Approximately 60% of employees believe that COVID-19 has severely dented Learning & Development  (L&D) initiatives centered on employee wellness, motivation, and productivity, according to a recent report by global skill assessment and talent acquisition platform Mercer|Mettl.

This implies that organisations had a difficult time decoding ways and means to ensure optimal employee motivation, thereby affecting productivity.

“In the future, organisations will need to give prominence to employee wellness as compared to their L&D interventions. Also, employee health will acquire completely new dimensions in the context of the remote work setup,” says The State of Learning & Development Report 2022, which offers a comprehensive overview of how L&D and skills requirements have evolved in the past two years. 

The report is a deep dive into examining what factors companies are prioritising and their budgetary allocations for employees’ upskilling and reskilling initiatives. It also emphasises on understanding the skills ecosystem, priorities, tools, and processes along with ROIs. The analysis and insights in the report are based on at least 10,000 personnel's responses.

Nearly 64% of employees believe COVID-19 had the greatest impact on employee reskilling and upskilling strategies, indicating a lack of clarity on future skills and 68% of employees feel that the pandemic had a profound impact on organisational skills to interact with employees in a remote workplace, the report adds.

The report further suggested that as per 52% of employees, the attention of the organisation remains on mid-level employees and companies allocate the largest share of their employee development budgets to them.

“The past two years have altered the dynamics and the landscape of workplaces. Today, companies can only survive if they remain hinged to their employees’ growth and development through ‘reskilling and upskilling, as suggested in Mercer|Mettl’s study on L&D. Nearly 55% of respondents reported a hike in their organisational L&D budgets, indicating that companies continue to stick to L&D interventions despite facing challenges. Organisations believe that such programmes are crucial for them to become future-ready enterprises,” said Siddhartha Gupta, CEO, Mercer|Mettl.

The 2022 L&D study by Mettl also says that communication, ownership, and empathy are important soft skills in a post COVID-19 workplace.  Adoption of LMS and internal employee certifications are on the rise  and companies are adopting tools like 360-degree feedback for feedback and development. 

Moving forward, finding a balance between work and training will be crucial for companies to achieve their long-term objective of developing employees in sync with future business requirements.