- The presence of training gaps in companies is evidenced by the fact that only 42% of important roles at the company can be instantly filled by present employees.
- 23% of companies do not perform any compliance training for their employees.
- Four out of ten organizations consider their compliance training programs to be simple or reactive.
- 12% of companies have invested in cutting-edge compliance training programs.
- 30% of organizations do not evaluate the effectiveness of the compliance training programs they put in place.
Areas of Focus in Employee Training
- In 2021, 59% of learning and development programs have prioritized time investment in upskilling and reskilling.
- 53% have chosen leadership and management as the area of primary focus, while 33% are prioritising virtual onboarding.
- In comparison, in 2020, evaluating the impact of learning was the area of focus for 38% of learning programs.
- 35% of the programs sought to increase learner engagement, while another 35% of the said programs were focused on self and online learning solutions for employees.
- 32% were fixated on finding skill and development gaps, and 29% on including learning into other talent plans.
The Role of Employee Training In Diversity and Inclusion
- Companies invested in diversity programs are 22% more likely to be perceived as industry giants with top talents, and 12% more probable to be seen as proper working environments for people from varying backgrounds.
- In 28% of organizations, training and diversity teams work together in the creation of strategies to enhance diversity and inclusion.
- 12% of organizations have the training team in charge of building and executing diversity and inclusion programs.
- 15% of companies lack diversity and inclusion programs, but they say that they are planning to start one.
Goals and Obstacles
Goals
- In 2020, 34% of training programs sought to increase job satisfaction for their employees.
- 44% of these programs targeted improving employee engagement while 46% wanted to boost organizational growth.
- In addition, 62% of training programs had the goal of bridging the gap in skills at their respective companies.
Obstacles
- 61% of companies cite the lack of time as the biggest challenge associated with training, 42% complain of budget constraints.
- 38% of training professionals are required to prove the ROI of training, while 31% find it hard to choose a suitable learning and development program.
- 64% of leaders say their biggest challenge is developing leaders for the next generation, and 60% say the challenge is to attract or retain top talent.
The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Before the pandemic hit, 63% of all training programs were conducted in person.
In a 2020 workplace learning report, LinkedIn found that;
- 38% of companies spent less on Instructor-Led Training (ILT), 27% spent the same, and 21% spent more as compared to the year before.
- The budgets allocated for online learning for employees were less for 9% of the companies, the same for 18% and more for 57% of the companies between the two years.
- Generally, 57% of learning and development pros spent more time in online training as compared to three years ago, while 37% of these pros spent less time on ILT than they did three years ago.
- In 2021, 73% of companies expect to invest less time in instructor-led training as compared to before, while a whopping 79% see more time invested into online learning modules.
Sources
- Brandonall Group Research Highlights May 4-8, 2020
- 2020 Workplace Learning Report
- 2021 Workplace Learning Report
- 2020 Training Industry Report
- Axonify Finds No Improvement in Corporate Training in Second Annual State of Workplace Training Study
- 2021 Workplace Learning Trends Report
- L&D in COVID-19 and beyond
- 2021 Trends Report: L&D in a COVID World
- Learning & Development: How to do it right
- 76 Essential LMS & eLearning Statistics: 2020/2021 Market Share & Data Analysis