Analysis of the ATD State of the Industry Trends
How does your Talent Development team compare?
Ever wonder how your talent development organization compares to others? ATD’s Annual State of the Industry Report is a valuable benchmarking tool to understand how your resources, budget and training efforts stack up to industry standards.
Each year, ATD Research Services engages hundreds of respondents from small (<100 employees), medium (100-2,499 employees), and large (>2,500 employees) from a variety of industries. They compile and publish this data as a benchmarking tool which organizations can leverage to increase their impact and effectiveness.
Content Offerings
To identify the content offerings from the Talent Development (TD) organizations, respondents were asked to indicate whether their organization provided a majority of their training, some training, or no training in each content area. The results are tabled below.
| Topic/Skills | Majority of training on this content | Some training on this content | No training on this content |
| New employee orientation | 41% | 55% | 4% |
| Mandatory and compliance | 42% | 53% | 5% |
| Interpersonal skills* | 29% | 60% | 11% |
| Processes/Procedures | 29% | 60% | 11% |
| Managerial/supervisory* | 26% | 63% | 11% |
| Information technology | 24% | 61% | 15% |
| Customer service | 24% | 59% | 17% |
| Product knowledge | 32% | 49% | 19% |
| Profession/Industry specific | 27% | 54% | 19% |
| Executive development* | 19% | 56% | 26% |
| Sales* | 20% | 47% | 33% |
| Basic/foundational skills* | 23% | 33% | 44% |
Delivery Methods
Instructor-led training for both live and virtual events is the most common method to deliver training content for all size organizations. Asynchronous, blended and hybrid methods are also utilized. PPS International-SyNet Americas can provide facilitators for live instruction, and we partner with our clients for other modalities as well.
| Ranking | Small Organizations 1-99 employees | Medium Organizations 100-2,499 employees | Large Organizations >2,500 employees |
| 1 | Live, instructor-led classroom | Live, instructor-led classroom | Live, instructor-led classroom |
| 2 | Live instructor-led virtual classroom | Live instructor-led virtual classroom | Live instructor-led virtual classroom |
| 3 | Asynchronous learning | Hybrid learning | Asynchronous learning |
| 4 | Blended learning | Asynchronous learning | Blended learning |
| 5 | Hybrid learning | Blended learning | Hybrid learning |
Expenditure and Talent Headcount
The average direct learning expenditure per employee is calculated by dividing the organization’s total direct learning expenditure by the number of employees. This calculation includes most costs associated with the design, development, implementation and evaluation of training including:
- Staff salaries, including taxes and benefits
- Travel costs for staff
- Administrative costs
- Non-salary development costs
- Delivery costs (facilities and learning technology infrastructure)
- Supplier expense
- Tuition reimbursement
This cost does not include cost of employee travel and living or cost for their time spent in training events.
In 2022, the average direct learning expense was $1,220 per employee. The annual average has been trending downward slightly since 2018.
| Small <100 employees | Medium 100 – 2,499 ee | Large >2,500 employees |
| $1,814 | $1,121 | $809 |
Want to know where your organization stands against these numbers? You could make a quick (and easy) calculation by dividing your total budget for talent development by the total number of employees. For a more accurate calculation, use data for all of the parameters suggested above.
Learning Hours
Learning hours used is calculated by determining the total learning hours offered and multiplying by the number of employees who took them. Example: A 2-day manager development course offers 12 hours active learning, and 200 employees completed the course.
12 hours x 200 = 2,400 learning hours
Divide this result by the total number of FTE employees to calculate learning hours per employee.
2,400 hours / 600 employees = 4 learning hours/employee
In 2022, the average number of learning hours used per employee was 20.7 for formal learning not embedded in work activities. Organizations in the healthcare and social assistance sector used 28.5 hours which is higher than the consolidated average.
Average Learning hours used per employee, by organization size
| Small organizations <100 employees | Medium organizations 100 – 2,499 employees | Large organizations >2,500 employees |
| 25.8 | 14.0 | 40.6 |
Cost per learning hour
The cost per learning hour used is calculated by dividing the total expenditure for Talent Development by the total number of learning hours used by employees.
The average cost/learning hour for 2022 was $115 USD which is an increase from previous years and most likely a result of a drop in the number of learning hours used per employee.
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
| $78 | $77 | $76 | $103 | $115 |
Want to know where your organization stands against these numbers? You’ll need data from a source such as your learning management system or other training records to find data on learning hours consumed. Request a report with total learning hours per training event and the number of people who completed the training. Your HRIS and/or HRBPs are good sources of data for employee headcount. You’ll also need data from your budget, accounting tools, or finance team.
Talent Development Staffing
In 2022, the average (mean) number of talent development staff members was 26 employees. This headcount includes various roles including:
- Chief TD Officers
- TD/LD Directors and Managers
- Administrative Staff
- Instructional Designers
- Trainers/Facilitators
- E-Learning Developers
- Evaluators
- Performance Improvement personnel
The average number of TD staff members by organization size is in the table below. As expected, larger organizations have more TD staff members.
| Small organizations <100 employees | Medium organizations 100 – 2,499 employees | Large organizations >2,500 employees |
| 11 | 19 | 70 |
Should you ask for additional staffing?
Talent development teams are often understaffed in most organizations. Therefore, understanding the TD staff to employee ratio is a good benchmarking tool to evaluate the headcount on your team. The trends for the last several years reflect staffing practices and also how we delivered training in response to the pandemic.
To calculate your Talent Development staff to employee ratio, divide the total number of employees by the number of employees in Talent Development roles.
You’ll need data from a source such as your HRIS and/or HRBPs to identify total employee headcount and number of employees in a TD role within the organization.
Outsourcing
Many organizations indicated that they invest a portion of their budget for learning supplier expenses. The data indicates that outsourcing is common practice for many organizations in order to supplement their capacity to serve their clients. Common learning supplier expenses include consultants and services, content development and licenses, facilitation, production, and administrative services for training programs delivered by outside providers. (Great news for PPS-SyNet as we provide all of these services!) Thirty-nine (39%, or 2 in 5) of the organizations surveyed indicated that 25%-75% of total expenses are for learning suppliers.
To calculate your direct learning expenditure, identify and sum all expenses for products and services from external suppliers which are used in the talent development function.
You’ll need data from your budget, accounting, or perhaps from your finance team. If you have not made an ally with an individual from the finance team, we highly recommend you develop this relationship.
Why?
When organization’s need to take out cost, the training budget is usually one of the first targets unless your stakeholders, including the finance person, is educated to the impact versus the cost of your training programs.
ATD releases the Annual SOIR report in the first quarter of each calendar year for data collected in the previous calendar year. For example, the 2023 SOIR publication, released in early 2024, is based on survey data collected in 2022.