Survey details Iowa companies’ training priorities
JOE GARDYASZ Sep 14, 2016 | 4:00 pm
2 min read time
437 wordsAll Latest News, Business Record Insider, EducationOnboarding of new employees will be a hot training topic for 2017, but flat training budgets planned by a majority of Iowa companies could lead to businesses falling behind in training, according to an annual survey of business leaders.
Leadership training is the top training priority this year among Iowa companies, according to responses of businesses surveyed in the annual Iowa Talent Trends Survey. Additionally, new employee orientation and coaching tied for the two most popular training topics companies said they will provide.
Urbandale-based ATW Training Solutions Inc. conducted the survey in partnership with the Iowa Society for Human Resource Management, the Central Iowa Chapter of Association for Talent Development (ATD), and New Horizons Computer Learning Center of Des Moines. Representatives of 80 organizations from across the state completed this year’s survey, which was conducted July 28 to Aug. 12.
A majority of survey respondents (62 percent) said they expect training budgets to remain unchanged this year, while 36 percent of respondents expect budgets to increase (down from 44 percent last year). Less than 2 percent expected training budgets to decrease.
Because of the uncertain economy, “many organizations continue to be careful about the overall amount of resources they spend on training,” said Todd McDonald, president of ATW Training Solutions. “The good news is they’re looking to be as productive as they can be about how they use their training dollars.”
Just over one-third of respondents estimated their per-employee training expenditures would range from $101 to $500, while 11 percent estimated $501 to $750 in per-person training costs and 5 percent estimated costs between $751 and $1,000. Those estimates were far lower than ATD’s 2014 estimate of $1,229 per employee, the report noted.
Seventy-one percent of respondents said leadership training is their organization’s top training priority, followed by job-specific training, which 65 percent said is a priority. Onboarding of new hires came in as the third-highest priority, at 58 percent.
With millions of U.S. millennials entering management and leadership positions, tailoring training programs to their interactive learning style will be particularly important, McDonald said. “We do a lot of blended learning combinations that include both classroom learning and online programs,” he said.
Looking at training topics that companies said they will cover, new employee orientation tied for first with coaching — each at 43 percent on the Top 5 List of training topics.
“The high ranking for employee orientation may imply a continued increase in new hires and need to accelerate the onboarding process,” according to the report. “The low unemployment rate in Iowa makes onboarding and getting the most from new employees as soon as possible important.”
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