The State of Corporate Training: 7 Surprising Statistics (Part II)

Author: Darleen DeRosa / Source: Business 2 Community corporate training budgets Our last post illustrated the changing landscape of cor

Author: Darleen DeRosa / Source: Business 2 Community

Our last post illustrated the changing landscape of corporate training and offered some important steps your organization can take to ensure you’re keeping up with your competitors cultivating top talent. However, those numbers primarily focused on the challenges companies face when it comes to engaging employees in corporate learning, and that’s only part of the story.

Here are seven statistics that paint a more complete picture of how corporate training budgets break down, what training formats are most popular and how much organizations are willing to outsource.

1. Service-Related Organizations Spend the Most on Training

Organizations that prioritize service, such as retail, spent the most on training in recent years: $871 per learner in 2014, according to the 2015 Training Industry Report. That was followed by manufacturers ($653).

The takeaway: Industries with many service touch points carry more potential for human error to hurt the customer experience and future sales, so investing in training can have a significant payoff. The same is true of high-risk industries such as manufacturing.

2. When It Comes to Training, Company Size Matters

Larger companies generally spend less on training per employee. Much of this can be attributed to economies of scale; it’s less expensive to add more employees to training once you’ve made the initial investments in a learning management system and material. Small companies with fewer than 1,000 employees spent $1,105 per employee on training, according to the 2015 Training Industry Report, while midsize companies (less than 10,000) spent $544 per employee and large companies of 10,000 or more spent $447.

The takeaway: Use this data to see how your company’s training expenditures compare to peers of similar size.