Measuring the Economic Impact of Professional Learning

Having employees that know what they are doing can make or break your business. Employers go through a lot of time, trouble, and effort to make sure that their employees are trained well and know what they are doing. Worldwide, companies spend $356 billion on employee training alone – per employee, spending has increased for the past 6 years. Regardless of this however, nearly half of employers say “applicants lack critical thinking and analytical skills”. 3 out of every 4 talent developers say this skills gap affects services, customers, and future growth – all of which can end a otherwise well off business.

74% of Fortune 500 CEOs expect positive results from their investments in learning and development, but only 4% are already getting good results from their money invested. Wasted training exercises such as where a company set up a paintball game for the employees, one HR head ran in and started shooting both teams with a paintball gun – a play to see how both sides would handle conflict. Companies also waste billions of dollars on employee development. In 2018, U.S. companies spent $87.6 billion on employee development – more than half went to payroll for employee training time and talent development staff whereas just 11% went toward learning tools and technologies. Lots of time is also wasted on failed training exercises. On average, employees spend 46.7 hours per year in learning experiences but most people forget 70% of what they learned within just 24 hours. Even with all this time money and effort, 41% of employees still feel inadequately trained, 83% report a skills gap in their organization, and more than a quarter of employees are ready to leave for a position with better career advancement and learning opportunities.

Find out what needs to change in professional development and its benefits when professional training is done right here: