Dive Brief:
- Business leaders risk creating disengaged and dissatisfied employees by depriving them of the same learning and development opportunities C-suite executives regularly receive, according to survey results published May 23 by educational platform CYPHER Learning.
- Of the 4,000 respondents from U.S. and U.K. companies with more than 500 employees, nearly 9 in 10 business owners and C-level execs say they’re given more flexible options (i.e., when, where and how they do training), compared to 37% of entry-level employees. Also, where execs are more likely to describe their training as “inspiring” and “enjoyable,” 42% of junior and intermediate staff refer to their training as “boring,” and “unengaging” and, for 36%, “death by PowerPoint.”
- “When someone is starting out their career, that’s usually when they’re most in need of training. Too often they don’t get it, which can keep teams and individuals back from reaching their full potential,” CYPHER CEO Graham Glass noted in a press release announcing the survey results. “For higher performance, businesses can reset the balance by delivering quality, ‘executive-style’ training to staff at all levels.”
Dive Insight:
One of the most effective ways to attract and keep talent is to provide them with L&D opportunities that match their interests, enhance their skills and advance their careers, surveys repeatedly find.
For example, more than 4 in 10 global “deskless” managers and workers — those who need to be physically present to do their jobs — said they would leave a job over the lack of career advancement and sought more training with teamwork, collaboration and communication, a 2022 survey by Boston Consulting Group found.
The CYPHER survey echoes these concerns. Nearly all (98%) of the workers who responded believe training is important for their role, with two-thirds agreeing that professional development has given them a competitive edge, CYPHER said.
In addition, more than three-quarters of workers say they’re more likely to stay with an employer that prioritizes training, particularly with programs that help them improve their skills and job performance and drive up their quality of work. Yet, 17% haven’t received any training at all in the last 12 months, and only 15% say the training they received was fun, according to the findings.
The survey raises another point: To thrive, competitive employers must prioritize putting all employees on an equal footing, female DEI leaders told HR Dive in 2022.
This applies to training. The CYPHER survey revealed disparities between L&D opportunities companies provide their corporate upper echelon and what they give their general workforce, the firm noted.
“Not all training programs are created equal,” Glass emphasized. “A system that delivers forgettable, generalized content, or doesn’t keep workers competitive, is less valuable to them and the organization alike,” he said.
To keep workers engaged, employers can introduce gamification elements and technology like AR and VR, which would make training more fun, survey respondents suggested.
