Learning and Development Becomes Key to Engagement

Learning and development is now a crucial part of every company’s employee value proposition.

Last year research from ManpowerGroup found 81% of employees expected their employer to provide training programmes to help keep their skills up to date – this year it seems lack of training is a good enough reason to find a new job.

Research from European digital learning provider, GoodHabitz found 70% of UK employees said they would be happier in their current role if they had more personal development opportunities and 65% felt that lack of personal development opportunities is reason enough to quit and go elsewhere. Despite this, however, only 15% of employees are reaching out to their employers to ask for more opportunities.

“Employees want to feel valued and heard, but most importantly they want their employers to invest time in them and their personal development path,” commented Tim Segers, UK Director of GoodHabitz.

Segers expressed surprise that only one in every four employees in the UK are actively seeking further training opportunities from their employers. “There seems to be a disconnect between employees’ needs and their actions,” he said. “Employers need to make the first move and be conscious of this when planning employees’ personal development strategies.”

There is some evidence that this apparent L&D mismatch is in part a hangover from the pandemic. A survey carried out as part of the Engage for Success movement, supported by the CIPD found 44% of respondents said they were offered no L&D opportunities during the pandemic by their employer. Those who were offered opportunities stated the most common method for delivering learning had been through e-learning sessions by internal teams (34%) or webinars (25%). However, most respondents agreed there were now less opportunities to upgrade their skills or professional growth than before the pandemic.

Against this Engage for Success found coming out of the pandemic, the use of learning and development opportunities had a clear beneficial effect on employee engagement. Against an average drop in employee engagement of -11% during the pandemic online learning and development opportunities offered during the pandemic had a positive impact. Organisations that provided two or more learning and development opportunities saw a -6% drop in engagement – roughly halving the expected drop.

Dr Sarah Pass, Senior Lecturer in HRM at Nottingham Business School and Engage for Success Ambassador, commented: “Our findings show the importance of investing in learning and development and consistently providing a variety of options for employees to increase their skills. A varied learning and development package can help to retain employees by improving engagement and making them feel valued. It’s also a good way to attract and retain talent in the organisations.”

Variety in training delivery is certainly key here. Ensuring there are a number of different routes to learn not only makes such initiative more accessible but it also means the cost of such initiatives can be controlled –  not every initiative comes with an impressive price tag: “A key take-away is to think outside the box when developing L&D programmes and use a multitude of methods, such as hybrid sessions run by internal teams, utilising You-Tube videos and TedTalks, and online chat facilities,” says Dr Pass.

As the need to attract great talent continues this year, HR’s investment in diverse learning and development may yet prove key to securing the talent a business needs for success.

The HR World is running a webinar tomorrow about securing agile skills for your business – this at a time when L&D is proving an important part of the employee value proposition – find out more here.