LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report 2024: A Summary

Learning and Development (L&D) programs are getting essential for organizations to thrive in today’s environment which keeps changing with speed. Learning programs not only equip employees with the technological skills but also creates a culture where employees feel valued. Given below is the summary of a latest report published by LinkedIn which combines LinkedIn behavioural data and the knowledge of L&D professionals around the globe to help you understand the current state of L&D. It also covers how organizations as well as employees can align continuous learning with their goals to create a long term impact and better relationships at workplace.

Table of Contents

• Section 1: L&D Aligning Itself to Achieve Business Goals
• Section 2: To Succeed in the AI Era, Companies Need to Prioritize Everyone’s Growth
• Section 3: Factors that Influence the Success of L&D Efforts

Section 1: L&D Aligning Itself to Achieve Business Goals

The research conducted by LinkedIn shows that the top 5 learning and development focus areas for 2024 are aligning learning programs to business goals, upskilling employees, creating a culture of learning, helping employees develop their career and finally improving employee retention.

1) As much as 90% of organizations are concerned about employee retention. Providing learning opportunities is the No.1 retention strategy.

2) AI skills are most preferred by the employees as 4 in 5 people want to learn how to use AI to improve their effectiveness. This emphasis that companies must embrace both AI skills and career development to energize and retain talent.

3) The research also states that company leaders see learning as a worthy investment. In the next 6 months, 9 out of 10 global executives plan to increase/maintain their investment in L&D for upskilling and reskilling. There are no plans to decrease.

4) The two main aspects that define the learning culture of an organization are size of L&D team and rate of employee skill development. As per the analysis, companies with a strong learning culture show the highest retention rate at 57% and highest internal mobility at 23%.

5) Learning is also a great strategy for building relationships and engagement in your organization. Infact, 7 in 10 people say learning improves their sense of connection to their organization and 8 in 10 people say learning adds purpose to their work.

Section 2: To Succeed in the AI Era, Companies Need to Prioritize Everyone’s Growth

The research conducted by LinkedIn shows that in order to sustain in the AI Era, professionals require skill agility. Skill agility means adopting the right skill at the right time for the right work. To ensure success in today’s competitive environment, organizations need to encourage skills agility. Other than continuous professional development and training programs, internal mobility  programs that align individual aspirations with organizational business priorities can promote agility in the organization. Let us see some insights presented in the report.

1) Each employee has their own aspirations and motivation behind learning and upskilling. The top three reasons why people are increasingly spending their time learning are progress towards career goals, staying up to date in their field and personalization of interests. It is also believed that AI can enable more learners to tailor their career growth.

2) Among companies that prioritize learning, 68% have online learning programs as an option for employee skill development. They also offer programs that prioritize individuals’ career goals like leadership development programs, mentorship programs, individual career plans, etc.

3) The main reason for prioritizing learning programs for companies can be the increasing hunger in employees to grow in their role which is even higher in Gen Z . More than 50% young professionals agreed that through learning, they can explore potential career paths at their company.

4) In order to provide personalized career development at a large scale, 46% companies are investing in career mentoring and coaching programs to boost employee retention and internal mobility in the organization.

5) As a result, Companies that encourage employees to explore different internal roles reap higher retention rates and have employees with deeper cross-functional knowledge. As a result, 33% of organizations have internal mobility programs.

6) But if we see this from an employee’s perspective, only 1 in 5 employees have confidence in their ability to move internally. This shows a major gap that can be filled by learning programs. Learning programs can provide development opportunities within the same organization.

7) Filling this gap can also provide higher business value to the companies. 87% of L&D professionals believe that learning and skill development programs can provide business value by helping employees gain skills to move into different internal roles.

Section 3: Factors that Influence the Success of L&D Efforts

The 3rd and final section of this report covers some important aspects of how learning and development can really make an impact in the growth of an organization and what is the role of L&D professionals in this. It also sheds light on some important metrics and ideas to achieve a purposeful vision through learning and measure the success of these learning programs.

1) As mentioned earlier in the report, developing agile skills and aligning them with business values are two major aspects of L&D. In order to achieve that, there are 4 priorities of L&D professionals.

2) First priority is integrating analytics into the traditional L&D practices for better performance measurement. As a result, 54% more L&D professionals list analytical skills on their LinkedIn profiles compared to a year ago.

3) Second priority is building the right metrics for performance measurement. Performance reviews (36%), Employees productivity (34%) and Employee retention (31%) are the top 3 metrics used for tracking the business impact of L&D.

4) Third is to polish human skills in order to succeed and meet the opportunities of the AI Era. Infact, 91% of L&D professionals agree that human skills or soft skills are increasingly important.

5) Out of number of human skills which contributes towards the growth, interpersonal skills came out to be the most important human skill with the highest growth rate of 73% in 2023.

6) Fourth priority is to be consistent with learning efforts in the organization. As the skills are evolving to meet AI opportunities, learning and growth will be of high importance. Even daily work will include microlearning to help people make progress. Infact, 47% of L&D teams are  planning to use microlearning programs in 2024.

Click here to read the full report

Disclaimer: This article summarizes the Linkedin Workplace Learning Report 2024 for easy understanding of pmwares subscribers. All the views are of original writers. We have tried our best to give the same messages as writers wanted to give. We are not responsible for any unintended errors. Please refer to the original report on linkedin.