Dive Brief:

• As employers grapple with a new normal for work, their investments in learning have grown. According to Skillsoft's annual report, the company's Precipio learning platform saw a 55% year-over-year increase in the number of learners using the platform and a 45% increase in total hours of learning consumption.
• Skillsoft noted strong consumption growth particularly in compliance content, with a 120% increase. Technology content and leadership content also saw strong growth.
• Skillsoft noted growing interest in some of its "Aspire Journeys" content that focused on virtual work, leadership development and manager training.

Dive Insight:

Amid the Great Resignation, L&D has been touted as one of the great solutions to retention – but employers may still be behind in offering it, surveys have shown.

Professional development and training opportunities rank highly among workers' lists of criteria for evaluating employers, according to an American Staffing Association survey released in January, but only slightly more than one-third of respondents said their employers offered such programming. Employers that don't offer a culture of learning and development risk not only losing workers to the competition but losing legacy knowledge built up by long-time employees who decide to take their insight elsewhere, experts previously told HR Dive.

Young workers especially benefit when employers make learning a priority, even for entry-level jobs with high risk of employees departing to another company, according to a recent report by Jobs for the Future and the Taco Bell Foundation.

But employers also must be wary of how they communicate their learning benefits as workers struggle with new levels of burnout prompted by the omicron variant. To keep L&D appealing, employers should ensure programming is available on an as-needed basis, make the purpose of those trainings clear upfront and, in some cases, ease up on expectations, experts previously told HR Dive.