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The post-pandemic lull didn’t last long! We’re now entering an economic downturn that makes life more difficult for businesses, their HR teams, and L&D people.
And while that brings lots of challenges, doom and gloom, there is an opportunity for us to help navigate our organisations through another sticky patch in 2023.
If you’re going to do that well, you’ll want to be clued up on all the latest research on how people are feeling, working, and learning right now.
From the fall of workplace relationships (spoiler: people aren’t really bothered about them anymore) to the impact of financial stress, four-day working weeks, and below-par onboarding experiences, here are 23 L&D statistics HR and L&D professionals need to know for a successful 2023.
BUT, before we get to that, all of these have been covered in more detail in these three posts:
1. According to the LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report 2022, L&D people spent 23% less time learning than active learners on LinkedIn and 35% less than their HR counterparts.
Remember, time spent learning doesn’t necessarily equate to impact or getting better at your role.
However, when we spoke with L&D professionals at Learning Technologies London 2022, there were concerns around this issue and how it’ll be perceived by the people we’re asking to engage in learning.
2. Close to half of companies (49%) increased their L&D budget in 2022, compared to 41% in 2021. (Source: Capterra)
3. Relationships with managers and co-workers now sit DEAD LAST in the factors influencing job satisfaction (11%), while compensation tops the list by a distance at 43%.
And when you consider that just before the pandemic, people said they were ten times more likely to stay at companies for friendships than finances, you see how far the pendulum has swung.
4. 63% of employees experiencing above-average turnover on their team agree that it’s become less worthwhile to socialise with and get to know their co-workers. (Source: Capterra)
Where this should concern organisations is in the debate over whether this influences how people view company culture. People so often shape the culture, and if we’re not spending time with them, who knows what happens next…
5. However, Gartner research from 2022 revealed that organisations that succeed in connecting employees to their culture can increase employee performance by up to 37% and retention by up to 36% – indicating it is still very much important, even in a hybrid-working world.
6. According to LinkedIn, 64% of L&D pros saw their organisation’s learning culture grow stronger in the past year.
87% of HR leaders also say that learning and development programs will be critical to retaining talent, according to Gartner.
7. “Today, L&D leaders report that attitudes towards learning are at their lowest point in three years.”
“Employees aren’t as engaged as they were during the height of the pandemic, and the appeal of digital learning is wearing off.” – MindTools.
8. There’s been a massive swing in personal development being the motivation for employee learning, rising from 20% in 2018 to 57% in 2021.
And we’ve seen a corresponding decrease in the perception of qualifications and mandatory training! People now want learning that makes them better at their job, on the job, not to be farmed off outside the workflow to gain a certification.
Free Guide! Death of the LMS: A step-by-step guide to skills-first L&D
9. 91% of employees are frustrated with work tech, and 57% feel legacy tech is holding them back at work (Source: Freshworks).
10. But 68% of business leaders feel that new software is hard to use and has a high learning curve.
Other challenges faced when introducing new tools to employees include inadequate training provision (66%), the benefits are often not adequately explained to employees (67%), and they’re not given sufficient time to learn to use new software (69%).
11. According to Beezy, more than half of employees (56%) have been unable to find digital documents while working remotely.
12. And their report revealed the biggest tech challenge is that ‘Not everyone in the company uses the same tools and technologies’.
Adding weight to the argument that the inability to find resources is being harmed by scattered tech and knowledge.
13. 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.
14. 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.
Potentially more worrying is that this spread into people’s personal lives.
In Germany, Gallup also found that 51% of actively disengaged workers felt their job stress contributed to poor behaviour with a loved one.
Globally, 59% said they’d experienced stress the previous day, 31% would say they felt anger, and 56% would admit to being worried in that 24-hour period. These figures are 46% to 83% higher than an engaged person would report!
15. 95% of people who are thriving at work report being treated with respect all day, and 87% report smiling and laughing a lot.
Proving that perhaps laughter is indeed the best medicine or just a useful tool for creating happy, productive workplaces and teams.
16. Employee stress is at an all-time high, with 44% admitting to feeling that emotion the previous day. This even tops the previous peak, reached at the height of the pandemic.
23% also reported experiencing sadness during the previous 24 hours, 54% are struggling with burnout and more than half admitted to having an average or poor work-life balance. (Source: Gartner)
17. 21% of employees claimed they’d lost motivation due to financial stress, with 16% stating it made them feel tired and distant, according to the 2022 Wellness at Work Report.
For some (18%), it was leading them to seek out better-paid roles, while a slightly smaller percentage (14%) were turning to additional employment. Perhaps most concerning is that 17% felt resigned to the fact that there was nothing their employer could do to help.
18. Solving the wellbeing equation (which we discuss here) can be extremely useful, with 75% of employees likely to be loyal to an employer who showed a strong commitment to wellbeing.
19. The 4 Day Work Week whitepaper revealed that 63% of businesses found it easier to attract talent, while 78% felt happier and less stressed.
More than 70 UK companies trialled a four-day work week across the second half of 2022, so keep your eyes peeled for further findings from this experiment.
20. Build better feedback mechanisms! According to a recent Tivian report, just 14% of people believe their employer uses feedback effectively to drive change.
And there’s a big disconnect between how HR and employees view this issue. 85% of HR staff think they’re using feedback to improve the employee experience and only 50% of staff agree.
21. 38% felt the company was rarely or never open to their ideas, meaning there are probably flaws in feedback collection.
While 70% felt they had little or no influence over how things were done at their company, indicating poor communication around how feedback is used.
22. Focus on people development more. 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.
23. Start creating more accurate job descriptions and better onboarding experiences! A fifth of employees felt misled by their original job listing, while a quarter felt let down by poor onboarding experiences. (Source: Cezanne HR research).
The same research revealed that nearly two-thirds of employees found their onboarding experience to be stressful, only half felt capable of doing their jobs, 20% felt isolated during onboarding, and more than a fifth were left questioning their choice in jobs as a result of their onboarding experience.
Free Guide: 37 Lessons For A Winning L&D Strategy
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