In an international survey, 80 per cent of respondent human resources (HR) executives stated that today, their employees have to undergo continuing education more often and faster than only five years ago.
At the same time, there is a large gap between demand and actual outcome with regards to continuing education. Full 40 per cent of respondents worldwide are of the opinion that their enterprise displays weaknesses when it comes to providing employees with the right kind of training measures. In Germany, the numbers are even worse. As much as 65 per cent of the 130 polled German HR executives share this opinion.
The study casts an ambivalent light on HR and personnel development as a partner for employees in questions pertaining to continuing education. The relationship seems to be characterised by distrust: Only ten per cent of respondents share the opinion that employees view their department as a "very valuable partner" in the further development of their own competences and capabilities. More than 70 per cent of respondents think that employees are of the opinion that the HR department offers only few or no opportunities for continuing education that would render them fit for the future.
40 per cent have the view that employees would not count on help from the HR department in the event of having to quickly learn new knowledge or new capabilities. Rather, a large proportion of employees put their trust in colleagues when it comes to finding a useful knowledge resource for this purpose. Accordingly, HR executives are convinced that more than 30 per cent of employees fear for their job on grounds of their competences, capabilities and knowledge not being up to date.
The "Agile Learning" study was commissioned by Lumesse, a provider of talent management, who concludes from the results that HR executives find it increasingly difficult to develop suitable continuing education propositions for their employees. Conversely, the employees themselves know very well what could help them in this field.
The study polled 769 HR executives worldwide. According to the data provided by the study, half of the 130 HR executives polled in Germany work in enterprises with less than 1,000 employees and 12 per cent work in enterprises with more than 50,000 employees.