2010 March Training News and Notes
By Liz Wheeler
Study Shows Significant Drop in
Employee Learning and Development Spending for Second Year
Corporate
learning and development (L&D) spending dropped sharply in 2009, leading to
much leaner budgets and staffs. Spending dropped 11 percent in 2009, for a
total of 22 percent over the two years, according to The Corporate Learning
Factbook 2010 by Bersin and Associates.
"The
past two years have been a wake-up call for L&D. In order to survive,
they've had to improve alignment with the business, centralize learning
functions and focus on those training initiatives with the highest impact,"
said Josh Bersin, president of the company. "As a result, they're in a stronger
position today - as the economy stabilizes and improves - to help their
organizations gear up for new programs to support growth."
Conducted
in partnership with Workforce Management magazine, the study is based on
a survey conducted in August 2009. The survey resulted in data from more than
1,400 organizations of all sizes and across a wide variety of industries.
Other key findings of the study include:
- After
a decline in 2008, the percentage of training funds directed toward leadership
development rebounded to 24% - an indication that companies are moving beyond a
short-term, crisis management mode and are looking to strengthen their
leadership teams for future success.
- Although
instructor-led training (ILT) remains the dominant delivery method, its use
declined from 67% of training hours in 2008 to 60% in 2009. Some ILT hours were
replaced with virtual classroom training (vILT), which uses a live, remote
instructor broadcast online or over video. Use of vILT increased from 8% of
training hours in 2008 to 13% in 2009. It allows organizations to maintain the
benefits of live instruction, while avoiding the costs associated with travel
and facilities.
- More
companies adopted newer technologies to facilitate learning through knowledge
sharing and collaboration. Blogs and wikis both posted significant gains in
2009, with 14% of organizations using these tools in a learning context.
Communities of practice also remained popular, used by 24% of companies for
learning. These tools are not only cost-efficient but appeal to the
collaborative and self-directed learning styles of today's workforce.
Results of ASTD's Learning Circuits eLearning Survey
Forty
percent of companies using elearning use it for customer service training,
according to a survey of 205 respondents during ASTD's Learning Circuits annual
elearning survey in November and December 2009. An almost equally high number
(37.4 percent) use it for general business training such as leadership and
sexual harassment information. Over half of elearning is targeted toward
company employees.
For
all results of the study, click
here.