Back to the Future: Why tomorrow's workforce needs a learning culture

Discover what makes a high-impact learning culture, what they do differently, and how you can beat the odds to see success from your learning and development (L&D) strategy.

Back to the Future: Why tomorrow's workforce needs a learning culture

Why do learning investments keep rising, but impact keeps falling? Why is it smarter to invest in culture over digital? And how do top-performing companies make the most from their L&D efforts?

That’s what we explore in our new research paper Back to the Future: Why tomorrow’s workforce needs a learning culture.

In this report, former Chief Insight Officer Jane Daly and Head of Research Gent Ahmetaj, look at:

  • The last decade – Investment in tech rose by 3% in 2020. But only 15% of learning leaders grew their business through innovation. (That’s 3% lower than in 2019). We explore why.
  • Today – In 2020, we find that 71% of high-impact learning cultures (HILCs) involve learners at the design stage. (Compare that to an overall average of 21%.) We show how they do it.
  • The next decade – Learning leaders at HILCs are 10 times more likely to see sustainable growth, transformation, productivity and profitability. We show what they do differently.


Stats you can trust

This research draws on insights from our Learning Health Check. Formerly of Towards Maturity, it remains the only free, independent and confidential benchmarking tool for L&D professionals. Our new report pulls data from 1,123 organizations and 9,000 employees from 83 countries across 22 sectors. To bring you insights, we track the health and impact of organizational learning. That means measuring businesses’ L&D strategies, their digital innovation and behavioural change.

About the author

Emerald Works

Emerald Works

At Emerald Works, we’re committed to helping individuals and organizations around the world realize their full potential by using evidence-led learning solutions that work.

We work together to build learning cultures that empower people to bring about real change for real impact.

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