Training is all the more important post-Covid as businesses worldwide have accelerated their digital transformations.
For businesses worldwide, 2020 was one of the most challenging years in a long time. Almost overnight, they were forced to make changes in the way they work. Among other things, they had to enable workers to work remotely, virtually train them to use new remote working softwares and tools efficiently, adjust to broken supply chains and shore up data security all at the same time.
As businesses attempt to move away from surviving 2020 to attempting to thrive in 2021, one of the most important things they can do is to design a virtual training program for their employees. This is necessary because even before the pandemic struck, dire warnings were being made about how the workforce of the future would be severely lacking in skills, and that organizations would need to step in to train their employees if they wanted to stay competitive in a rapidly changing business landscape.
Training is all the more important post-Covid as businesses worldwide have accelerated their digital transformations – implementing in a few months what they had planned to do in years. All this means employees have to be trained to work efficiently with new tools and processes.
Learning and development professionals are aware of this, as the findings of LinkedIn Learning’s latest (2021) report indicate.
For these findings and other data and research on the need for training, its benefits, its future, and the training industry in general read on below. The list has links to the actual sources wherever available. For details on the methodology and sample sizes wherever available, please go to the “Sources” section at the very end of the article.
1.
Covid-19-related economic uncertainty and increasing automation and digitization will cause 85 million jobs to be displaced across the world and 97 million new ones to be created by 2025. (WEF, 2020)
2.
Companies estimate that around 40% of workers will require reskilling of six months or less and 94% of business leaders report that they expect employees to pick up new skills on the job, a sharp increase from 65% in 2018. (WEF, 2020)
3.
70% of employees believe they don't have the skills they need to succeed in their jobs. (Gartner)
4.
Only 38% of workers say they have opportunities for learning and development at their workplace. (Bersin by Deloitte, 2016)
5.
Training and development is one of the recommended ways HR can increase employee engagement. This is significant because actively disengaged employees cost the US $483 billion to $605 billion each year in lost productivity. (Gallup, 2017)
6.
An increase of $680 in a firm’s training expenditures per employee generated, on average, a six-percentage point improvement in total shareholder return in the following year, even after controlling for many other important factors. (ASTD Research, 1998)
7.
Firms in the top quarter of the study group – as measured by average per-employee expenditures on training – enjoyed higher profit margins (by 24%), higher income per employee (by 218%) and higher price-to-book ratios (by 26%) on average than firms in the bottom quarter. (ASTD Research, 1998)
8.
Organizations with a strong learning culture are 92% more likely to develop novel products and processes, are 52% more productive, 56% more likely to be the first to market with their products and services, and 17% more profitable than their peers. (Deloitte, 2010)
9.
84% of employees in best performing organizations are receiving the training they need, a full 68% better than worst performing companies. (IBM, 2013)
10.
There has been a four-fold increase in the numbers of individuals seeking out online learning opportunities on their own initiative, a five-fold increase in employer provision of online learning opportunities to their workers and a massive nine-fold enrolment increase for learners accessing online learning through government programs. (WEF, 2020)
11.
From 2019-2020, the number of enterprise learners more than doubled, and the amount of learning has also increased by 58% more hours per learner. (LinkedIn Learning, 2021)
12.
62% of CEOs surveyed prioritize learning in their organization in the US. This figure is 68% in Canada. (LinkedIn Learning, 2021)
13.
49% of respondents said their organizations are currently focused on eLearning. This figure is set to increase to 69% in the next 12 months. (Training Industry Benchmark Report, 2020)
14.
44% of respondents said they intended to purchase online learning tools and systems next year vs 41% the previous year. (Training Industry Report, 2019)
15.
35% of employees surveyed globally have used learning programs to help them find new opportunities in their organizations. (LinkedIn Learning, 2021)
16.
33% of learning and development (L&D) professionals report that they expect their budgets to increase in 2021, and only 19% expect a decrease. In India, this figure is particularly high with 64% L&D professionals expecting a budget increase. (LinkedIn Learning, 2021)
17.
64% L&D professionals agree that L&D has shifted from “nice to have” to “need to have”. (LinkedIn Learning, 2021)
18.
66% of L&D professionals globally now agree that they are focused on rebuilding and reshaping their organizations. (LinkedIn Learning, 2021)
19.
Upskilling and Reskilling is the top priority for L&D professionals globally. (LinkedIn Learning, 2021)
20.
64% of L&D professionals globally – and 73% in North America – report that their executives have made diversity & inclusion programs a priority. (LinkedIn Learning, 2021)
21.
39% of training will be delivered by an internal department. However, that training will be supplemented by online learning platforms (16% of training) and by external consultants (11% of training). (WEF, 2020)
22.
94% of employees surveyed say that they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career development. (LinkedIn’s 2018 Workplace Learning Report)
23.
74% employees surveyed are ready to learn new skills or re-train to remain employable in the future. (PWC, Workforce of the future, 2017)
24.
62% of IT professionals surveyed report having paid for training out of their own pockets. (Bersin by Deloitte, 2016)
25.
76% of Gen Z learners surveyed believe learning is the key to a successful career. (LinkedIn Learning, 2021)
26.
Gen Z watched 50% more hours per learner in 2020 with 69% reporting that they are carving out more time to learn. (LinkedIn Learning, 2021)
*According to Pew Research, Millennials are born between 1981 and 1996 and Gen Z are born after 1996.
35% of the participants in the American labor force are Millennials, making them the largest generation in the US labor force, according to the Pew Research Center. By 2025, millennials will make up a sizable chunk of the workforce (75% by widely cited estimates but more likely 44%. See here and here).
27.
87% of millennials rate “professional or career growth and development opportunities” as important to them in a job. Comparatively, 69% of non-millennials say the same. (Gallup, 2016)
28.
59% of millennials say opportunities to learn and grow are extremely important to them when applying for a job. (Gallup, 2016)
29.
Only 39% of millennials strongly agree that they learned something new in the past 30 days that they can use to do their jobs better. (Gallup, 2016)
30.
Slightly less than one in two millennials strongly agree that they have had opportunities to learn and grow within the past year. (Gallup, 2016)
31.
Millennials expect learning experiences to be valuable but only one-third strongly agree that their most recent learning opportunity at work was “well worth” their time. (Gallup, 2016)
32.
28% of millennials and 27% of Gen Z say they plan to leave their organizations because of dissatisfaction with development opportunities. (Deloitte, 2019)
33.
Courses where human interaction was present (learner-facilitator, learner-learner and learner-colleague) was reported to be linked with more active behavioral engagement, higher cognitive engagement and stronger and more positive emotional engagement than where human interaction was absent, found a study that looked at the use of blended learning at the workplace. (Hewitt, Becker, Bish, 2019)
34.
51% of respondents ranked live-instructor led class (either in person or virtual) as their top preference for learning new material. In particular, younger workers (aged between 21 and 32) ranked live instructor-led training as their first choice. (Wainhouse Research, 2018)
35.
40% of companies deliver at least half of their learning via instructor-led classrooms. No more than 15% of companies use any other method as much. (Brandon Hall, 2015)
36.
Nearly 70% of corporate training is instructor led. This includes instructor-led classroom training, instructor-led virtual training and instructor-led hybrid training (classroom + virtual). (2016 Benchmark Report: The State of Online Training)
37.
Technology has not decreased the demand for instructor-led training, but gives instructors new tools to reach learners. (2016 Benchmark Report: The State of Online Training)
38.
93% of organizations surveyed agree or strongly agree that personalized learning supports an employee in reaching professional goals more efficiently. (Brandon Hall, 2018)
39.
91% of companies that deliver personalized learning say it has improved the link between learning and individual and organizational performance. (Brandon Hall, 2018)
40.
88% of organizations surveyed agree or strongly agree that personalized learning has helped to improve their organization’s strategies, mission, or vision. (Brandon Hall, 2018)
41.
Only 33% of employees agree or strongly agree that the available learning opportunities suit their development needs. (CEB, 2014)
42.
The global corporate training and education market is worth over $240 billion and as much as 14% of this goes into technology. (Bersin, 2019)
43.
The average training budget for large companies was $17.7 million. Midsize companies allocated an average of $1.7 million, while small companies invested an average of $367,490. (Training Industry Report 2019)
44.
Overall, on average, companies spent $1,286 per learner in 2019 compared with $986 per learner in 2018. (Training Industry Report 2019)
45.
On average, employees received 42.1 hours of training in 2019, compared to 46.7 hours in 2018. (Training Industry Report 2019)
46.
Some 40.3% of training hours were delivered by a stand-and-deliver instructor in a classroom setting – up from 35.5% the previous year (2018). (Training Industry Report 2019)
47.
50%-60% of employees access online courses to learn what they need for their jobs. (Bersin by Deloitte, 2016)
48.
On average, 28% of companies mostly or completely outsourced Learning Management System (LMS) operations/hosting (up from 26% in 2018), while LMS administration and learner support largely were handled in-house (78%). (Training Industry Report 2019)
49.
Instruction/facilitation was handled about equally in-house (47%) and outsourced (53%). (Training Industry Report 2019.)
50.
The level of outsourcing is expected to stay relatively steady in 2020 – some 86% of organizations said they expect to stay the same in the outsourcing area. (Training Industry Report 2019.)
51.
In-house and short courses are still by far the most popular method of training delivery with 78% of respondents surveyed saying they focused on it. This figure was expected to decrease to 57% over the next 12 months. (Training Industry Benchmark Report 2020)
52.
1% of a typical work week (or 24 minutes a week) is all that employees have to focus on training and development. (Bersin by Deloitte, 2016)
53.
Workers get interrupted as frequently as every 5 minutes – ironically often by work applications and collaboration tools. (Bersin by Deloitte, 2016)
54.
Customer satisfaction is seen as the biggest measure of success in the training industry today. (Training Industry Benchmark Report 2020).
55.
Poor quality training is a major issue in the training industry. There is a growing concern amongst training providers that low-quality but cheaper online offerings are hurting their businesses. (Training Industry Benchmark Report 2020).
51.
In-house and short courses are still by far the most popular method of training delivery with 78% of respondents surveyed saying they focused on it. This figure was expected to decrease to 57% over the next 12 months. (Training Industry Benchmark Report 2020)
