Training Trends 2023: Unlocking investment, realising potential
New research from City & Guilds finds that employers are increasingly recognising the link between skills and growth, but also reveals internal barriers that may lead to wasted training investment
07 November 2023
Following on from the inaugural City & Guilds Training Trends report last year, our latest research asked over 600 L&D and HR professionals, business leaders, and finance decision makers from large UK-based companies their perception of training and skills development within their organisation.
The research finds that organisations are increasingly willing to invest more in training and recognise the link between skills development and business growth. However, it also reveals internal challenges that threaten the success of learning and development programmes – including issues from misalignment between departments to confusion around KPIs and competing business priorities.
Key insights include:
The clear benefits of training are increasingly being recognised and organisations are investing more in training:
- Training was identified as the top driver of business growth by the majority of respondents.
- Majority of organisations surveyed say they will be increasing spend on training in the next 12 months.
- Improved staff performance and productivity were identified as the two most important benefits of training.
However, barriers remain that may prevent training from reaching its full potential:
- Almost 3 in 5 respondents agree that requests for non-mandatory staff training get deprioritised due to more pressing business priorities.
- There’s misalignment between L&D/HR and business/finance leaders, from the quality of existing training to their readiness for future skills needs.
- 1 in 3 L&D professionals say they need more support when requesting budget for staff training and aligning L&D priorities with business goals.
The findings suggest that increased communication and collaboration between the different groups of decision makers in businesses will be key for investment in training to lead to successful training programmes.
Both L&D professionals and business leaders have valuable insights which can support the success of training within their organisations, and by combining these insights they can create programmes that align with business goals and support measurable skills development for employees.
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Read our Training Trends 2022 report here.