This great research from Cegos highlights the gap between what employees across Europe want from learning and what HR are delivering. 

In March 09, Cegos commissioned an independent study among 2355 employees and 485 HR and training directors from companies employing over 500 staff in the UK, France Germany and Spain to compare attitudes of HR directors and training managers and employees towards different training techniques.

Phone interviews were conducted among the HR and employee sample randomly selected to incorporate individuals from most industry sectors. 24.8% of the 2,355 employees were from the UK (584 approx) and 25.4% of the 485 HR & Training Managers were from the UK (123 approx).

Key findings include:

• Employees are keener than HR and the training function to embrace innovative training practices and new technologies. Learners want more e-learning, blended learning and collaborative tools (eg blogs, wikis etc) whilst HR professionals want more face to face learning.  Interesting to note that 41% of the sample of learners were over 35 years.
• Larger companies are more likely to use e-learning than blended (58% of companies with over 1000 staff use e-learning and 49% use blended. Smaller companies are more likely to use blended than e-learning alone. The approaches are working - 89% of staff believe that blended learning is living up to their expectations and 82% of staff believe e-learning is living up to expectations.
• Factors that make e-learning more effective for employees include simulations/ work based scenarios (88%), self assessment (82%); help from a tutor or peer (72%) wth podcasts and e-learning on mobile phones less popular (47%, 38%).
• Factors that contribute to e-learning quality for employers include, at the top of the list, realism of work based scenarios, credibility and experience of professional/expert reports, interactivity and use of video. Ease of use and navigation were less important.
• The UK and Spain continue to lead the way with e-learning – 47% of UK employees take part in e-learning compared with an average of 40% across the board.
• Professional skills development continues to come a poor second to technical training. The UK also fares poorly in  the amount of sales training it provides.
• Training budgets appear to be stable across Europe and most  organisations remain optimistic about their training budgets.

''There is clearly a gap between what the training function is planning and what users actually want from their learning experience. Today’s learners seem to be more willing to embrace new ways of learning than HR and training practitioners. The end-user needs to be at the heart of all training initiatives to ensure employees are engaged and training is optimised. It’s up to HR and training functions to better reflect these needs,” said Francis Marshall, Managing Director of CegosUK.

Thank you to Cegos UK for agreeing to share this report with Towards Maturity readers - you can download the report here (login required) and find out more about Cegos at www.cegos.com.

Related downloads

• Cegos training survey report april 09

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