37 L&D Statistics You Need to Know for 2023.

Evolving your learning and development strategy and not sure where to take it? These L&D statistics will help you uncover trends and create priorities for 2023.

The world of work is changing.

And it hasn’t changed more than in the last few years.

Nearly 50% of workers say that the COVID-19 pandemic caused them to re-evaluate their skills.

Meanwhile 19% said that pursuing further learning became a greater priority to them.

And it’s no surprise.

COVID brought remote working and a need for organisations to be agile and rethink priorities. With that, companies have had to look at traditional workplace learning and how to fit training into the new world of work.

In this blog, we’ll look at:

• The current state of L&D in 2023
• Skills gap statistics
• Motivation and mental health
• Investing in your talent
• Priorities for L&D in 2023

Let’s get started.

Current state of L&D in 2023

Post-COVID, priorities have changed.

L&D professionals prioritise employee wellness, motivation and productivity in an effort to improve talent availability.

This move to wellness was felt by L&D professionals, in their day to day role too. 77% said they felt their role has become more cross-functional in the past year as they strive to support more teams through their learning strategy.

While 48% said that talent progression and promotion success was the top priority to achieve this, there are still issues with talent mobility.

We know that the C-suite is focused on mobilisation. As LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report 2023 showed, their top priority is “keeping employees motivated and engaged”. The second is “giving employees opportunities to move into different roles within the business.”

However, when they asked employees about their experiences, they indicated that they were not receiving the tools to support internal mobility.

So, where’s the issue?

Statistics on the skills gap in the workplace

Skills sets for jobs have changed by around 25% since 2015. And by 2027, this number is expected to double.

89% of L&D pros agree that proactively building employee skills will help navigate the evolving future of work.

And it’s felt across the board. Over 22 million UK workers do not feel equipped with the skills they need to unlock new opportunities over the next five years.

While attitudes are changing, is it fast enough?

64 percent of L&D professionals said that development has shifted from a “nice to have” to a “need to have” since the pandemic. And now, 69% of employees are engaging in more skill-building than before the crisis.

L&D statistics around motivation

COVID didn’t just affect our priorities when it came to L&D. It also massively affected motivation and mental health.

And in the subsequent years with mounting financial pressure and societal changes, that has only increased.

60% of people are emotionally detached at work, and 19% openly admitted to feeling miserable in Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2022 Report.

Meanwhile, 21% of employees claimed they’d lost motivation due to financial stress, with 16% stating it made them feel tired and distant.

The impact of this is already being felt.

Employee turnover is on the rise, recently reaching a 22-year record high.

We know that this is an expensive problem for organisations. It costs rough 2x an employee’s annual salary to replace them, so it’s highly worth investing in retaining talent.

So how do you address this?

Invest in your talent

Employee retention is easily tackled by investing in your employees.

Career development is a leading reason why people leave their jobs. In fact, 94% of workers say they would stay in a role if they felt they were being invested in.

And it doesn’t always have to mean progression and pay rises.

60% of workers say the ability to do what they do best is important to them.

In fact, just by changing an employee’s responsibilities to what they’re good at can improve their retention by around 20% – even if their benefits and title remain the same.

Obstacles to L&D in 2023

According to LinkedIn, these are the top priorities for L&D in 2023:

• Aligning learning programs to business goals
• Upskilling employees
• Creating a culture of learning
• Improving employee retention

But there are barriers in the way.

According to City & Guilds’ annual skills index 2021, 30% of UK workers say they have not received formal workplace training in the last five years.

Meanwhile, 65% of HR Directors told Clear Review that their performance management process had been put on the back burner over this last year, while people development was at a three-year low as a key HR focus.

But we know that “progress towards career goals” is the number one motivation for employees to learn.

Two thirds of employees stated that time was an obstacle for learning. And yes, while time continues to be a factor, there are ways that you can support your employees to continue to prioritise learning and development.

Priorities for L&D in 2023

Now we know what obstacles we’re facing, what priorities do we need to make for L&D in 2023?

93% of HR leaders who are increasing their L&D budget in 2022 plan to spend more on learning and training technology like an LMS.

And as the shift from face-to-face working changes, it also changes for learning. In fact, 73% of L&D professionals expect to spend less on instructor-led training, while 79% expect to spend more on online learning.

With that, L&D professionals need to keep open minded when it comes to learning and navigating development in this new workplace.

84% of employees are somewhat or extremely concerned that ‘reluctance by managers to encourage new ways of learning and working’ are holding L&D teams back.

And this sense of new can be felt across content too.

Gone are the days of generic content served to all employees.

75% of 1,500 L&D professionals agree that their companies will be developing more custom learning content.

Two areas for specific investment are onboarding and feedback.

Only 29% of new hires say they feel fully prepared and supported to excel in their roles after their onboarding experience. There are more onboarding statistics out there that show how little focus this key aspect of learning gets.

One key point of address is accurate job descriptions. One fifth of employees felt misled by their original job listing, while a quarter felt let down by poor onboarding experiences.

The second focus, feedback, is a key priority too.

Just 14% of workers believe their employer uses feedback effectively to drive change.

Investing in a 360 feedback tool that integrates into your LMS could be a valid solution as just one quarter of learning and development professionals use survey tools to measure employee training program effectiveness.