Learning & Development – NEW Industry Report from ATD
I’m excited to share with you the Association of Talent Development’s (ATD) 2015 State of the Industry Report, released together with Capella University. One of the benefits of being an ATD member is access to reports like this, however if you are not a member it is available for purchase from the ATD store.
The report analyses data from 336 different organisations on their learning activities over 2014. It aims to assist organisations in benchmarking their learning activities and help to make future decisions about their learning initiatives.
For the second year in a row the ATD reports an increase in average learning expenditure and number of learning hours used per employee. It is fantastic to see that organisations continue to increase their focus on the importance of what learning can do, and although I’m sure we would be keen to see a highlighted measure of impact – recording spend and learning hours is a consistent, easy to measure benchmark.
It’s interesting to see the impact that technology is starting to have on L&D. All around us we can see technology entangling itself into the way we live and work, and learning is no exemption. In 2009 60% of all learning delivery was face to face instructor led classroom learning , and as of 2014 this has reduced to 51%. Whereas technology based learning has shot up from 38% to 41% over the last year. Who knows where we will be a year or two from now.
Figure Source: ATD 2015 State of the Industry Report
The three content areas with the largest focus are managerial, related to profession/industry, and compliance. I have been wondering lately about the impact of a higher focus on learning for senior leadership rather than frontline employees – I feel another blog coming on! One for another day.
Overall the report shows us that in 2014 organisations continued to show a commitment to their learning initiatives, making robust investments in learning.
ATD also conduct numerous other pieces of research throughout the year, which they link to at the end of the report. One that caught my eye was “Aligning for Success: Connecting Learning to Business Performance”. This study found that organisations with high alignment between learning and business had better market performance than those with less alignment. How fascinating. Check out the infographic for this report here.
It’s great to see the US professional association collating insights from across a broad range of topics. I’m looking forward to presenting at the ATD 2016 Annual conference and sharing lessons learnt with Michelle Ockers from Coca-Cola Amatil on our recent work together. Bring on 2016!