Top trends in employee development

Employees are displaying a renewed desire for career advancement, according to the results of a recent survey.

When ADP Research Institute asked workers about important aspects of a job, 40% put “career progression” on their lists, compared to only 23% the year before. That jump was so significant that it overtook “flexibility of hours,” according to the results.

Most respondents said they already had the skills needed to advance their career to the next level, and that their employer both talks about those skills and invests in those skills.

But a continued focus on development will be crucial for both talent acquisition and retention, according to the firm. “Going forward, employers that focus on career progression while retaining and advancing a caring and inclusive workplace culture can better meet the needs of their workforce, both now and in the future,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, in a statement announcing the findings.

Likewise, learning and development pros may need to keep a watchful eye on the horizon. Most workers said they believe they’ll eventually need tech skills that aren’t considered imperative today, according to the institute’s report, “requiring both employers and employees to reframe skill development and training to prepare for the years to come.”

Giving women a seat at the (kitchen) table was an explicit factor in Kelley Berlin’s decision to launch a returnship program. 

In 2021 and 2022, Grubhub has welcomed caregivers — mostly women — to its software engineer team via its Reconnect Returnship, a four-month program. “We know it can be difficult for those who have taken time away from their career to rejoin the workforce,” Berlin, Grubhub’s CHRO, acknowledged via email. It’s why she and her team made a point to center talent with caregiving responsibilities.

Berlin told HR Dive that it started with her team critically assessing company initiatives, partnerships and processes for areas of improvement. The audit led them to representation gaps; they then partnered with O’Reilly Media, a learning and development company, to connect potential returnees with education material.

For HR leads looking to implement diverse hiring, the returnship model may make an excellent case study. HR Dive has covered the launch and subsequent success of PepsiCo’s returnship program, which was also centered on caregivers. Along with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, leadership at Schneider Electric also sought to bring underrepresented caregiving talent back to their field.  

Anecdotally, since the launch of Grubhub’s returnship program, leadership told HR Dive that the food delivery company has seen an increase in diversity. (For context: 80% of the first Reconnect cohort converted to full-time employees at the returnship’s end.) But not only did the caregiver returnship improve gender diversity; it brought diversity of age and experience to the table as well, said Laura Baldwin. 

Baldwin, president of Grubhub’s technical partner O’Reilly Media, acknowledged the mass exodus of people — largely women — from the workforce at the pandemic’s onset, due to child care-related concerns. “Yet these career breaks are often stigmatized and caregivers can find it difficult to reenter the job market,” Baldwin noted. 

This phenomenon catalyzed teams at Grubhub and O’Reilly to create a learning and development program to reengage women in the workforce. It’s worth noting that the program is 100% virtual for accessibility.

Originally, the program centered around software engineers, but 2023’s Reconnect programming is geared toward marketing and finance professionals looking to return to the workforce. The program’s change occurred, Berlin explained, due to Grubhub’s business needs heading into 2023. “The training content and modules will look different compared to the engineering-focused ones, but that’s the only shift,” she said.

As one can imagine, the recruiting process for returnship candidates is tailored to the situation; Berlin asks questions about past experience versus current experience, mindful of the resume gap. Grubhub managers also go through training to help “set up the returnees to be successful,” she said. “Throughout the process, we’re looking for individuals who demonstrate a willingness to learn, coachability and overall curiosity.”

Both of the leads had advice for HR Dive readers considering returnships as a solution to representation issues or talent shortages. Baldwin’s counsel: Look behind the daily dump of layoff news and recognize the potential in tech’s shifting landscape. 

“Organizations are struggling to fill open positions. And the market for STEM roles is only growing, with the number of jobs estimated to rise 15% by 2031,” she said. This projection presents a “tremendous” opportunity for talent looking to get back to the workplace, she explained. Upskilling this talent and getting them acquainted with new technologies “can help prove their viability as candidates.”

Ultimately, centering L&D is Baldwin’s solution. Not only is it a recruiting tactic, but it can be valuable for retention, too; “Invest in your people’s professional development if you want them to stick around.” 

Berlin’s advice was focused on transparency. “Communication has always been key, and for returnees, we know there can be a lot of stress about the unknown of the program since it is a contract-to-hire role. A returnee could be performing well but still have nerves about their conversion to a full-time employee given the nature of the program,” Berlin said. “We do our best to mitigate any ambiguity through clear and constant communication so that returnees feel good knowing exactly where they stand and what they can expect moving forward.”

Sponsored content

By Capella University

In today's tight labor market with many hiring managers bemoaning the war for talent, organizations must be extremely competitive in the employee benefits they offer.

With pressure on workers to be continually honing their skills and competencies to remain relevant, tuition assistance is proving to be among the most essential benefits organizations can provide.

Roy Skillicorn, senior director of learning and development for Cisco, and a Capella University School of Business and Technology Advisory Board member, shares his thoughts on trends in tuition assistance, how organizations benefit by offering such programs, and the risks they face if they don't.

Q. From your perspective, are tuition assistance programs growing in popularity as a benefit offered by employers?

A. Absolutely. Employers today can't afford not to offer tuition assistance programs. According to a LinkedIn survey, 94% of employees say they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career development. To recruit and help retain employees in this labor market, every employer that is more than a small, independently owned operation needs to offer a meaningful tuition assistance program. Results from LinkedIn's 2018 Workplace Learning Report show that talent developers, executives and people managers agree that providing resources to enable talent is crucial to the business. There is a consensus that learning and development programs are a necessary benefit to employees.

When you are competing for key talent that is hard find, tuition assistance can make the difference. It is a benefit that prospective employees are not only hoping for, but they expect. This is more than a nice to have. It's a must have.

Q. How are tuition assistance programs different than they were 10 or 20 years ago? How have they evolved and to whose benefit?

A. Organizations are becoming much more strategic as to how they design and leverage tuition assistance programs. Everyone benefits from that. They are being much more thoughtful and specific in identifying the objective of a tuition assistance program, and asking questions such as, "What is the desired outcome for the organization, as well as the employee?" They are also being more diligent in ensuring the specific skills that employees want to learn align with where the business is headed in the future, not just where it is today.

While tuition assistance for bachelor's degrees and graduate degrees at accredited institutions remains at the core of these programs, there is a renewed focus on credentialing for very specific skills. Increasingly those highly specialized skills, which used to be taught primarily by trade or technical institutions, are now being offered by the same accredited colleges and universities that offer bachelor's and graduate degrees. They’ve seen the opportunity for expanding their portfolio of offerings and are capitalizing on it.

Q. Why is tuition assistance an employee benefit employers can't ignore? What is the risk if they do?

A. The risk is huge for employers that don't offer tuition assistance. Not only do they face fewer desirable candidates applying for key positions, but also increased turnover, decreased productivity, and a negative impact on employee culture. According to the 2018 Capella University Tuition Assistance State of the Industry survey, nearly three-quarters of respondents (73.71%) define their organization's TA programs as either critical or important to the strategy.

Every employer needs to face the new reality in which the traditional, static organization where an employee works the same job for years using the same skills essentially no longer exists. What we have today are more dynamic teams, more collaboration, more people moving from one team to another. To have that highly mobile, agile workforce, you have to invest in professional development.

Simply put, you won't keep up as an organization if you don't have some sort of a tuition assistance program in place. You will fall further and further behind if you don't invest in your employees.

Q. Beyond employee recruitment and retention, what are the other benefits of having an employee tuition program?

A. It goes way beyond just recruiting and retaining. Tuition assistance needs to be part of an overall talent development strategy. In a hyper-competitive workforce environment, organizations need to do everything they can to demonstrate a genuine interest and willingness to support and nurture employees.

Progressive organizations will not only provide adequate dollars for tuition assistance, but also carve out the space and time employees need to engage with professional development during the work day. People are busy. They have families and personal lives that eat up much if not all of their remaining time when the workday ends. Employers need to recognize that and make allowances for employees to learn new skills and competencies while at work.

And while most organizations still directly align the tuition reimbursement they are willing to offer with the specific skills needed at the company, there is a trend toward supporting more agnostic learning opportunities. For example, right now if someone who works at a semiconductor manufacturer wants to train to be a yoga teacher, that company likely won't fund that training. But maybe in the future they will. The thinking is that organizations benefit when they help develop curious people who expand their knowledge of the world around them. Supporting that curiosity can pay back dividends in ways an organization may not anticipate.

The bottom line is that organizations can reap significant rewards by offering robust tuition assistance programs, not only in terms in recruiting and retaining employees, but also in having employees that are highly knowledgeable, nimble, satisfied, and loyal.

A large majority of working professionals say continuing education and upskilling will benefit their careers, especially in the current job market, according to a report from professional education company Emeritus.

About 80% of survey respondents said upskilling would help them stand out, and 74% said they would choose a job at an organization that invested in their education over one that did not.

“Despite economic uncertainty, individuals are turning to continuing education and upskilling courses to create career opportunities,” Ashwin Damera, CEO and co-founder of Emeritus, said in a statement.

“In a uniquely dynamic labor market, the results also highlight the huge opportunity that education programs provide for companies to increase employee engagement, drive retention and attract new employees,” he said.

In a survey of 6,600 people across 18 countries, most said their interest in upskilling has increased due to recent economic conditions. Across the past three years of the survey, interest and investment in continuing education has continued to increase globally, with a significant uptick in the last year. Although workers may be cautious about personal or household spending, education is seen as a necessary investment for professional opportunities and career advancement, according to the report.

Looking at the year ahead, 30% of survey respondents said they’re likely to leave a job, while 52% plan to transition to a new field. In response, employer investment in learning and development could be key for both recruitment and retention purposes — 82% of workers said professional education leads to higher engagement, cultivates commitment and supports well-being at work.

Along with economic concerns, professionals are focused on filling skills gaps related to technological advancements and other needs. About half of survey respondents said they fear being replaced by technology if they don’t continue to level up their skills, and a similar number said they lack the necessary skills for career advancement.

Companies are taking note of this training trend amid the current labor market, particularly in the IT sector, where about half of companies reportedly are upskilling their workers to address staffing challenges. Even as the hiring outlook remains strong this quarter, organizations are investing in upskilling and reskilling to ensure teams are prepared for the future of work.

As leaders plan for and implement learning and development options, however, they should also consider potential barriers to access, according to a recent report. Concerns about child care, work schedules and financial tradeoffs may make some learning opportunities more difficult for workers to pursue.

More than half of learning and development (L&D) professionals name budget issues as the top challenge they face in implementing training, according to a report from Virti.

Most companies initiate and maintain L&D programs to meet compliance requirements, they said, as well as improve employee technical skills and support career development.

“There is plenty of evidence in this survey indicating most companies see L&D as a compliance function — which, by definition, is a necessity,” Virti CEO Kurt Kratchman said in a statement.

“So, it stands to reason that executives support the function for compliance purposes, but they are less inclined to spend more than they have to on training,” he said.

At the same time, training around soft skills such as leadership and communication appear to be the most important courses offered, the survey found. In open-ended comments, professionals noted that L&D “attracts energized talent” and fosters a “culture of innovative curious thinking.” 

Additional L&D trends appeared relevant in the survey. About half of organizations create most training content in-house, with about 17% relying mostly on external content providers. In addition, the shelf life of a training course seems short — about 50% said courses last a year or less.

Flexible learning options have also become prominent. Most organizations provide learners with a variety of choices, with 60% offering remote, live, and in-person options. About 56% said training can be completed anywhere and anytime from a computer or laptop. 

About 39% train their teams through digitally immersive environments, such as virtual reality and augmented reality, at least some of the time as well. These respondents said VR and AR options provide better quality training and are more cost-effective in the long run.

In addition, about 67% of respondents said L&D has a positive impact on revenue.

“The takeaway for business and organizational leaders is that L&D isn’t about checking a box,” Kratchman said. “L&D has a direct influence on organizational development goals and corporate culture — and by extension, an indirect influence on growth and revenue.”

Employee development through L&D can help companies gain an edge during a tough economy, according to a recent report. The most profitable companies provide opportunities for employee reinvention and “intrapreneurship,” or growth and collaboration across teams.

When facing budget battles for L&D requests, HR leaders can try several tactics to gain approval, sources told HR Dive. Tying the request to a business need, using data, telling effective stories, and finding influencers within the company can help with the pitch.

Major League Soccer has launched a development program with the aim of increasing inclusion and representation of underrepresented candidates in its pipeline, according to a recent announcement.

A December 2022 pilot version of the program — MLS ADVANCE — focused on coaches and front office candidates. So far, about 42% of candidates involved in the program have been hired by MLS clubs and received job offers for sporting positions.

“With our League’s richly diverse player and fan populations, our work at MLS is to continue to ensure that our league and clubs reflect the diversity not only of MLS but our sport around the world,” MLS Commissioner Don Garber said in the announcement.

The program is an invitation-only professional development and networking series intended for candidates who are ready to join or lead an MLS club — including affiliated youth clubs.

As part of the program, MLS is building a global database of underrepresented candidates and working with consultants domestically and internationally to provide hiring support for clubs with open positions.

In addition, the program hosts networking events for candidates and leaders to meet and build relationships throughout the year, including at the annual MLS Chief Soccer Officers meetings and MLS Board of Governors meetings. These events include opportunities to interact with general managers, owners and chief business officers, according to the organization.

MLS ADVANCE also offers year-round, in-person and virtual professional development programming for candidates. These sessions focus on technical skills, interview preparation, mentorship opportunities and a speaker series with MLS and industry leaders.

For now, the program is focused on sporting positions, but the goal of the initiative is to expand to business roles in the MLS pipeline in coming years.

The program stems from the League’s 2020 commitments to increase inclusion and representation. In 2023, 57% of MLS players are Black or Hispanic, up from 36% in 2007, and 34% of first-team head coaches are Black or Hispanic, up from 7% in 2007.

In 2021, MLS updated its hiring policy to require that the finalist pool for an open sporting position include two or more non-white candidates, one of whom must be Black. During the first year of the updated policy, 51% of MLS sporting roles were filled by underrepresented candidates.

Similar pipeline training programs have been announced by other employers in the past year, including Amazon’s Upskilling 2025 and Chipotle’s emerging leaders program. While some programs are aimed at targeting certain skill sets or leadership development, others are focused on diversity and representation.

More than half of workers surveyed by eLearning Industry said their companies do not offer learning or training opportunities that would allow them to learn and reach promotions, according to a recent report.

That’s especially true for workers in the retail space; 60% of those surveyed said as much.

Additionally, workers must contend with clear favoritism in promotion decisions, showcasing a lack of solid promotion policies, the report said. More than three-quarters of workers surveyed said their leaders show bias, and 60% said their leaders only promote people who share their same opinions. Tech, manufacturing, retail and hospitality workers all particularly pointed out issues with favoritism and bias.

“Part of creating a strong company culture includes supporting employees’ development, growth and rise to success,” the report said. Nearly one-third of those surveyed said they do not believe they have upward mobility in their company and don’t see a fair chance of promotion.

Notably, diversity also plays an important role in this perception, the report said; 41% of workers surveyed said their company doesn’t prioritize diversity, which could play further into issues of bias in promotion and development.

For L&D to be truly effective, employers need to ensure employees at all levels — not just high level or C-suite level managers — receive quality training and development opportunities, a survey published in May by CYPHER Learning said. Learning opportunities generally need to be more flexible and enjoyable, employees said.

Managers, in particular, may need better training to prevent issues such as favoritism and bias, other surveys have shown. Tech managers, for example, tend to be promoted based on technical expertise but are not given training on how to lead, an Info-Tech Research Group report said, which could cause employee dissatisfaction.

Amid layoff news and union tugs-of-war, Amazon is chugging ahead with its on-the-job learning and development program. Titled “Upskilling 2025,” Amazon leadership designed the program to aid talent in cultivating “in-demand skill sets and propel them into new careers.” The initiative was launched in 2019, and houses its prepaid tuition program Career Choice and its Technical Academy helping non-technical workers transition into software engineering.

Some of the tech training is high-level: For example, the company’s User Experience Design and Research apprenticeship program spans the finance and retail departments, and touches Prime Video and Alexa. Other L&D initiatives such as the Grow Our Own Talent program addresses entry-level talent “with non-traditional backgrounds.” 

There are also programs for talent in the middle: Amazon partnered with the U.S. Department of Labor on a robotics program that aims to increase workers’ wages up to 40% in phase one and up to 88% in phase two.

Amazon’s talent strategy is deeply imperfect, critics and employees have said, but its L&D offerings remain noteworthy. For two years in a row, LinkedIn has named the retail and tech company its no. 1 “best workplace to grow your career” in the U.S. In early 2022, Amazon granted its then-750,000 hourly employees free college as well as free ESL classes. Later in the year, the e-commerce retailer added tutoring services and digital nudges to its educational offerings.

L&D facilitators and people operations professionals can take a leaf out of Amazon’s book by asking themselves, “How can our training programs benefit our workers now? And what skills can ready them for the careers of the future?’”

Smaller research firms and the Bureau of Labor Statistics agree that tech skills are increasingly in-demand in the U.S. BLS identified “software developers” as one of the top three categories of new jobs being created from 2021 to 2031. It’s a niche that will add approximately 370,600 jobs over the next decade, the BLS predicts. 

Likewise, the labor bureau identified wind turbine service technicians, data scientists, information security analysts and statisticians within the projected top 10 fastest-growing occupations in the U.S. heading toward 2031.

More than creating a talent incubator or a stepping stone for an inevitable exit, HR may be able to strengthen its talent pipeline by getting serious about L&D. A Gallup study, commissioned by Amazon and published in its most recent Upskilling 2025 report, suggested that 57% of Americans are “very” or “extremely” interested in updating their skill set. Likewise, within the cohort of workers interested in upskilling, 69% told Gallup that they were either “extremely” or “very” likely to “leave their job for upskilling opportunities provided by another employer.” 

Outside of that study, a Society for Human Resource Management report confirmed that, second only to pay, lack of career development and advancement have been driving talent turnover. Throughout 2022, HR pros told Willis Towers Watson and other research firms that reskilling and upskilling were top-of-mind retention, attraction and cost-cutting strategies.

Together, those studies suggest investments in tech upskilling and developing solid programs today may help both the organization and talent in the long run.

Companies with a dual focus on developing human capital and managing workers well have the edge in performance and rank among the most profitable firms in their industry, new research from the McKinsey Global Institute showed. Those employers also are earnings resilient and successfully attract and retain talent, McKinsey said.

Top employers have several practices in common, the research found: They create opportunities for employees to keep learning and reinventing themselves, such as by providing more than 70 hours a year of training per employee, and by making promotions and internal transfers readily available. They also deliver a better day-to-day work experience. In addition, they promote a culture of “intrapreneurship,” where employees can collaborate and share expertise and ideas across functions. They also set the standard for inclusivity by, for example, having the lowest gender pay gaps.

Strong performance management starts with clarifying expectations and incentives and using a dynamic approach to achieving them, the report said. Companies also should have mechanisms for recognition, such as financial rewards and gestures that can make employees feel appreciated, it added. The transition can be a “difficult undertaking that requires sustained engagement and a willingness to change familiar patterns,” the researchers cautioned. “But companies that do shift in this direction have a lot to gain,” they said.

Beyond formal training programs, the top performing companies also emphasize on-the-job coaching, according to McKinsey. “Ongoing coaching and continuous feedback are key to helping employees resolve challenges and adapt the way they work as needed,” the report observed.

Employers get the best results from managers who stay engaged and give feedback in the moment, always with an eye toward goals and by encouraging employees to achieve more than they thought possible, the report explained. But many managers, especially those who have been newly promoted, lack the training to do this, experts consistently point out.

Because of this, employers should invest in coaching for managers as well, particularly if they are relying on managers to shepherd employees and company initiatives through a potential recession, various sources have said.

To equip its managers with the proper leadership skills, one company started a training program focused entirely on inclusive management. If managers are to become a positive force for change, they need practical tools and guidance that deals with real-life issues, a company spokesperson previously told HR Dive. 

A culture of learning and development is also a critical retention tool, according to an MIT Technology Review report from September. For companies that have started “labor hoarding” in response to an unprecedented talent market and looming recession, a culture of learning and development may be one way to keep workers on board, other reports have suggested.

Employees are looking for the next great work opportunity, even if their employers don’t know it, Udemy’s 2023 Workplace Learning Trends report, released in late 2022, indicated. They’re brushing up on customer management and nonverbal and business management skills, among others, according to the report.

But creating the means for trusted employees who already know the business’s practices to grow and add new skills can directly address this, the McKinsey report suggested: The companies with the performance edge also had moderate rates of attrition, it found.