Professional development should align with business objectives

30% of HR experts believe improvement is needed to better align learning and professional development with business objectives, a new survey from Rosetta Stone and the CPD Standards Office reveals.

The study shows that while 90% of businesses recognise the need for professional development and training, it’s not always provided; 27% of HR decision makers admit they don’t offer it but acknowledge that they should.

The survey of 100 UK HR experts, conducted for Rosetta Stone and the CPD Standards Office by Vanson Bourne, discovered that 87% of respondents believe one benefit of a structured training programme is skills development for employees and 71% believe employees feel more confident about their work.

In response to the increasing globalisation of business, 60% of those whose organisations offer professional development and training also offer language training, with more than a third (35%) offering it as a CPD discipline.

On-the-job experiential learning has gathered support in recent years, with the 70:20:10 concept for training suggesting that 70% of learning comes through experience, 20% from social learning and only 10% through formal learning approaches. Valuable though on-the-job learning is, these survey results challenge training approaches that rely heavily on unstructured training methods and reveal strong backing for structured training. This can be as part of a hybrid method of training techniques that include digital-based learning.

Key findings of the study include:

• 30% of HR experts say learning and development needs to be better aligned with business objectives
• 63% of organisations offer professional development and training while almost one in three (27%) don’t but realise they should
• Three-quarters of organisations that offer training and development take a structured approach, offering CPD
• Smaller organisations are more likely to offer development and training – 83% of organisations with between 501 and 1,000 employees said they do. However when it comes to CPD, medium-sized organisations (1,001-3,000 employees) – which ranked lowest in offering professional development and training in general – came out on top
• In contrast to the experiential learning ethos of 70:20:10, 100% of those surveyed that offer professional development and training believe that a structured training programme has benefits
• With the increasing globalisation of business, six out of 10 businesses recognise the importance of languages through training, with just over one-third offering it as a CPD discipline.