The Association for Talent Development's 2017 State of the Industry report reveals that, in 2016, organizations on average had a direct learning expenditure of $1,273 per employee. That represents an increase from 2015, when the spending per employee was $1,252. In 2014, it was $1,229. A total of 299 organizations of all sizes representing a wide variety of industries and countries contributed learning data from fiscal or calendar year 2016 to the 2017 report.
How is this money distributed? At the average organization, 61 percent of total direct learning expenditure went to internal costs, which cover talent development staff salaries (including taxes and benefits), travel costs for talent development staff, administrative costs, and nonsalary development and delivery costs (such as classroom facilities or online infrastructure). Another 26 percent went to outsourced services, which includes consultants and training programs delivered by outside providers. The final 13 percent was directed toward tuition reimbursement (including programs and courses at colleges and universities and continuing professional education and certification).
Employees are spending more time learning, too. The average number of formal learning hours used per employee moved upward, reaching 34.1 hours per employee, which is slightly more than four days. In 2015, employees used 33.5 learning hours, on average, and in 2014, they used 32.4 hours.
Looking more closely at what types of information employees are learning, the content areas that made up the biggest shares of the learning portfolio were managerial and supervisory; mandatory and compliance; and processes, procedures, and business practices. Managerial and supervisory content also held the top spot in the 2016 report. It is encouraging news that organizations view manager training as a top priority. a 2016 study by ATD Research (ACCEL: The Skills that Make a Winning Manager) found that the majority of managers don't do a good job of exhibiting critical management skills such as communication, listening and assessing, and accountability.
Formal learning hours, however, only capture learning that happens as a stand-alone activity, meaning it isn't embedded in work activities. Realizing that a great amount of employee development happens on the job, ATD asked State of the Industry participants about the extent to which their organizations relied on on-the-job learning. Two-thirds (65 percent) reported using it to a high or very high extent; only 3 percent of organizations reported no on-the-job learning. On-the-job learning can take on many forms, including coaching by managers and peers, knowledge sharing (either in person or using technology such as social media and collaboration software), rotational training (when employees rotate through different parts of a company or different job roles), job shadowing (which gives employees the opportunity to shadow or observe another person's work), and stretch assignments (job assignments beyond the employee's current skill level that are meant as development tools).
The full 2017 State of the Industry report is free to ATD members in the ATD Publications app and online.
