Corporate training.
Those two words have the power to evoke many conflicting emotions. For some, it means eight hours a day in a stuffy classroom, trying to stay awake amidst discussions about leadership potential and changes to the latest CRM tool.
For others, it’s an exciting opportunity to learn new software or gain insights that might lead to a promotion down the road.
And for many, it’s a day away from the office.
Whichever way you look at it, corporate training is an integral part of a successful organization’s discretionary budget. It helps reduce both technical and non-technical capability gaps, and gives employees the skills they need to move up the company’s hierarchy.
In the US, small businesses and large organizations alike are seeing the value and investing in corporate training, which is giving the corporate training market in the country a boost. The market is expected to grow steadily, and top $28 billion by 2019, growing at a CAGR of 7.81% from 2014-2019.
Employee retention issues are encouraging corporations to adopt better training
One of the big things we always hear about millennials is how they never stay at one job for long. It is expected that a person, especially at the beginning of their career, will jump between five or six jobs or even career paths before settling into something.
This has created a lot of hoopla around employee retention. Organizations are facing a shortage of skilled labor, stunted economic growth, and high employee turnover rate, and are looking to mitigate these factors through training.
Corporate learning provides an easy way to retain employees, improve interactions, distribute learning content, and maintain a loyal and knowledgeable workforce.
“Continuous relevant training boosts employee morale and helps them engage better with their roles, which leads to more positive performance feedback,” say lead Technavio analysts.
Technical skill enhancement is big, but soft skills will grow over the next few years
A company is only as good as its people. As competition in the business world escalates, organizations are looking to gain a competitive advantage through employee skill enhancement. This is especially true in more technical sectors, where technology is moving forward by leaps and bounds. Employees need to be kept up-to-date on the latest systems, which has spurred significant growth in the corporate training market.
In 2014, the technical segment dominated the market, accounting for a share of 68.04%, while the non-technical segment accounted for the remaining 31.96%. While the technical segment is expected to dominate the market through 2019, it is expected to lose some of its share to the non-technical segment because of greater need to enhance soft skills and managerial skills among employees.
Gamification and e-learning solutions will be key trends to watch in the coming years
Cost and employee engagement are two of the big challenges that most organizations face when trying to offer training.
On the cost side of things, e-learning is the perfect solution. It’s customizable, scalable and eliminates the big expense of having to hire an instructor to conduct the training in the first place.
Engagement is a bit harder. As a manager, how can you control how well an employee jives with a particular training module? Gamification—a new trend that inserts elements of game mechanics in a non-gaming context like training—is one answer.
It works through tools like badges, leader boards, activity feeds, real-time feedback, trophy cases, virtual currency, avatars, and mini games to tap into a person’s competitive side to increase engagement in the training process.
For more information on the corporate training market in the US, check out Technavio’s new report.
