In the current economic landscape, the pace of technological and market evolution is relentless. Workers at every level are facing a new reality where the skills that ensured their productivity yesterday may not be sufficient for the demands of tomorrow. This constant state of flux necessitates a culture of continuous learning and adaptation. Upskilling and reskilling programs are no longer a peripheral benefit but a core strategic imperative for any organization that wishes to remain competitive. These programs are the bridge between the current capabilities of the workforce and the future needs of the business. They are essential for building resilience, fostering innovation, and ensuring that employees can navigate the complexities of modern work. Without a dedicated focus on talent development, organizations risk facing significant skill gaps, decreased productivity, and an inability to harness the potential of new technologies. The challenge, however, is that simply offering a training program is not a guarantee of success. Many organizations fall into the trap of a “rinse-and-repeat” approach, deploying the same training modules year after year without evaluating their true impact. This stagnation is dangerous. An ineffective talent development program is not just a waste of resources; it actively disengages employees and fails to serve their needs. To build a program that delivers real value, it is essential to first understand the perspective of the learners themselves. We must move beyond assumptions and gather concrete data on what constitutes an effective program, what skills employees believe are necessary, and critically, what stops them from engaging in the learning opportunities presented to them.
A Global Study on the State of Enterprise Skilling
To move from assumption to action, a comprehensive research initiative was undertaken to understand the precise state of enterprise skilling from the employee’s point of view. A survey of 2,500 full-time employees across major global markets, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and India, was conducted. This diverse cohort provided a broad snapshot of learner sentiments across different industries, roles, and cultural contexts. The primary goal of this research was to identify the most significant barriers that prevent employees from participating in talent development. By understanding these hurdles, learning and development professionals can begin to dismantle them and design more effective, accessible, and engaging skilling initiatives. The survey was designed to explore several critical facets of the learning experience. Participants were asked to identify the skills they believed were most crucial for their immediate job success and long-term career growth. They provided feedback on what, in their view, constitutes an effective and impactful talent development program. Furthermore, the research delved into the growing influence of artificial intelligence on their work, their perceptions of AI-related skills, and their anxieties about the future. The findings from this research provide a clear roadmap for organizations, highlighting critical gaps in perception and delivery that must be addressed to foster a true culture of continuous learning.
The Overwhelming Barrier: A Universal Lack of Time
The data from the 2,500 learners revealed a clear and dominant obstacle to upskilling: a profound lack of time. This single barrier was cited more frequently than any other, with 42% of all respondents identifying it as the primary reason they do not engage more with training. This finding is significant not just for its magnitude but for its margin. It was chosen over ten percentage points more often than the next closest barrier, demonstrating that time scarcity is not just one item on a list of challenges, but a categorical problem that overshadows all others. This “time famine” is a critical issue that organizations must confront directly. It suggests that employees often feel forced to choose between their immediate job responsibilities and their long-term personal development, and the urgent tasks of the day almost always win out. This lack of time is a symptom of a deeper cultural and operational issue. It reflects a workplace environment where workloads are so demanding that there is no mental or calendar space left for learning. Employees may be interested in acquiring new skills, but they are buried under project deadlines, meetings, and administrative tasks. Until organizations actively create and protect dedicated time for learning, even the best-designed training programs will suffer from low engagement. This barrier cannot be overcome with better content alone; it requires a structural and cultural shift that explicitly values and enables learning as a core part of the job, not as an optional extra-curricular activity.
A Scarcity of Viable Learning Options
Following the primary barrier of time, the second most frequently cited obstacle was a lack of options, identified by 30% of respondents. This finding points to a critical mismatch between the learning modalities organizations offer and the methods employees find effective or engaging. A one-size-fits-all approach to training, such as relying exclusively on text-based modules or mandatory all-day seminars, is clearly failing to meet the diverse needs of the modern workforce. Employees have different learning styles, preferences, and schedules. Some may thrive in a self-paced, video-based environment, while others require the structured feedback and social interaction of a live, instructor-led course. When an organization’s learning catalog feels limited, employees become disengaged and view training as a chore rather than an opportunity. This lack of options can also be interpreted as a lack of flexibility. Workers today, particularly those in hybrid or remote settings, need to integrate learning into their complex schedules. They may want to watch a short video on their commute, participate in an interactive simulation between meetings, or dedicate a full day to a deep-dive workshop. If the only options available are rigid and inconvenient, employees will simply opt out. Providing a rich, multi-modal learning ecosystem that includes on-demand content, experiential training, and expert-led sessions is crucial. This addresses the practical needs of the learner and signals that the organization respects their individual preferences, thereby increasing the perceived value and appeal of the training programs.
The Leadership Disconnect: Poor Support from Management
Tied for the third most significant barrier, at 26%, was a perceived lack of support from leadership. This is a critical failure point, as managers and senior leaders set the tone for the entire organization’s learning culture. Employees are highly attuned to the signals sent by their direct supervisors. If a manager treats training as a low-priority item, something to be done only “if you find the time,” or worse, actively discourages employees from taking time away from their “real work” to learn, the message is clear: development is not truly valued. This lack of active, vocal support from leadership effectively neutralizes any formal learning and development policy the company may have on paper. Poor support can manifest in several ways. It can be passive, such as managers failing to discuss development goals in one-on-one meetings or not recognizing and rewarding employees who acquire new skills. Or it can be active, such as denying requests for training time due to project pressures. This barrier is particularly damaging because it creates a sense of futility. Why should an employee invest effort in learning if their own manager doesn’t see the value in it? Organizations must train their managers to be learning advocates, equipping them to have meaningful development conversations, help their team members identify relevant skills, and actively champion the importance of setting aside time for upskilling.
The Relevance Gap: When Training Fails to Connect
Also cited by 26% of respondents was a lack of relevant content. This barrier highlights a fundamental disconnect between the training being offered and the actual skills employees need to perform their jobs successfully or advance their careers. When learners browse a company’s training library and find that the content is outdated, too generic, or completely misaligned with their daily challenges, they quickly become disillusioned. This irrelevance makes training feel like a waste of time, which exacerbates the number one barrier. If an employee is already struggling to find time to learn, they will be extremely reluctant to spend that precious time on content that offers no clear, immediate, or future benefit. To bridge this relevance gap, learning and development teams must move away from a top-down, prescriptive approach. Instead, they need to establish robust feedback loops with employees and department heads to understand what skills are genuinely needed on the ground. This involves analyzing job roles, mapping career paths, and staying ahead of technological trends impacting specific teams. The content offered must be directly applicable, practical, and tailored to different roles and experience levels. When employees see a direct link between a training module and their ability to solve a problem, complete a task more efficiently, or achieve a career goal, their motivation to engage increases exponentially.
Financial Hurdles and Perceived Budget Constraints
The fifth most common barrier, identified by 24% of employees, was a lack of budget. This obstacle can be interpreted in two primary ways, both of which are problematic for a learning culture. On one hand, this can be a literal barrier where employees are denied access to specific external courses, certifications, or conferences because the department or a manager claims there are no funds available. This sends a direct message that the organization is unwilling to invest financially in its people, which can be deeply demotivating and lead to feelings of being undervalued. It can also create inequities, where some teams or individuals receive funding while others do not, fostering resentment. On the other hand, a “lack of budget” can also be a perception or an excuse used to mask other issues. It might be the reason a manager gives when they are unwilling to approve a request for reasons related to time or perceived relevance. Sometimes, the organization itself may prioritize spending in other areas, leaving the learning and development budget chronically underfunded. This prevents the L&D team from acquiring high-quality, diverse, and modern learning resources, directly leading to the other barriers of “lack of options” and “lack of relevant content.” Regardless of the root cause, a budget constraint signals to employees that their growth is not a financial priority, which undermines the entire talent development initiative.
Defining the ‘Time Famine’ in the Modern Workplace
The finding that 42% of employees identify “lack of time” as the primary barrier to training is a stark indictment of the modern work environment. This isn’t just a matter of poor personal time management; it’s a systemic issue, a “time famine” created by a culture of perpetual busyness and overwhelming workloads. In today’s hyper-connected, always-on workplace, many employees feel they are constantly racing against the clock, juggling competing priorities, and struggling to keep their heads above water. The expectation is often to be maximally productive at all times, focusing exclusively on tasks that deliver immediate, measurable output. In this environment, activities like learning, which are future-oriented and less immediately quantifiable, are relegated to the bottom of the priority list. This time famine is perpetuated by organizational structures that reward short-term output over long-term capability building. Employees who are visibly “busy” are often praised, while those who block out time for learning may be seen as less committed to their immediate deliverables. This creates a powerful disincentive. Furthermore, inefficient processes, excessive meetings, and constant digital interruptions chip away at the finite hours in a workday, leaving employees with only small, fragmented pockets of time that are not conducive to deep, focused learning. The complaint of “no time” is not an excuse; it is a genuine reflection of a work culture that has not yet learned how to integrate learning into the flow of work itself.
The Psychology of Busyness: Why Learning Feels Impossible
Beyond the practical constraints of a packed schedule, the feeling of “busyness” has a profound psychological impact that creates a mental barrier to learning. When an individual feels constantly overwhelmed, their cognitive load increases dramatically. This mental exhaustion makes the prospect of taking on another “task,” even a beneficial one like training, feel completely untenable. Learning requires mental energy, focus, and the capacity to absorb and process new information. An employee who is stressed, burnt out, and preoccupied with an overflowing inbox simply does not have the cognitive resources available to engage in effective learning. Their brain is in survival mode, not growth mode. Moreover, this psychological state can create a form of tunnel vision. Employees become hyper-focused on clearing their immediate to-do list, as this provides a small, tangible sense of accomplishment and relief. Long-term goals, such as acquiring a new skill, feel abstract and distant. The perceived “activation energy” required to start a course—to find the right content, log into the system, and focus the mind—can seem insurmountably high compared to the familiar, reactive work that fills their day. This is why simply providing access to a learning library is insufficient. The organization must also address the underlying culture of overwork and stress that makes learning feel like an impossible burden rather than an energizing opportunity.
Urgent vs. Important: How Daily Tasks Overwhelm Development Goals
The conflict between time for skilling and the demands of the job is a classic example of the “urgent vs. important” matrix. The daily tasks of the job—answering emails, attending meetings, meeting project deadlines, and handling client requests—are almost always urgent. They demand immediate attention and have visible, short-term consequences if ignored. Upskilling, on the other hand, is important. It is crucial for the employee’s long-term career growth and the organization’s future competitiveness, but it rarely has a deadline attached to it. In the daily battle for an employee’s time, the urgent consistently triumphs over the important. This dynamic is reinforced by most corporate performance management systems, which are heavily weighted toward short-term, output-based metrics. An employee is evaluated on their project completion, their sales numbers, or their customer satisfaction scores, not on the number of learning hours they completed. Until learning becomes an explicit and valued part of an employee’s performance goals, it will remain a “nice-to-have” activity that is perpetually pushed aside. Without a structural change that elevates the importance of learning to the same level as other key performance indicators, employees will continue to make the rational choice to prioritize the urgent tasks that their job security and compensation directly depend on.
Cultural Culprits: When the Company Values ‘Being Busy’ Over Learning
Company culture plays a decisive role in either alleviating or exacerbating the time famine. In many organizations, a “culture of busyness” dominates. This is an environment where employees wear their exhaustion as a badge of honor, where working long hours is equated with dedication, and where calendars are packed back-to-back with meetings as a sign of importance. In such a culture, taking time out for learning can be seen as a sign of weakness or a lack of commitment. An employee who blocks off two hours for an online course may fear being judged by colleagues or their manager for not being “on the grid” and contributing to immediate team goals. This toxic cultural norm is a powerful deterrent. Even if the company has a stated policy supporting learning, the unwritten rules of the culture will always be more powerful. To combat this, leaders must actively model the desired behavior. When senior executives and managers openly share that they are blocking time for their own learning, it sends a powerful message that development is a priority for everyone, regardless of rank. The organization must actively celebrate and reward learning, shifting the cultural narrative from “I’m too busy to learn” to “learning is a critical part of how I succeed at my job.” This requires a conscious and sustained effort to dismantle the glorification of busyness.
The Manager’s Role in Perpetuating Time Scarcity
While senior leadership sets the overall cultural tone, it is the direct manager who controls an employee’s day-to-day reality. Managers are the gatekeepers of time. A manager who is unsupportive of learning—the third-biggest barrier cited in the study—is often the primary reason employees feel they have “no time.” This manager may pile on unrealistic workloads, creating a situation where the employee is forced into overtime just to complete their core tasks, leaving zero capacity for development. They may deny requests for training time, citing project deadlines or team coverage, effectively blocking the employee’s access to learning. Even well-intentioned managers can inadvertently contribute to the problem. If a manager fails to have proactive conversations about development, they signal that it isn’t a priority. If they don’t help their team members identify the most critical skills to learn, the employee may feel overwhelmed by the options and unsure where to start, leading to inaction. Managers must be trained and incentivized to be talent developers. Their role should include workload management that purposefully carves out capacity for learning, coaching employees on their development plans, and connecting that learning back to the team’s goals. Without the manager’s active partnership, the time famine for their direct reports will only worsen.
Strategies for Auditing and Reclaiming Time for Skilling
Solving the time barrier requires more than just telling employees to “find the time.” It demands a proactive, structural approach from the organization. One powerful strategy is to conduct a “time audit.” Teams can track their time for a week to identify where hours are truly going. This often reveals a startling amount of time lost to low-value meetings, inefficient workflows, and constant digital distractions. By identifying these time sinks, teams can work to eliminate them, such as by implementing “no-meeting” days, setting clear meeting agendas, or protecting blocks of “deep work” time. This process doesn’t just free up time; it makes the entire team more productive and less stressed. Once time is reclaimed, it must be protected. Organizations can implement formal policies that institutionalize learning. This might include a company-wide “learning hour” each week, providing employees with a “learning stipend” of a certain number of hours per quarter, or even building learning “sprints” into the project cycle. By officially sanctiong time for learning, the company removes the guilt and uncertainty employees feel. It transforms learning from a personal, off-the-clock burden into a legitimate and valued part of the workweek. This structural commitment is the most effective way to demonstrate that the organization is serious about development and is willing to invest its most valuable resource—employee time—to make it happen.
The ‘Lack of Options’ Barrier: A Deeper Look
The second-most-cited barrier, a lack of options, reveals a critical failure in how many organizations curate and deliver their learning content. This barrier, noted by 30% of employees, is not merely about the quantity of courses in a catalog. It is about the quality, variety, and flexibility of the learning experiences offered. A massive library of text-heavy, outdated modules is not a rich selection of options; it’s a digital graveyard that learners will visit once and never return to. Employees today expect a consumer-grade experience from their learning platforms, similar to what they encounter in their personal lives. They want content that is engaging, relevant, and available in formats that fit their lives and learning preferences. A true lack of options means the organization is failing to cater to diverse learning styles. Some individuals are visual learners who thrive on video content. Others are kinesthetic learners who need hands-on, interactive simulations. Many value the social aspect of learning and prefer live, cohort-based courses where they can interact with peers and an expert instructor. When an organization over-invests in one modality—typically low-cost, self-paced, asynchronous courses—it alienates large segments of its workforce. Addressing this barrier requires a strategic investment in a multi-modal learning ecosystem. This blended approach provides multiple pathways for employees to acquire the same skill, allowing them to choose the method that works best for them.
Deconstructing ‘Poor Support from Leadership’
Poor support from leadership, tied for the third-biggest barrier at 26%, is one of the most corrosive obstacles to building a learning culture. This issue operates on two levels: executive leadership and direct management. At the executive level, support cannot be passive. It is not enough for the chief learning officer or head of human resources to champion skilling. The entire C-suite, including the CEO and CFO, must vocally and visibly prioritize talent development. They must talk about it in all-hands meetings, tie it to the company’s strategic business goals, and, most importantly, allocate the necessary resources—both time and money—to support the initiative. When employees see the very top of the organization investing in and participating in learning, it legitimizes the entire effort. On a more immediate and impactful level is the support from an employee’s direct manager. This support, or lack thereof, is a daily reality. A manager who is unsupportive can single-handedly derail their team’s development. This poor support can be subtle, such as consistently prioritizing short-term tasks over learning goals during one-on-ones, or it can be overt, like dismissing an employee’s request to attend a workshop. To fix this, managers must be held accountable for the development of their teams. Their performance reviews and compensation should be tied to their ability to coach, mentor, and create opportunities for their reports to grow. They need to be trained to connect their team’s skilling to the team’s performance, transforming them from gatekeepers into active facilitators of learning.
The Crippling Effect of Irrelevant Content
A lack of relevant content, also cited by 26% of learners, makes any training initiative feel like a pointless academic exercise. When employees invest their scarce time in a training module only to find the information is generic, outdated, or completely disconnected from their real-world job functions, they feel their time has been wasted. This experience breeds cynicism and creates a strong disincentive to try again. The relevance gap can stem from an L&D department that is disconnected from the business’s day-to-day operations. They may purchase off-the-shelf content libraries that promise to cover thousands of topics but offer no real depth or specialization, resulting in a “mile wide, inch deep” problem. To ensure relevance, learning content must be dynamic and tightly aligned with the specific needs of different business units. This requires L&D professionals to act more like internal consultants, actively partnering with department heads and subject matter experts to identify critical skill gaps. The content should be practical and applicable, focusing on “how to” rather than just “what is.” Furthermore, personalization is key. Modern learning platforms should be able to recommend content based on an employee’s role, current skills, and stated career aspirations. By curating learning pathways that are clearly and directly linked to an employee’s job and future, organizations can transform training from a mandatory chore into a valued resource for professional growth.
The ‘Lack of Budget’ Excuse and Its Consequences
The barrier of “lack of budget,” cited by 24% of employees, is often more a question of priority than of actual financial impossibility. While some organizations are genuinely resource-constrained, in many cases, the learning budget is simply the first to be cut or the last to be approved. This financial neglect has cascading consequences that directly cause the other barriers. A perpetually underfunded L&D department cannot afford to invest in a diverse, multi-modal learning ecosystem, leading to a “lack of options.” It cannot afford to purchase or create high-quality, specialized, and up-to-date courses, leading to a “lack of relevant content.” It cannot afford to implement the robust learning platforms that provide the analytics needed to prove the program’s value. When employees are told “it’s not in the budget,” the message they hear is “you are not a priority.” This perceived lack of investment can be devastating to morale and engagement. It suggests the company is not willing to invest in their future, which in turn encourages employees to look for opportunities elsewhere—at a competitor who is. Organizations must reframe learning and development not as a cost center, but as a critical strategic investment in their most important asset. The return on investment from a skilled, engaged, and loyal workforce almost always far outweighs the cost of the training programs themselves. Failing to allocate an adequate budget is a short-sighted decision that mortgages the company’s future for a minor short-term saving.
How the Barriers Feed on Each Other
It is crucial to understand that these top five barriers do not exist in isolation. They form a deeply interconnected and self-reinforcing cycle of dysfunction. An employee who already feels a “lack of time” will have zero tolerance for a “lack of relevant content.” Wasting their precious time on an irrelevant course makes them even more resistant to future training, reinforcing the time barrier. A “lack of options” that fails to provide flexible, on-demand learning makes it impossible for an employee with no time to engage. “Poor support from leadership” is the managerial action that directly enforces the “lack of time,” as managers prioritize immediate tasks over learning. And the “lack of budget” is often the root cause that prevents the L&D team from solving the content and options problem. This vicious cycle can create a deep sense of apathy and helplessness within the workforce. No single solution will work. Simply buying a new content library will not solve the time or leadership support problem. Implementing a new “learning hours” policy will fail if the content is irrelevant. To truly succeed, organizations must adopt a holistic strategy that addresses all of these barriers simultaneously. They must create time, ensure leadership buy-in, provide a rich variety of relevant content, and allocate a budget that reflects the strategic importance of skilling.
The Learner’s Verdict: A Widespread Program Deficit
The most damning finding from the research, beyond the specific barriers, is the overall sentiment toward existing talent development programs. A staggering 75% of the 2,500 respondents—three out of every four employees—feel that their organization’s talent development programs have significant gaps. This is a clear and powerful indictment of the status quo. It indicates that the majority of programs are falling short of learner expectations and failing to deliver on their core promise. This dissatisfaction is the cumulative result of the barriers identified: programs are hard to find time for, they lack options, they are not championed by leaders, and the content feels irrelevant. This 75% figure should serve as a major wake-up call for L&D professionals and business leaders. This widespread feeling of a “significant gap” highlights a profound disconnect between the L&D department’s output and the workforce’s needs. It suggests that many programs are designed in a vacuum, based on assumptions about what employees need rather than on data-driven insights. The “rinse-and-repeat” approach, where the same generic compliance training and outdated soft-skills modules are rolled out year after year, is a primary contributor to this sentiment. Employees are signaling that these token efforts are not enough. They are seeking comprehensive, interactive, and effective learning solutions that genuinely help them develop essential skills, and in most cases, they are not finding them.
The Demand for Online, Video-Based Training
When asked what training models they wanted to see more investment in, the top choice, cited by 39% of respondents, was online, video-based training. This preference is a logical response to the number one barrier: lack of time. Video-based learning offers the flexibility and “on-demand” nature that busy professionals require. They can access content when it is most convenient for them, whether that is in a 15-minute block between meetings, during their commute, or as part of a dedicated learning session. Microlearning, which breaks down complex topics into short, digestible videos, is particularly well-suited to this need, allowing employees to learn in the flow of their work without having to commit to a multi-hour course. The popularity of this format also speaks to its effectiveness as an engaging medium. Compared to static text documents or dense manuals, a well-produced video can convey information more effectively, using visual aids, expert narration, and real-world examples. It caters to visual and auditory learners and is a familiar format for a generation accustomed to learning from online video platforms in their personal lives. For organizations, this finding underscores the need to invest in a high-quality, modern learning platform that has a robust library of video content. It also suggests that L&D teams should develop their own custom video content for topics specific to the company, ensuring relevance and boosting engagement.
The Equal Pull of Experiential and Live Instruction
While flexible, self-paced video is the top preference, it is not the only one. Tied for the second-most-desired training model, at 37%, were two methods that are fundamentally different: interactive or experiential training, and live instructor-led training. This is a crucial insight. It proves that employees do not want a purely asynchronous, self-serve model. They also crave active, social, and guided learning experiences. This debunks the myth that employees only want to be left alone to learn at their own pace. It shows they understand that different skills require different learning methods. The desire for interactive and experiential training highlights a need for “learning by doing.” Employees don’t just want to read about a new software; they want to use it in a safe, simulated environment. They don’t just want to watch a video about negotiation; they want to participate in a role-playing exercise with immediate feedback. Modalities like virtual reality, augmented reality, gamification, and hands-on labs are highly effective for building and retaining complex skills. These methods are more engaging, lead to better knowledge retention, and give employees the confidence to apply their new skills in the real world. A lack of these options makes training feel passive and theoretical.
The Enduring Value of the Human Element
The fact that 37% of respondents also want more investment in live, instructor-led training (ILT) is a powerful reminder of the value of the human element. In an increasingly digital workplace, employees still crave the real-time interaction, personalized feedback, and structured guidance that only a live expert can provide. ILT, whether delivered in person or virtually, allows for nuanced discussion, immediate clarification of doubts, and cohort-based learning where employees can interact with and learn from their peers. This social learning aspect is incredibly valuable for complex topics, leadership development, and power skills like communication and collaboration. This finding directly challenges the notion that all training can or should be automated and scaled. It serves as a caution against over-investing in asynchronous-only solutions in a misguided attempt to be more “efficient.” A truly effective skilling program is not one-size-fits-all; it is multi-modal. It provides a blended learning journey that might start with self-paced video content, move to an interactive simulation, and culminate in a live, expert-led workshop to discuss application and challenges. The data is clear: learners want a balanced diet of learning options, and organizations that fail to provide this blend of self-paced, interactive, and instructor-led content are contributing to the 75% dissatisfaction rate.
Designing a Multi-Modal Approach to Bridge the Gap
The solution to the content and delivery mismatch is to adopt a deliberate, multi-modal approach. Addressing the fact that learners want video, interactive sessions, and live instruction does not mean simply buying one of each. It means designing coherent learning journeys that leverage the strengths of each modality. For example, a “leadership skills” pathway could be built this way: It might begin with a series of on-demand videos (39% preference) defining core concepts. This could be followed by an interactive, scenario-based simulation (37% preference) where the learner has to make difficult management decisions. Finally, the learner would join a live virtual workshop (37% preference) with a cohort of peers and an executive coach to discuss their experiences and refine their approach. This blended approach directly addresses the key barriers. The on-demand components respect the employee’s time, while the interactive and live elements provide the engaging, high-fidelity experience they are asking for. By evaluating the skills teams need and mapping them to the most effective delivery method, organizations can move beyond a generic catalog and create purposeful learning paths. This strategy directly addresses the “lack of options” and “lack of relevant content” barriers. It empowers employees by giving them choices, and it delivers a more engaging and effective experience, ultimately helping to close the significant gaps that three-quarters of the workforce currently perceive.
Defining the Four Critical Skill Categories
The research found that across all levels of an organization—from senior leaders and management to individual contributors—the same four categories of skills are consistently ranked as the most important. This is a positive sign, indicating a general consensus on what capabilities matter. These four categories are: power skills, technical skills, AI skills, and leadership skills. Power skills, often mislabeled as “soft skills,” are the fundamental human competencies that enable effective interaction, such as communication, collaboration, emotional intelligence, and critical thinking. Technical skills are the practical, role-specific abilities needed to perform a job, such as cloud computing, data analysis, or software development. AI skills represent a new and rapidly emerging category, encompassing aptitudes like prompt engineering, understanding the capabilities of generative AI models, and identifying AI-produced errors or hallucinations. Finally, leadership skills, which are distinct from management, include proficiencies like strategic thinking, decisiveness, delegation, and inspiring and motivating teams. The fact that all segments of the workforce agree on the importance of these four pillars is a solid foundation. However, the prioritization of these skills reveals a critical disconnect between what leaders are focused on and what their teams are experiencing.
The Executive vs. Employee Priority Mismatch
While all groups valued the four skill categories, their ranking exposed a significant perception gap. The executive team—the C-suite and senior leaders—prioritized the skills in this order: Leadership (24%), AI (23%), Technical (22%), and Power (20%). This ranking shows a strong, forward-looking focus on high-level strategy and emerging technology. Their emphasis on leadership is natural given their roles, and their high prioritization of AI skills reflects their focus on future-proofing the business and harnessing new technologies for a competitive advantage. In stark contrast, management and their teams—the people on the front lines—ranked the same skills very differently. Their order of priority was: Power (24%), Leadership (23%), Technical (22%), and AI (13%). The most glaring difference is the perception of AI. While executives see AI skills as the second most critical priority (23%), the rest of the organization ranks them as a distant fourth (13%). This ten-percentage-point gap is massive. It suggests that while leaders are focused on the strategic potential of AI, their employees are more focused on the practical skills they need today, with power skills like communication and collaboration topping their list. This misalignment can lead to training programs that miss the mark, pushing AI training on a workforce that is more concerned with mastering core power and leadership skills.
The AI Training Effectiveness Gap
This disconnect in priority is mirrored by a chasm in the perceived effectiveness of AI-specific training. The research revealed a stark, top-down gradient in satisfaction. A staggering 72% of individual contributors—the very people who are expected to use these new tools—rated their organization’s AI-specific training programs as “poor to average.” This number suggests that the vast majority of current AI training is failing to provide practical, role-relevant skills. As we move up the organizational chart, this perception improves dramatically. Only 60% of middle management rated AI training as poor to average, and for executives, this number dropped to just 44%. This “effectiveness gap” is alarming. It means that the leaders who are championing AI adoption are the most satisfied with the training, while the employees who are actually using the tools are the most dissatisfied. There are multiple potential causes for this. It could be a failure of communication, where leadership’s strategic vision for AI is not being clearly translated into practical use cases for frontline teams. It could be that the training itself is too theoretical, designed by people who don’t understand the daily workflows of individual contributors. Given that “poor support from leadership” was a key barrier to skilling, it is highly likely that the insights influencing leaders are not the same as those shaping the experience of the broader organization.
Confusion in the Ranks: The Impact of the AI Disconnect
The low priority and low effectiveness ratings for AI skills among managers and their teams can inform companies about the reality of AI adoption. While generative AI models and other tools may be integrated into the organization’s technology stack, this data suggests their actual day-to-day usage may be low. This low adoption is likely driven by confusion. Managers and their teams may not understand how or why they should be using these tools in their specific roles. If the training is “poor to average,” it fails to bridge this understanding gap, leaving employees to guess at the utility of these powerful new technologies. This leads to wasted investment in AI tools that sit unused. This disconnect can also fuel anxiety. When employees hear executives constantly talking about the importance of AI, but they personally don’t understand how to use it and see no relevance to their job, it can create fear. They may worry that this technology they don’t understand is coming to replace them. The organization’s push for AI, combined with its failure to provide effective, relevant training, directly contributes to the job security fears that were also identified in the research. It creates a sense of being unprepared for a future that leadership seems tobe racing toward without them.
Skill Gaps and the Erosion of Job Security
The consequence of these content gaps and priority mismatches is not just frustration; it’s a genuine fear for job security. The research found that 41% of all respondents are somewhat or strongly concerned about being replaced or shifted into an undesirable role due to a lack of skills. This is a significant portion of the workforce operating with a baseline level of anxiety about their future. This fear is not evenly distributed. Management and those above are even more likely to have these fears, with 57% expressing concern. This suggests that leaders and managers are acutely aware of the shifting landscape and feel the pressure to keep their own skills current. This higher-ranking group is prioritizing technical skills (24%) and AI (20%) alongside power and leadership skills. This focus is likely a direct response to the rise of AI tools, as they scramble to understand the technologies that are set to transform their teams and business units. However, this anxiety may be partially misplaced. Some analysis from global economic organizations estimates that AI will ultimately create more jobs than it displaces. The real challenge is not a simple replacement of workers, but a massive need for reskilling and a focus on transferable skills. The implementation of AI is, therefore, a challenge of change management, internal mobility, and helping the workforce adapt, rather than simply a technological one. The current skills gap is fueling this anxiety, and organizations must address it to maintain an engaged and confident workforce.
The Imperative for a New Organizational Commitment
The longevity and prosperity of any business in the modern era revolve around its ability to build and maintain an engaged, dynamic, and skilled workforce. The research findings paint a clear picture of the obstacles hindering this goal: a pervasive lack of time, a mismatch in content and delivery, a disconnect in priorities between leaders and teams, and a resulting anxiety about job security. These are not minor issues; they are fundamental barriers to growth and innovation. To remain competitive and agile, organizations must make a new, deep, and actionable commitment to creating a genuine culture of learning. This transformation will not happen overnight, nor will it happen without deliberate and sustained investment. It requires a holistic strategy that dismantles the barriers and empowers employees to meet their skilling goals.
Encourage and Protect Time for Learning
The first and most critical action is to directly address the number one barrier: the lack of time. Organizations must move from a passive “open-door” policy on learning to an active, structural one. Business leaders must encourage employees to set aside time regularly for upskilling. This cannot be a vague suggestion; it must be concrete. This could mean completing an online skills course, reading an informative book, or attending a workshop. To truly demonstrate the importance of this, organizations should consider developing a new, formal policy that allocates a specific amount of time for learning—for example, a “Focus Friday” afternoon for all employees, or a quarterly “skilling stipend” of a set number of hours. This formal policy does more than just give employees permission to learn; it changes the cultural narrative. It signals that learning is not an extracurricular activity but a core component of the job. This, in turn, helps encourage managers to support their direct reports on their skilling journey. When learning time is protected at the company level, it becomes much harder for a manager to deny that time, directly addressing the “poor leadership support” barrier. This structural change validates the employee’s effort and ensures that the “urgent” tasks of the day do not perpetually crowd out the “important” goal of development.
Improve Skilling Programs Through Iteration and Multimodality
The finding that 75% of employees see “significant gaps” in current programs is a clear mandate for evaluation and iteration. L&D leaders must stop the “rinse-and-repeat” cycle and critically evaluate their current training initiatives. This means ensuring that programs offer multimodal and blended learning options that cater to the different learning styles and preferences revealed in the research. The catalog must be a balanced ecosystem of on-demand, video-based training for flexibility; interactive and experiential training (like simulations and gamification) for engagement; and live instructor-led training for deep, collaborative learning. Organizations should also explore new and emerging techniques to enhance learner engagement and knowledge retention. This includes leveraging AI-coaching tools that can provide personalized feedback, and adaptive learning paths that adjust in difficulty based on the learner’s progress. Crucially, this iteration must be informed by the workforce. L&D must establish core skill priorities in direct partnership with department and team leads. This ensures that the content is relevant and that employees feel their training time is productive and valued. This targeted, multi-modal approach directly attacks the barriers of “lack of options” and “lack of relevant content.”
Ensure Effective L&D Modalities Through Continuous Feedback
To build programs that are truly effective, organizations must establish robust channels for gathering data. Considering the low confidence many respondents have in current training, especially for AI skills, it is necessary to ensure the modalities chosen are appropriate for the intended learners and the topic. L&D departments must become data-driven. This means using surveys, focus groups, and post-training assessments to understand current competencies and to provide a path for employees to share what they find most useful for different topics. Asking employees “What was the most effective way you learned a new skill last year?” can provide more valuable insights than a simple satisfaction score. This feedback loop allows for continuous improvement. If a new video series on data analysis is getting low engagement, the data can help the team understand why. Is the content too basic? Is the presenter not engaging? Is a hands-on lab needed instead? This data-gathering process also helps build alignment. By involving employees in the design and refinement of their learning, organizations demonstrate that their perspective matters. This collaborative approach builds trust and ensures that the learning programs are not just “pushed” from the top down, but are “pulled” by the genuine needs of the workforce.
Communicate Priorities to Bridge the Leadership Gap
The research revealed a significant disconnect in priorities, especially around AI. To close this gap, senior leaders must communicate their strategic vision directly and clearly, not just to other executives, but to all department and team leads. When talent see their own leadership, both at the executive and managerial level, prioritize learning and investment in skills, they are far more likely to do so as well. This communication must go beyond “AI is important.” It must explain why it is important for the business and how it will practically affect different roles. This clarity helps demystify new technologies and connects the “what” (the skill) to the “why” (the business goal). Once an effective, iterative skilling initiative is in place for principal skills like power and leadership—which employees ranked as their top priority—pursuing more specialized pathways like AI will be met with more enthusiasm. The organization must first earn the trust of its employees by providing high-quality training for the skills they know they need today. After successfully delivering on that, employees will be more receptive to and confident in the training offered for the skills leaders see as critical for tomorrow. This sequential, trust-building approach shows employees their perspectives matter and that the skilling strategy is holistic, not just focused on the latest technology trend.
Conclusion
Finally, to assuage the widespread anxiety about job security (felt by 41% of the workforce), organizations must be transparent about the skills the company is focusing on. This is best done by establishing actionable and benchmarkable skills. Benchmarking involves assessing the current skill levels of the workforce against a defined standard of excellence for various roles. This process allows the organization to identify specific, quantifiable gaps and strengths. It moves the conversation from a vague “we need to be better at AI” to a concrete “our data science team is at level 2 in machine learning, and we need to get them to level 4.” This clarity is incredibly valuable for employees. It demystifies their career paths and shows them exactly what they need to learn to remain valuable and advance. It provides a clear target. By aligning talent development programs to close these specific, benchmarked gaps, organizations connect learning directly to business goals and motivate employees to improve their skills. This benchmarking communicates the value of the skills leadership prioritizes and shows employees a clear path forward, replacing vague anxiety with an actionable plan for growth and a renewed senseof job security.