In 2026, the landscape for workplace learning has evolved significantly, particularly with the integration of AI and the skills-based economy.
According to SHRM’s 2026 State of the Workplace Report, 74% of employees feel they need more training to keep up with the demands of evolving technology and other factors affecting today’s workplaces.
Nonetheless, employee training and development pose a challenge in many organizations. Overtaxed HR teams often struggle to identify skill gaps and implement effective development plans. In this post, we’ll explore how to overcome these hurdles by identifying skill gaps, introducing meaningful training initiatives, and crafting effective development plans.
Key Takeaways
- Employee training and development continues to grow in importance, however implementing it still poses a challenge.
- There are 8 ways to implement effective employee development and training without breaking the bank or taking too much time from essential processes: 1) identify skill gaps and skill adjacencies to select candidates for training; 2) create a development plan for each employee; 3) design peer-learning opportunities for time-efficient, informal skill sharing; 4) foster a learning culture so employees keep an open mind on the job; 5) design stretch assignments to motivate employees to keep learning; 6) use software to promote continuous employee growth; 7) provide access to conferences and workshops; 8) celebrate manager involvement to keep the whole team committed.
- Advantages of implementing employee training and development include mitigating skills shortages, creating a pipeline of future leaders, increasing equity, stimulating innovation, increasing engagement—and profits, improving the employee experience, and strengthening retention.
- Primalogik’s performance management platform supports all your training and development efforts, with goal-tracking, 360 degree reviews and real-time feedback capabilities.
Table of Contents
1. What You Need to Know About Employee Training and Development
2. 8 Ways to Implement Employee Development in Today’s Workplace
3. Advantages of Implementing Employee Training and Development
4. Primalogik’s performance management software supports all your training and development efforts
5. Employee Development and Training FAQs
What You Need to Know About Employee Training and Development
Building new skills and competencies in their organization is a top priority in 2026. A lack of quality employee training and development can lead to serious consequences for companies of all sizes:
- Missing out on opportunities to grow as a company.
- Failing to keep up with fast-changing demands for employee skills.
- Decreasing engagement and creating a poor employee experience, eroding the employer brand.
- Increasing turnover because employees won’t see a future for themselves at the company.
Furthermore, a lack of standardized developmental options can seriously undermine inclusivity and employee growth. Each manager may design training and development plans on an ad hoc basis, rather than with clear guidelines. This causes morale to drop.
When organizations fail to implement urgently needed training initiatives, the business may stagnate, losing its competitive advantage. Let’s examine the key roadblocks that such efforts face and the major advantages to overcoming them.
Challenges in Employee Training and Development
According to a survey of over 1,700 executives (including 750+ CEOs), development has moved to the center of the corporate strategy to combat economic uncertainty. The report explicitly states that “CEOs are prioritizing skill and leadership development, ranking them among their top three workforce priorities for 2026.” (C-Suite Outlook 2026: Uncertainty and Opportunity)
For many, it’s also their biggest challenge.
According to one report by the SHRM, Budget restrictions often pose a barrier to training and development. Lack of time to plan training and difficulty with maintaining relevant content also pose challenges. Poor alignment between company needs and employee development can result from fast-paced changes in the business world.
Among employees, lack of employee motivation posed a challenge for 33%, SHRM notes. Retaining what they learned, or lacking time to complete training, proved difficult for 25% of employees.
While the desire for training has skyrocketed, 53% of employees now report that high workloads leave “little to no room” for actual development. This is a new trend called Learning Debt, where the pace of work is outstripping the time allocated to learn the tools (like AI) required to do that work efficiently. (TalentLMS’s 2026 L&D Benchmark Report)
Managers may also avoid developing their employees due to fear of losing them. They may even fear that a talented employee will outcompete them for a promotion. In reality, developing their direct reports will help managers advance.
AI is also impacting employee development and training, by “rapidly reshaping skill requirements and premiums and enabling skills development and deployment.” (Mercer’s 2025/2026 Skills Snapshot Survey report)
8 Ways to Implement Employee Development in Today’s Workplace
HR should enlist the help of all managers in their organization to further employee growth. Aside from an employee’s direct manager, other leaders such as mentors can play an active role in their development. “An employee’s growth and development is the responsibility of the whole organization,” writes Blanchard. “Stakeholders getting involved can provide a big return on investment without being time-consuming.”
HR leaders and team managers should partner in identifying needs and designing employee training. Managers see their direct reports’ work on a daily basis, and HR can provide a higher-level strategic lens. Together, they can use the following tips and best practices to enhance training and development.
1. Identify Skill Gaps and Skill Adjacencies to Select Candidates for Training
First, determine what skill gaps your organization has today. Second, consider what new skills you’ll need in the next several years. Conduct a needs analysis to determine which skills align with your mission and emerging technological developments.
Third, look at which employees have “skill adjacencies”—skills that are similar to, but not the same as, the desired skills. They’ll be prime candidates for developing expertise in these areas.
Think outside of the box rather than focusing on traditional next-steps. In light of fast-changing needs, HR leaders are beginning to structure development around skill sets rather than traditional roles, says Gartner. Then, focus developmental opportunities around these learning goals.
2. Create a Development Plan for Each Employee
Managers should work with employees to design individualized career development plans. They can start by having conversations about how the employee’s work fits into the organization’s mission. Then, they can discuss specific skills the employee should develop. Personalized employee development is the new standard.
3. Design Peer-Learning Opportunities for Time-Efficient, Informal Skill Sharing
Look for cross-training opportunities where peers can teach one another new skills. You can set up ongoing peer mentorships with specific goals and timeframes. Help employees set short-term learning goals that they can help each other achieve within the quarter. Then, you can pair them off with new peer mentors so they’ll gain a broader range of knowledge.
You could also create peer groups focused on building certain skill sets to meet professional development goals—schedule group learning and discussion sessions at certain intervals, like every two weeks. Here, members can deliver mini-workshops for one another, or HR staff can present training. Having a small cohort of peers can greatly boost engagement in the learning process, promoting active dialogue that boosts retention of lessons learned.
4. Foster a Learning Culture so Employees Keep an Open Mind On The Job
“One of the most important factors in creating a high-performance workplace is instilling a high-development culture: one that values the growth of individuals,” says Gallup. Share engaging content with employees, personalizing recommendations to their needs, and make sure they know the difference between development and performance goals. Encourage them to share new discoveries, resources, and transparent feedback with one another, too.
A culture of continuous learning is not built overnight, but the impact is significant.
5. Design Stretch Assignments to Motivate Employees to Keep Learning
In addition to reinforcing new skills, stretch assignments prepare employees to continue building a broad range of knowledge and abilities. But be aware that stretch goals can sometimes lead to emotional exhaustion. So, give employees a chance to recharge after completing one.
Craft stretch assignments that blend different skill sets whenever possible. For instance, challenge an employee to handle part of a colleague’s role while he is away. Provide frequent real-time feedback on how employees are doing to build their confidence.
6. Use Software to Promote Continuous Employee Growth
Leverage technology to provide access to learning opportunities. According to the SHRM, platforms that leverage short videos or virtual and augmented reality can keep learners engaged. Focus on the most relevant learning modules rather than everything under the sun, as Bersin says.
Similarly, use performance management software to keep employees laser-focused on their goals. This will allow them to easily benchmark their progress.
7. Provide Access to Conferences and Workshops
Consider sponsoring employees’ conference or workshop attendance. Listening to different experts in the field can help them gain a range of new insights. If you don’t have a large travel budget, there may be opportunities in your area or virtual conferences they can attend. These can all be part of a global performance improvement plan.
8. Celebrate Managers to Keep the Whole Team Committed
Recognize managers’ accomplishments when their employees gain new skills and prove their abilities. This will encourage managers to continue honing their coaching skills!
Through these strategies, you’ll fill crucial skill gaps and provide excellent employee development opportunities. In turn, employees’ enthusiasm for learning will grow—and you’ll see the results firsthand.
Advantages of Implementing Employee Training and Development
The advantages of implementing employee training and development will help you make the business case for strengthening related initiatives:
- Mitigating skills shortages. By upskilling employees, you can prepare them to fill crucial gaps and respond to changes in strategic needs, as SHRM notes.
- Creating a pipeline of future leaders. You’ll prepare in-house employees for advancement through the right training.
- Increasing equity. Offering equivalent training opportunities to all employees of a certain level boosts equity. (SHRM found that companies are more likely to train new employees than to upskill current ones, which can breed resentment.)
- Stimulating innovation. Companies with strong employee development are four times more likely to innovate well.
- Increasing engagement—and profits. “Professional development is a major leverage in employee engagement,” writes Dean Sippel of the Jack Welch Management Institute. “There’s a direct correlation between highly engaged employees and profit.” High engagement can lead profits to rise by 23%, says Gallup.
- Improving the employee experience. “Research now shows that opportunities for development have become the second most important factor in workplace happiness (after the nature of the work itself),” write Josh Bersin and Marc Zao-Sanders in HBR.
- Strengthening retention. An impressive 94% of surveyed employees responded that if a company invested in helping them develop their skills, they would stay longer at that company. (Ryan Bradshaw)
Primalogik’s performance management software supports all your training and development efforts
With strong employee training and development, you can build a workforce that has the skills to remain competitive, and the confidence to remain loyal to your company.
Primalogik’s performance management platform contains all of the features you need to set employee development and training goals, and manage personalized employee development plans.
We also boast an award-winning 360-degree feedback module, which includes customizable questionnaires and the option to gather feedback anonymously. It’s a classic tool for tracking employee performance and making fair, data-based decisions on everything from training to succession.
Want to see how performance management solutions can boost employee development? Book a free demo today!
Employee Development and Training FAQs
What employee skills are currently the most important to develop?
Communication, empathy, and collaborative abilities will always be crucial skills in the workplace. Critical thinking, agility, and problem-solving are vital for adapting to disruption. Analytical and creative thinking skills are also highly in demand, as are resilience, self-awareness, and technological literacy, notes the World Economic Forum. And technical skills like digital marketing, programming, and understanding of AI are growing in importance (among many others!).
What if a manager isn’t providing adequate developmental support?
Specify expectations for the manager. Describe the types of coaching you expect managers to provide. Make sure you’ve provided the necessary training and resources to the manager as well. Follow up with employees to gauge their level of satisfaction with the manager’s efforts. Conducting 360 reviews for managers will provide valuable insights into how they can improve.