Sharpening the leading edge

This second annual State of the Industry report, produced by the research department of the American Society for Training & Development, tells what leading-edge companies are doing to be at the top of the training field. The data is from the more than 750 U.S. organizations that participated in ASTD's 1998 Benchmarking Service. The evidence shows that employer-provided training is on the rise in terms of the amount of money invested and the percentage of employees being trained. Yet, there is still a gap between leading-edge companies and the average organization. The training leaders are different in the amount of training they provide, the resources they invest in employee development, the practices they use, and the means of training delivery. Generally, to be leading edge, a company has to spend more money on training employees, especially in human performance work practices such as self-directed teams, and on innovative training practices such as mentoring. Specifically, to stand out from the crowd, an organization has to use at least 13 of the 17 practices identified by the study as leading edge. The average organization uses only 11 of those practices. The average company spent about $2 million on training in 1997, up from $1.4 million in 1996. The total training expenditure of the typical leading-edge firm rose from $3.4 million in 1996 to $4.1 million in 1997. The authors note, however, that total training expenditure depends greatly on an organization's size. Not only must organizations provide more training, they must also provide training to more employees-at least 86 percent to be leading edge. The average organization trains about 74 percent of its employees. The article includes a breakdown of findings by industry.