Employers create learning opportunities in response to worker demand — but when the programs are presented, uptake tends to be low, various studies show.
“The vast majority of employees say that they want training, and don’t feel like they’re actually getting the training that they need,” said Sandra Moran, chief marketing officer of Schoox, a learning management system. Workers are slow to participate not only in training that they require to advance their careers but also to do the jobs they have right now — even when employers spend millions on training their teams.
Here’s what L&D leaders can do to give workers the time and tools to take on development.
Mind the L&D gap
In a 2024 report that included surveys of front-line workers, Schoox found that only 24% said they strongly agree that they have the right amounts of training they need to succeed at work, and 40% said they’re not completely sure what’s expected of them at work. While that survey focused on front-line workers, Moran said it’s a problem for corporate workers too.
For both groups, one of the main constraints is: When will they actually do the training?
“They just don’t have time, whether you’re a desk worker but especially if you’re a front-line worker. You have to budget that into your day,” she said. If time is not allotted for learning and development, it’s going to be “competing with other things that you’re doing.”
Retaining information can be a problem, too. If L&D is not delivered in the right way, then workers will forget what they learned soon after the session.
The opportunities also have to be the right ones, said Bjorn Reynolds, founder and CEO of Safeguard Global. Workers aren’t disengaged from learning overall but from “development that doesn’t change their career trajectory,” he said. Companies that struggle with learning uptake despite professed desire for it have an infrastructure problem, Reynolds added.
Workers may not see the point. Reynolds said they may be asking themselves, “Why am I doing this training? How does it help me either in my day-to-day or profession? How does that interconnect into the company’s infrastructure to make it worth my while to be able to do the training?”
If a worker can’t answer these questions, then they aren’t going to do training, no matter how many programs companies create or buy.
Creating L&D programs that workers will want to use
To prompt workers to engage with the learning and development they ask for, companies need to make training easier to digest, with options tailored to different learning preferences, both experts said. L&D leaders can also give workers guidance on which options might be relevant to them.
In other words: Buying a giant training library and telling workers to “have at it” won’t always give results because they aren’t being guided in any way through what “it” is.
Training opportunities should be offered in different modalities, Moran said; for example, workers who are auditory learners can listen to training sessions, while visual learners can watch them. Artificial intelligence tools may be particularly useful in guiding workers to trainings that are right for them.
Companies should also help workers discern which skills they need to build to move up in their career or shift to another part of the company, said Reynolds.
At Safeguard Global, the company implemented career mapping, where as an organization they identified core functions and roles, as well as “key competencies you need to have as an individual” in order to move into those roles, he said.
“As an employee, let’s say I’m in operations today and want to go across to sales,” Reynolds said. That person would be provided with a map of what to do. Then the worker and employer can design training around those future career goals.
Offering these kinds of training opportunities is even more important today than it was in the past, he said, because technology is moving so quickly. Companies that have robust learning and development programs for workers may have a leg up.
“Organizations that reskill the fastest will outperform their competitors,” he said.
