Dive Brief:
- On-the-job training is the most important type of skills training, according to a recent Milken Institute and Infosys report based on surveys of employees and managers at large U.S. companies.
- Respondents were given 10 points to allocate to four types of skills training. On-the-job training took 27% of the points, while licenses and certifications took 26%, online courses 24% and university degrees 23%.
- Respondents also rated the importance of specific soft skills. Trustworthiness, leadership and friendliness were the three most chosen options. Creativity, decisiveness and persuasiveness were the three least chosen options, the report said.
Dive Insight:
The pandemic put a spotlight on workplace training. Workers who remained on site had to learn to comply with new and vast safety measures, and those who transitioned to a remote environment faced an abrupt and total transformation of how work gets done.
As a result, employees became more trainable, according to McKinsey & Co partner Monne Williams. "We're living in an unprecedented moment where people are more comfortable with virtual tools than they ever have been before," Williams said at a November panel. The increased comfort lowers the barrier to scaling digital and virtual skill building at a level "unmatched to anything we've ever seen before."
Despite this, many companies did not improve workplace training since the pandemic, according to a November report by Kahoot. Employers may opt to assess their remote learning offerings, especially as hybrid work grows in popularity and as workplaces gradually reopen in the U.S.
