Current and future trends in learning and development

• The greatest changes in learning and training methods that have occurred over the last two years are the introduction of new programmes to develop the role of line managers (61%) and efforts to develop a learning and development culture across organisations (50%).
  
  
• The key role played by line managers in delivering successful training is once again emphasised by the results from this survey, with 47% of respondents believing coaching by line managers to be one of the most effective learning and development practices.
  
  
• Although only 7% of respondents deem e-learning to be one of the most effective learning and development practices, 42% say that they have actually used it more in the last two years.
  
  
•  Looking to the future, almost two-thirds (65%) anticipate that learning and development activity will become more closely integrated with business strategy and 60% feel that there will be a greater emphasis on the evaluation of training effectiveness. This seems likely to be at least in part a response to the current economic downturn.

Employee skills

• The 2006 Leitch report appears to be having a greater impact than last year, with 47% of respondents now saying that they have already made use of, or considered using, the Train to Gain service (compared with 39% in 2008).
  
  
• Interpersonal (79%) and communication skills (74%) are viewed as most important when recruiting new employees. Although 60% of respondents continue to feel that new employees are lacking in these skills, the figure has improved slightly from last year (66%).
  
  
•  The development of management and leadership skills (81%) is seen as most important in meeting business objectives in the next two years. Sixty-seven per cent of respondents also feel that both strong commercial awareness and business acumen are important. 

Talent management

• The proportion of respondents stating that they undertake talent management activities has fallen sharply since 2006 from 51% to 36%. However, the level of uptake varies greatly according to organisational size. Larger organisations (over 5,000 employees) are much more likely to make use of talent management (59%) than small companies employing 250 or fewer people (19%).
  
  The most widely used talent management activities are in-house development programmes (88%) and coaching (86%). These are regarded as being effective by 35% and 50% of respondents respectively – the top two most effective activities. The least popular activities are external secondments and action learning sets, with around a third of organisations saying that they are not used at all.The main methods for evaluating talent management practices is through feedback from line managers (48%), the retention of those identified as ‘high potential’ (48%) and feedback from employees involved in talent management initiatives (45%).
•  The top enabler of effective talent management is clear commitment and support from the leadership team. The biggest barriers are the time and cost associated with setting up and running talent management schemes, pressures of work and resistance from line managers to attend programmes.

Coaching

• Over two-thirds (69%) of respondents use coaching within their organisations, although this has fallen slightly from last year (71%). Public sector (78%) and larger organisations with more than 5,000 employees (83%) are most likely to use coaching.
  
  Coaching appears to have forged closer links with management development over the last year. Fifty-five per cent of respondents agree that coaching is part of management development initiatives in their organisation, an increase of 8% on the last survey. Despite this, only 25% of respondents agree that coaching is the predominant management style within their organisation.
•  While coaching may not be seen as a particularly formal process (only 36% say that in-depth training is provided to coaches), it is viewed positively by many. Fifty-seven per cent agree that being a coachee is encouraged, and 62% feel that coaching is seen primarily as a positive development opportunity rather than a remedial intervention.

Technology

• Results suggest that communication between learning and development teams and their IT colleagues could be improved. A quarter of respondents say they are not involved or consulted at all in the roll-out of new IT systems. Furthermore, only 11% feel that the implications for learning, training and development are taken into account when changes to IT infrastructures are planned.

Economic influences on learning and development

• Unsurprisingly, only 11% of respondents feel that the economic circumstances facing their organisation in the past 12 months have improved. Forty per cent report facing similar circumstances to last year, while almost half state that their economic/funding situation has worsened (46%).
  
  
• Over half (57%) of organisations with more than 5,000 employees feel that economic conditions are getting worse, compared with 39% of those with 250 or fewer people.
  
  
• However, the worsening economic situation does not appear to have impacted as severely on the funds available to learning and development teams as might be expected. Around half (51%) of respondents feel that funds for learning and development have stayed the same for the past year, with around a third (32%) saying that these funds have decreased.
  
  
• Many respondents remain fairly optimistic about the future, with just under half (45%) agreeing that learning and development funds will remain the same in the next 12 months.
  
  Encouragingly, 76% agree that ‘learning and development in my organisation is seen as an important part of business improvement’. Training spend and budgetsSeventy per cent of organisations surveyed have a specific training budget for the next 12 months, a decrease of 7% from last year.
• The median training spend per employee is £220, substantially less than last year (£300) and previous years (£272 and £278). In comparison with other sectors, voluntary sector organisations continue to spend more per employee per year on training.
  
  
• While large organisations have larger training budgets, they also have to spread this across a greater number of people, thus organisations with 250 or fewer employees continue to spend far more per employee than those with more than 5,000 staff.
  
  
• Download the full report and reports from previous years