CIPD 2010 Learning and Talent Development survey - by Alec Keith

The CIPD 2010 survey involved responses from over 700 learning practitioners relating to 'current and future learning and talent development issues and trends' with the key aim of tracking changes in workplace learning, as well as identifying anticipated trends for the next five years.

Despite current economic conditions the report is largely upbeat, even though 65% of organisations say their economic situation has declined in the past 12 months, with learning and development budgets decreasing for 52%. This contradicts a more recent survey by Thales of 200 L&D professionals which concluded that in larger organisations L&D spend was now on the rise, with current budgets up by 6.2%.

The survey reveals that e-learning is the fastest growing learning approach, with 62% of organisations saying they use it more now than in 2009 - great news for the industry! Towards Maturity also delved a little deeper and uncovered that 85% of all organizations now use e-learning, up from 74% last year. These figures suggest e-learning has been truly embraced and will continue to go from strength to strength.

But it’s not all good news for e-learning. In response to the question ‘Which of the following learning and talent development practices do you believe are the most effective?’ only 12% of respondents felt e-learning was the most effective form of delivery. Whilst this is an increase on last year’s figure, it’s still disappointing. In fact, some case studies imply e-learning is a poor cousin to other L&D activities: ‘We had tried to use e-learning as a precondition to attending training but many staff commented that they did not have time to complete or properly consider the package due to pressures of work and so rushed the package at the last minute.’ This raises the issue of the quality of e-learning solutions and how they are marketed internally.

One limitation of this year’s report is that social learning wasn’t covered, something which will certainly change in the next few years as networking and internal knowledge sharing become widespread.

But evaluation has risen up the training agenda, with 30% of respondents citing this as their key challenge over the next five years.

To download a copy of the full survey, please go to: www.cipd.co.uk/subjects/lrnanddev/general/_Learning_and_development_summary.htm