Talent management has become a top priority for organizations, highlighting that the optimization of talent in the workforce directly affects everyday operations and in turn drives the bottom line. The ASTD-i4cp Talent Management Practices and Opportunities Study found that 19.9% of organizations reported that they manage talent effectively to a high or very high degree, with an additional one fifth admitting that their companies were effective users of talent to only a small extent or not at all. Talent management is anticipated to grow: over 80% of participants predict a growth in the next three years.

What does the talent management puzzle look like?

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Tags: talent management

Categories: Research

The 2009 State of the Industry Report revealed that workplace learning and performance has withstood the challenges of the difficult economy. Although investment in training was stable in 2008, organizations achieved positive outcomes and successfully contributed to their employees’ development with more formal learning opportunities while using fewer resources.

Although many organizations were forced to cut costs wherever possible, workplace learning and performance did not suffer disproportionately to any significant degree. Investment in employee learning and development remained steady through the end of 2008. Although the average annual learning expenditure per employee fell from $1,110 in 2007 to $1,068 in 2008 – a 3.8 percent decrease – it was not large by any means. The commitment to learning is also evident from the figure for average learning expenditure as a percentage of payroll: it increased from 2.15 percent in 2007 to 2.24 percent in 2008.

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Tags: state of the industry report

Categories: Research

Is your organization getting its value for money from its training evaluation? According to ASTD’s Value of Evaluation report only about one-quarter of respondents agreed that their organization got solid “bang for the buck” from its training evaluation efforts. With the tough economic demands, business leaders have to scrutinize costs even more, to find greater efficiencies. This highlights the need for the true value of evaluating learning to be realized and for current practices to adapt to increased efficiency and effectiveness demands.

Ninety-two percent of respondents to ASTD’s Value of Evaluation report indicated that they measure at least Level 1 (reactions of participants) of the model. More...

Tags: value of evaluation, training evaluation, kirkpatrick/phillips model, five levels of evaluation

Categories: Research

ASTD Research has released its Learning Executive Confidence Index for the third quarter of 2009. 292 learning executives (LXs) responded to an online invitation-only survey, contributing to a Q3 LXCI of 60.7. This score is an increase of 1.3 points from a Q2 2009 LXCI of 59.4. This score is the highest value on record, indicating increasing optimism in the performance of the learning function. Highlights from the report include: More...

Tags: lxci, learning executive confidence index

Categories: Research

Does your organization have an executive development program? If not, they are representative of the 34% of organizations recently sampled in the Executive Development: Strategic and Tactical Approaches report that have no active executive development program. Only 38% of participating companies have an active executive development program, while 23% have a program that is activated as necessary.

The executive development “playground” is dominated by “the big kids” – large organizations with substantial revenues. As annual revenue increases, so does the likelihood of having an executive development program. Executive development is a costly investment, with the average amount spent on each employee participating in a program reaching $12,370. More...

Tags: executive development, executive development approaches

Categories: Research

How can there be light during a downturn? By using their expertise, workplace learning and performance (WLP) professionals have been given a torch, to help their organization survive the downturn and allow them to emerge in a stronger competitive position when the economy recovers.

In the current economic downturn, organizations have been forced to use cost cutting strategies. Departmental budgets are being trimmed, with the learning function being no exception. Learning and development functions are not only being pushed to economize spending on learning activities, but to simultaneously continue to build critical skills and knowledge. A new report by ASTD and i4cp, Learning in Tough Economic Times, indicates that between a fifth and a quarter of respondents said that, to a high or very high extent, the down economy has had a negative impact on each of the following:

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Tags: learning in tough economic times, economy, downturn

Categories: Research

ASTD Research has released its Learning Executive Confidence Index for the second quarter of 2009. 193 learning executives responded to an online invitation-only survey, contributing to a Q2 LXCI of 59.4. This score is a increase of 4.2 points from a Q1 2009 LXCI of 55.2, indicating more optimism in the performance of the learning function.  Highlights from the report include:
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Tags: lxci, learning executive confidence index

Categories: Research

As the Obama administration shines a light on the training and skills workers will need for the jobs of tomorrow, a new report shows that U.S. employers continue to struggle with an ill-prepared workforce, finding new hires lack crucial basic and applied skills.

For the most part, employer-sponsored readiness training is not successfully correcting these deficiencies, according to the report, The Ill-Prepared U.S. Workforce: Exploring the Challenges of Employer-Provided Workforce Readiness Training, produced by Corporate Voices for Working Families, the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD), The Conference Board, and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

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Tags: ill-prepared workforce, workforce readiness

Categories: Research

When it comes to Employee Engagement, do you know what your challenges are and what to do to adopt and implement the right engagement practices? A new playbook by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) and ASTD provides actionable strategies for employee engagement that were established through a comprehensive global survey of industry respondents. The Building an Engaged Workforce Playbook highlights the problems that organizations face in regard to engagement and the potential solutions for addressing those problems.

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Tags: employee engagement, building an engaged workforce, learning's role in employee engagement

Categories: Research

Just 9 percent of learning executives said Web 2.0 technologies play a major role in the learning function while 32 percent said they play a minor role. ASTD Research has just released the report Transforming Learning with Web 2.0 Technologies sponsored by Booz Allen Hamilton, and conducted by ASTD in conjunction with the institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp). This study, based on survey data from over 700 learning professionals, discovered that the immense potential of Web 2.0 technologies has not yet been realized by the learning function in most organizations. Just 9 percent said Web 2.0 technologies play a major role in the learning function in their company while another 32 percent said they play a minor role. Given the fact that 87 percent of these respondents predicted their organizations were more likely to use Web 2.0 technologies over the next three years, growth in the utilization of these powerful collaboration and communication tools seems inevitable.

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Tags: web 2.0, transforming learning with web 2.0 technologies

Categories: Research