According to Allied Market
Research (AMR), the global corporate training market will reach $ 417.21 billion by 2027, an average growth of 9.4 % from 2021 to 2027. This is primarily due to the rapidly growing demand for in-house training in recent years in many areas of professional activity. With the onset of the pandemic, companies are increasingly adopting innovative and cost-effective ways to train their employees, increasing investments in the latest technology and digitalization to provide online learning. Thus, according to the Elearning Industry portal, in 2021, 56% of companies set out to re-equip their educational programs, and 62% of enterprises affected by changes due to COVID-19 decided to increase the costs of staff training.
The 5 th Annual Workplace Learning Report, LinkedIn’s 5th Annual Workplace Learning Report, shows that companies are increasingly focusing on corporate learning. For example, two-thirds of L&D professionals surveyed reported that they regularly communicate with the company’s top management, compared with just over a third at the beginning of 2020, which suggests that senior managers have begun to pay more attention to corporate training, realizing how it plays an important role in times of rapid change and uncertainty. The authors of the report cite the words of LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky, who believes that “the company of the future is one that includes change, learning and a growth mindset.” In turn, the share of L&D specialists, who named programs of professional development and retraining of personnel as their top priority, also increased – from 44% in 2020 to 59% in 2021.
Today North America is the leader in terms of the size of the national market for corporate training in the world: it accounts for up to 43% of the global market, and in the future, its position will not change. Nevertheless, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa will demonstrate the highest growth rates (11.1%). In Europe, according to forecasts of the British analytical company Technavio, the corporate training market will increase by 8% by 2024, to $ 12.15 billion.
If we assess the prospects for the development of individual sectors of the corporate education market, then, according to AMR, the face-to-face segment, which accounted for more than two-thirds of the total market share in 2020, will retain its leading positions during the forecast period. However, the online segment is expected to experience the fastest growth from 2021 to 2027, with a CAGR of 16.4%.
The popularity of online education is supported by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the anti-epidemic restrictions imposed because of it, as well as the desire of job seekers themselves to work more from home. According to Elearning Industry polls, 90% of workers would like to continue working from home, at least partially, and almost 50% of those surveyed want to continue working remotely most of the time or on a full-time basis. As a result, Technavio points out in its research report “The Market for Enterprise Online Learning – Forecast and Analytical Report for 2021–2025”, the market for corporate online learning will increase by $ 37.8 billion from 2020 to 2025. At the same time, 40% of the market growth will come from the largest corporate online learning market – Asia-Pacific, in particular, India and Japan.
According to AMR, until 2027, as now, programs focused on practical skills will be in great demand: they account for up to a quarter of the total corporate education market. The demand for them is not surprising – the global labor market is currently undergoing a job transformation driven by the spread of new technologies. According to the forecast of the World Economic Forum, in the next four years, 85 million jobs will be squeezed out of the labor market and 97 million new ones will be created, which will require completely new skills from specialists. Among them is the ability to work with digital technologies. And it is precisely such applicants that the world economy is now lacking. So, this summer, leading IT companies in the UK appealed to the government with a call to accelerate the training of digital personnel in the national education system – without this, the country’s economy will lose up to £ 2 billion annually.
At the same time, according to the AMR report, the highest growth rates (+ 11%) are expected to be demonstrated by the communication skills segment. At the same time, according to the LinkedIn report, 53% of L&D professionals surveyed in the study attached the most importance to leadership and management programs, and 33% – to virtual adaptation.
As follows from a joint study by a division of the consulting company KPMG – KPMG Academy Russia, CROC Education solutions and the Digital Leader networking platform, the development of the Russian corporate training and development market was generally in line with global trends. Thus, more than 80% of the surveyed companies already provide most of the educational content to their employees in the e-learning format. Almost everyone, as noted by the authors of the study, expects further penetration of online formats and the development of tools to improve the effectiveness of online learning. At the same time, according to the report, almost all experts note that online is not as effective as offline, however, in their opinion, this is a consequence of the insufficient level of development of solutions for measuring the effectiveness of training, monitoring the success of employees or the interaction of employees with each other. Particular hopes for the development of e-learning are pinned in retail: several representatives of this industry are planning to completely transfer training of mass personnel online in the coming years. The main reason is the achieved mass scale and reduction of training costs up to ten times. At the same time, the prospects for a total transfer to online training of office employees are not so obvious – more than 90% of experts are sure of this. Most likely, online formats will be used to provide basic theoretical information on a topic and its share in the total volume of training will vary from 60% to 90%.
The spread of online education, in turn, leads to an increase in the popularity of small educational formats: more than 80% of experts in the KPMG survey identified a reduction in the duration of classes among the key trends. This is because it is difficult for employees to concentrate on content for long periods of time during online training. Today, companies are confidently using content and courses, the duration of which is 20-30 minutes. They also believe in 10–20 minute training and microlearning, but so far they are being implemented with caution.
Over the past year, not only the format, but also the content of educational programs of enterprises has changed. Companies are creating many more courses that focus on soft skills such as distributed team management, personal effectiveness, stress management, well-being, and mental health competencies. As the authors of the study note, almost half of the experts identify training in soft skills as a key growth point.
In terms of employee training costs, as noted by PwC Academy Director Nadezhda Volkova, the IT sector is now in the lead. This is due to the digital transformation of the economy and the high demand for IT specialists in the market – HR managers see training as a way of additional motivation and retention of employees. In addition, “in order to be successful and ensure the success of a growing business, these specialists must have not only knowledge of information technology, but also management tools, communication skills, leadership competencies,” says Nadezhda Volkova.