Towards the end of 2006, SkillSoft commissioned two separate surveys; one amongst senior level executives in the corporate HR community and one with over 5,000 people, all of whom were in full time employment, ranging from junior positions to managers and director level employees.

Our aim was to compare and contrast the employees’ view of training and development with that of employers. Specifically, we were looking for whether there were any synergies between what the employees wanted to learn, and the way in which they wanted to develop their skills, with the training made available to them by their organisations. Are employers out of step with the training they provide? Or are the learning needs of employees being fully met? We were also interested to see how the impact of technology was
changing the way organisations were delivering their training and the extent to which this technology was being embraced by the employees. Finally, we wanted to look to the future and establish how closely the vision of the HR community matched that of the employees; are the provisions being made by organisations in line with how employees want to learn in the years ahead; or is there a disconnect in expectations?

Some of the results were surprising; and some were what we expected. There are many areas where the learning and development community has much to be proud of. Indeed, in many of the organisations we
surveyed, there are some outstanding programmes in place that are making a significant and positive difference to the skills and knowledge of the workforce, which in turn is having a positive and tangible impact on the effectiveness of those organisations as a whole. In many of the organisations involved in this research there are robust competency frameworks in place to ensure their employees develop in line with the needs of their business. Interestingly though, there is little consistency in the nature of these frameworks. They range from those that are comparatively simple to those that are highly complex. However, regardless of the type of structure they have, in each case they seem to be working effectively for the organisations that use them.