A Sneak Peek Inside The 2016 Learning And Development Community

4 Facts About Learning And Development In 2016 

At ELM, we wanted to find out from the L&D community how the 2016 Learning and Development season was shaping up. Would they have enough budget to get the job done? What kept them up at night? What trainings were they going to focus on for 2016? We spoke to L&D leaders from various industries across the country to find out more. Here are 4 things we discovered about the L&D lay of the land from the results of our 2016 ELM Learning and Development Trend Report survey.

1. The importance of soft skills for employees continues to rise. 37% of respondents are focusing their efforts on company culture, soft skills, and leadership.
   With globalization on the rise, an increasing number of employers believe that soft skills are becoming more important. Skills like communication, emotional intelligence, and attitude are trained to build effective leaders at organizations, crucial to overall organization success. Companies will also be focused on new employee on-boarding, product training, and department training.
2. Budgets remain the same.
   Learning and Development budget cuts may not be as rampant as they are believed to be, as 49% of respondents told us they are seeing no change in their budget for 2016. On the other spectrum, 27% are increasing their budgets, while only 24% plan for decreasing budgets in the new year. This is a great sign that the higher majority of companies see the value in learning, and keeping the budget there to grow these initiatives. With most budgets remaining the same and some increasing Learning and Development professionals have the ability to set up an effective plan for their learners.
3. There is struggle trying to tie metrics to eLearning results.
   The largest challenge of Learning and Development professionals related to eLearning is the ability to measure results of eLearning with 40%. This was followed by engagement from employees, and achieving effective learning at a scale. Surprisingly, having enough budget was not part in the top 3 challenges. Currently, the only truly effective way to measure results of elearning is to have managers ask employees questions on the material and observe if there is a behavior change in their work. This leaves a large opportunity for someone to find an effective way to measure eLearning results through technology.
4. High levels of un-satisfaction with current eLearning persists.
   Over 66% of Learning and Development professionals are NOT satisfied with their current eLearning. Whether it is challenges in measuring results, getting employees engaged, having enough budget, or achieving learning at scale. This tells us that something needs to be done differently when it comes to developing eLearning courses. Learning and Development professionals should assess what their exact challenges are when it comes to their current models and seek solutions that encompass and solve all of the above top issues. New strategies based on brain science like neurolearning do this well.