New report reveals employees want more learning opportunities

Employees want more development opportunities to strengthen their skills, but many organisations are still too slow with the uptake to invest in their talent, according to new research from the Cornerstone People Research Lab. This gap between employee and employer expectations reveals a need for more holistic talent strategies to properly develop workforce skills.

Key points

• The 2023 Talent Health Index report features worldwide survey responses from over 700 talent and business leaders and over 1,400 employees 
• 41% of employees believe they don’t have the right tools, training or expertise to further develop their skills in their existing workplace
• Roughly two-thirds of employees are seeking additional learning content plus coaching and mentoring services
• Just 37% of businesses surveyed by Cornerstone said they leverage learner-centric tools to streamline talent processes and learning

Learning and development are crucial in the workplace, especially for sectors such as aged care that often recruit staff with limited experience in the field. Upskilling is essential to advance their careers, and the vast majority of employers understand this as 88% of those surveyed feel confident in developing staff skills.

However, there was a 29% confidence gap between employers and employees – 59% of employees feel confident in their workplace helping to develop staff skills. If aged care providers find themselves in a similar situation to the organisations surveyed in the Talent Health Index, they could be in trouble as employees seek more growth and development opportunities.

Room for improvement

This is the fourth Talent Health Index report produced by Cornerstone with key statistics such as the confidence gap remaining steady. That indicates there’s still plenty of room for improvement from businesses that believe they are giving their staff all the right development opportunities. 

Although the majority of employees do believe they have the right tools and support services to develop their skills – 41% said they did not – it’s still a large cohort looking for more guidance (59%) and learning content (62%) and coaching/mentoring (62%). 

According to Cornerstone, many organisations are being held back by their existing talent programmes which are not learner-centric. For example, this could mean there’s an overreliance towards online learning with no direct feedback from a mentor or leader, or perhaps there’s no in-house capacity to support staff with modern learning facilities or tools.

“In an environment of constant change, workforce innovations, and new cycles of talent development, improving the maturity of your talent programmes is critical. The secret to adapting to all these new workplace changes and thriving in the future lies in an organisation’s willingness to modernise their talent strategies and invest in their people,” Himanshu Palsule, Cornerstone Chief Executive Officer (CEO) said.

Top performers stand tall

It’s not all bad news, however, as the top performers with dedicated learning and development opportunities are standing tall. Cornerstone classified the cream of the crop as High-Performing Organisations (HPOs) – organisations that rated themselves higher in customer satisfaction, productivity, employee retention and overall performance.

• Those companies reported higher results for employee confidence with just a 6% confidence gap
• 96% of HPO employees said their organisation tangibly demonstrates how they can help them develop while they also believe their employer cares about their growth
• 92% expressed confidence in their talent development initiatives

Of course, performance outcomes typically determine whether your training is up to scratch, or not. But how else can you ensure that your employees feel confident in the training opportunities you provide? Talk to them and follow up. 

Listening to their needs will help you identify where training and development are required and whether they feel existing methods are working. If not, what would they like to see brought in; Is there a course they want to sign up for, a mentor they want to work alongside? It’s then up to you to enable it. 

Additionally, continue to reevaluate your own methods. When did you last introduce a new training program or invest in new technology and equipment to help staff learn? Questioning and analysing your current approaches to education and training will help you become more aligned with your employees.