The 2016 State of the Industry, ATD Research’s annual review of trends shaping the talent development industry, is here. Anyone with an active ATD membership can download it for free at www.td.org/soir.

The report can aid talent development professionals in benchmarking their organizations’ learning expenditures and activities against those of other organizations. You can compare your company against other organizations of the same size and, in some cases, industry.

Of course, using it as a reference entails keeping up with lots of statistics. That’s why I’ve put together this list of five important stats that every talent development professional should know.

#1: Direct Expenditure per Employee

This statistic, which is calculated as an organization’s total direct learning expenditure divided by its total number of employees, indicates how much the average organization spends on developing each of its workers. By ATD Research’s definition, total expenditure includes:

• the cost of salary and benefits for L&D staff

• nonsalary development costs for L&D staff

• administrative costs

• delivery costs, such as classroom facilities or online learning technology infrastructure

• outsourced activities

• tuition reimbursement. 

It does not include:

• the cost of learners’ travel

• workers’ lost work time while engaging in learning activities.

#2: Percent of Expenditure for External Services and Tuition Reimbursement

If direct expenditure per employee tracks how much organizations spend on learning, the percent of direct expenditure going to external services and tuition reimbursement shows how they divide that spending. Percentage of expenditure for external services includes the costs of outsourced activities, such as:

• consultants and services

• content development and licenses

• workshops and training programs delivered by outside providers.

Meanwhile, percentage of expenditure for tuition reimbursement reflects how much organizations spend on courses at community colleges, universities, and continuing professional education or certification. 

#3: Employees per L&D Staff Member

This statistic, which shows how robustly organizations staff their talent development functions, is calculated as the ratio of workforce size to internal talent development staff.

#4: Average Percentage of Formal Learning Hours Available Through Different Delivery Methods

This statistic can help organizations benchmark how they distribute the learning content they create across different delivery methods, such as the traditional in-person classroom or self-paced online methods. It’s important to consider that average learning hours available is measured as a one-time count, which does not take into consideration how many times a course or content was offered. For example, an eight-hour workshop counts as eight learning hours available, whether it was presented once, daily, weekly, or monthly.

#5: Average Percentage of Formal Learning Hours Used Through Different Delivery Methods

This statistic is similar to the average percentage of formal learning hours available through different delivery methods, except that its distribution considers which delivery methods are used by employees rather than which delivery methods are made available. The average number of learning hours used is calculated by multiplying the number of hours available by the number of employees who took them. 

If you’re interested in learning more about the State of the Industry, join ATD Research for a free webcast from 2 to 3 p.m. ET on December 21. You can register here.