UK companies are still struggling to drive the training and development agenda, as 23% of employees don’t have access to any personal development opportunities. According to research by GoodHabitz, the digital learning provider, only 43% of UK employees can access both online and offline courses, which shows there is still more work to do, especially compared to European countries like Denmark (55%) and the Netherlands (51%).
However, despite limited access to training courses, UK employees are not being proactive enough in approaching their employers – only 15% have actively reached out about it, compared to 39% of European employees. Yet, 81% of the UK workforce believe it to be important or very important to learn and acquire new knowledge or skills. Employers agree – 81% believe their employees would be happier in their current roles if they had further opportunities for personal development.
GoodHabitz surveyed 13,000 employees across Europe, including the views of over 2600 senior learning and development decision-makers, to understand the current state of personal development at work.
Mark Thompson, UK Manager of GoodHabitz, explained:
“Creating a learning culture within an organisation cannot ever be one person’s job. It needs community with individual, team and organisational commitment. It’s discouraging to see that almost a quarter of UK employees still don’t have access to development training. Perhaps UK employers feel like there’s no time to invest in personal development, that it’s not a priority.
“UK employees are showing signs of reluctance too. Given that 65% of UK employees claim a lack of personal development opportunities is a reason to seek out a new employer, it’s surprising that more HR and L&D managers aren’t addressing personal development opportunities, especially when skill-building can be the answer to closing the talent gap. The cost of labour is very high, and organisations’ usual approach to hiring talent to plug gaps is not always the solution – increasingly, HR and L&D managers are looking to personal development, especially in the age of automation where having strong human or soft skills will be highly sought after as we continue integrating technology into every aspect of our lives.”
When surveying employers, the research found that 85% of UK organisations felt they were taking employee requests for online training seriously. However, over 59% of employees didn’t believe this to be true.
“Compared to other countries, the UK scores quite low. Other countries such as Germany (90%), Italy (91%) and Spain (96%) perform better in bridging this gap, so UK employees can learn from their European counterparts by listening to the employee feedback and taking action,” said Thompson.