When it comes to talent, some HR professionals are stuck in a Catch-22. Organizations say they are having a hard time finding the right people with the right skills, but the training to get them there keeps moving lower and lower on the priority list.
According to HR Dive’s Identity of HR survey, companies say they’re still struggling to find skilled talent, but at the same time, training as a top priority dropped from 12% in 2024 to just 5% in 2025.
This can be especially difficult for smaller companies, said Leslie Kelley, chief growth officer at Absorb Software. “It’s becoming a real business problem,” she said. Sure, onboarding and training might be done to check a box when it comes to compliance, but “they don’t think about the long term,” she said.
Learning and development creates skilled workers for emerging technologies
Finding the right talent may not be the actual problem; rather, the right talent may not exist given that technology is changing so fast. Job candidates may major in computer science, but no one is getting a college degree in generative AI, for example — or whatever the next turn of the technology is. “You can’t actually buy all the skills and the talents out on the market today,” Kelley said.
Making training part of a company’s overall strategic plan can help companies keep investing in their employees to give them whatever skills they and the business will need, and that requires C-suite support, she said. The cost of online training portals and modules has come down to the point that most companies can invest in them, but it’s not going to matter if they’re not used, especially if employees aren’t given the time to do them, or partake in other kinds of educational opportunities.
“It’s not about the systems and not about having content,” but whether there is buy-in from the executive team, she said. Everyone has to be in “alignment that this is something we need to invest in.”
Bridging the gap is key to recruiting and retention, especially of Gen Z workers
Investing in learning and development could also make or break a company when it comes to staffing and retaining younger employees.
O.C. Tanner’s recent Global Culture Report found that when companies provide opportunities for growth and development as part of a total rewards program, “employees move from surviving in their job to thriving,” said Jackie Stinnett, vice president of people and great work at O.C. Tanner. And when that happens, employees are seven times more likely to do great work and 84% less likely to burn out.
A recent study from Handshake also found that Generation Z workers are less focused on short-term perks and more interested in whether an employer is willing to invest in their long-term well-being, with 63% saying that they think developing advanced skills in their field is essential to their definition of career success.
Not only will providing training on the job keep those workers happy, but it will also create the talent needed without overlooking potential job candidates or the potential of a current employee because they might not on paper be the right match.
At O.C. Tanner, “we’ve really put a lot of effort into cross training so that people can move across our company,” she said. “We see the benefit of people moving from one area to another.” For example, someone who comes into an entry-level production job can move over to the technology team after job shadowing and mentorship.
They’ve also found that job shadowing and mentorship in particular are not budget busters and can be done even if investment in learning and development might not be at the level that HR would like or hope for. They can also be incredibly effective, especially when it comes to identifying someone within the organization with the drive and talent to grow.
“If organizations get so stuck on hiring people with just the right set of skills for this job, they’re missing out on so many candidates that might not have that specific skill but have so much potential to not only learn that skill but learn so much more that will benefit the organizations and themselves,” Stinnett said.
