HR and learning leaders report that widening skills gaps are leaving organizations unprepared for the demands of a changing economy, with only about 10 percent of 1,000 surveyed HR and learning professionals fully confident their workforce is appropriately skilled to meet business goals over the next one to two years.
Although a large majority say they have some form of talent development system, very few rate those programs as outstanding. Only about 20 percent say their development strategies truly align with company objectives, indicating a disconnect between learning efforts and business needs.
The most acute shortages are in leadership, artificial intelligence, and technology-related competencies, which are increasingly central to business transformation and long-term competitiveness.
Survey respondents identify several core barriers to effective learning, including insufficient attention to employee engagement and a pattern of promoting employees into new roles without adequate preparation or training, which undermines both performance and development.
Managers, frequently among those most in need of development, often lack time to participate in training.
Source: https://www.hrdive.com/news/employee-skills-lacking/759557/
Commentary
Workplace talent development is often framed around technical upskilling, leadership competencies, and innovation, but its most critical starting point is training that safeguards the organization by preventing wrongdoing and promoting ethics – doing the right thing -in daily operations.
Executive leadership sets the tone for this priority: when development strategies begin with ethics, compliance, safety, respect and accountability, every subsequent investment in skills rests on a stable foundation of trust and organizational integrity. Without that foundation, even the most sophisticated technical or leadership training can be undermined by misconduct, legal exposure, or reputational damage, all of which directly threaten strategic goals and shareholder value.
Beginning talent development with content focused on preventing harassment, fraud, retaliation, data misuse, safety violations, and other forms of workplace misconduct signals clearly that how results are achieved matters as much as the results themselves.
This focus should go beyond rule recitation and instead shape decision-making norms: leaders and employees must be trained to recognize risk patterns, speak up early, respond to concerns appropriately. Utilize ethical and safety considerations into routine business judgments. When ethics are explicitly taught, discussed, and reinforced through training, coaching, and performance expectations, ethical conduct becomes a practiced skill rather than an assumed personal trait. This reduces reliance on individual discretion and increases consistency across the enterprise.
The final takeaway is that by focusing on safety, security, and ethics, leadership enables the conditions for long-term organizational health.
