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Employee training is shifting from a talent development initiative to core business infrastructure, but most organizations are struggling to operationalize that shift.
We surveyed 996 full-time, salaried, employed adults in the United States for our 2025 Upskill With Purpose report and analyzed data from LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report and the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Future of Jobs report to understand what’s changing in 2026.
Four trends are reshaping the landscape.
- Continuous learning is becoming a primary retention strategy.
- Reskilling urgency is high but execution remains inconsistent.
- AI is emerging as a core training theme but without clear implementation roadmaps.
- Manager and employee support gaps are undermining even well-funded programs.
The organizations making progress share common characteristics. They’ve embedded learning into talent strategy, invested in infrastructure that scales consistently and built enablement structures that help managers and employees engage with programs effectively.
The statistics below break down where the execution gaps exist and what separates high-performing learning organizations from the rest.
Continuous Learning Becomes the Core Retention Strategy
Retention has become the defining challenge for enterprise L&D leaders and learning has emerged as the top strategy to address it.
The data from LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report:
- 88% of organizations are concerned about employee retention and providing learning is the number one retention strategy
- 91% of L&D professionals agree continuous learning is more important than ever for career success
- Only 36% of organizations qualify as “career development champions” with robust programs in place. 31% have limited programs and 33% are just starting
- 83% of career development champions will maintain or increase investment in career-driven learning in 2025
- 49% of L&D and talent leaders say executives are concerned employees don’t have the right skills to execute business strategy
The trend: Continuous learning is moving from a talent development initiative to a core retention mechanism. In 2026, organizations are beginning to treat learning infrastructure the same way they treat compensation and benefits—as non-negotiable components of the talent value proposition.
The 36% of organizations classified as career development champions demonstrate what this shift looks like in practice. They’ve embedded learning into talent strategy rather than positioning it as a standalone HR program. They’re connecting learning access to business outcomes like skills readiness and strategic execution, which makes it easier to defend budgets when resources tighten. The 83% planning to maintain or increase investment suggests that once organizations make this connection, they rarely walk it back.
What separates mature programs from nascent ones often comes down to infrastructure. Organizations struggling to scale learning typically lack the systems needed to deliver consistent access, track meaningful progress, or demonstrate ROI to leadership. A business LMS addresses this gap by centralizing learning delivery, integrating with HRIS and performance systems and surfacing the data needed to position learning as a strategic lever. The question for most L&D leaders in 2026 is whether their current systems can support the scale and sophistication executives now expect from learning programs.
Employers and Employees Agree: Reskilling is Urgent but Execution Lags
The scale of reskilling needed over the next five years represents one of the largest workforce transformations in recent history.
The data from The World Economic Forum’s 2025 Future of Jobs report:
- 85% of employers plan to prioritize reskilling their workforce
- 59% of the workforce will need training by 2030: 29% upskilled in current roles, 19% upskilled and redeployed, 11% risk missing needed reskilling
- 39% of workers’ core skills are projected to be transformed or outdated between 2025 and 2030
- 63% of employers cite skills gaps as the biggest barrier to transformation
- 50% of the workforce have completed training as part of long-term learning strategies in 2025, up from 41% in 2023
The data from D2L’s 2025 Upskill With Purpose report:
- 75% of employees say they’ll need to supplement their skills to advance professionally in the next 3 years
- 61% say they have access to formal training
- 56% report being left to their own devices to learn about emerging technologies like AI
- 58% feel they’ve been left to learn about AI on their own rather than through an employer program
Employers and employees both recognize the urgency of reskilling, but there’s a widening gap between strategic intent and employee experience. While half the workforce completed training in 2025 as part of long-term learning strategies, a significant portion of employees still report feeling unsupported in the areas that matter most for their career progression.
The disconnect becomes clearer when you look at AI and emerging technologies. Employers are planning to prioritize reskilling, but more than half of employees say they’re figuring out AI on their own. This points to a delivery problem rather than a prioritization problem. Organizations have the mandate and often the budget, but they lack the mechanisms to translate executive-level commitments into accessible, relevant training at scale.
The 11% of workers at risk of missing needed reskilling entirely represents the cost of this execution gap. These aren’t employees who rejected training opportunities. They’re workers whose organizations failed to reach them with the right programs at the right time. Enterprise learning platforms become essential when reskilling moves from a small-scale pilot to a workforce-wide imperative. Without systems that can deliver role-specific training, track skills acquisition and identify who’s being left behind, even well-funded reskilling initiatives struggle to reach the employees who need them most.
Leadership and Career Mobility Training Dominate Offerings
Organizations have made significant progress in building career development infrastructure, but adoption remains uneven across program types.
The data from LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report:
- 71% of organizations offer leadership training
- 59% share internal job openings as part of career development
- 55% offer mentorship programs
- 55% use individual career development plans
- 45% use cross-functional projects
- 41% fund continuing education
- 31% run peer learning groups
- 26% run job rotations
- Top barriers to career development: 50% say managers lack proper support, 45% say employees lack support, 33% say L&D/talent teams lack resources
Leadership training has become the most mature and widely adopted career development offering, but organizations are still struggling to scale programs that require more coordination, like job rotations and peer learning groups. The gap between what 71% offer (leadership training) and what 26% offer (job rotations) reveals where implementation complexity becomes a barrier.
The barrier data tells a more important story than the adoption rates. Half of organizations report that managers lack proper support to facilitate career development and 45% say employees lack support navigating available programs. This suggests that the limiting factor in 2026 is less about creating programs and more about enabling the people who need to activate them. L&D teams are building the infrastructure, but managers and employees don’t always have the clarity, tools, or time to use it effectively.
This is where reporting and visibility become critical. Organizations need systems that not only deliver training but also surface who’s engaging with it, where gaps exist and which programs are driving measurable outcomes. LMS reporting capabilities allow L&D leaders to identify underutilized programs, spot employees falling through the cracks and build the case for continued investment by demonstrating impact. Evaluating training programs becomes easier when the data is accessible and integrated into regular talent reviews rather than siloed in disconnected systems.
AI is Becoming a Core Training Theme but with Confusion
AI has moved from a niche technical skill to a mainstream training priority, but clarity around implementation and strategy remains inconsistent across organizations.
The data from LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report:
- Career development champions are 42% more likely to be frontrunners in generative AI adoption
The data from D2L’s 2025 Upskill With Purpose report:
- 39% report using AI tools to complete work or develop new skills in the past 1–3 years
- 64% say their company provides AI tools, but only 25% strongly agree their employer has a clear vision for AI use in their role
- 69% believe AI will help them do their job better
- 68% expect AI to free up time for more strategic and creative work
- 65% are excited for AI to take over repetitive tasks
- 33% fear AI may eventually replace their job
The AI skills gap is no longer theoretical. Organizations are deploying AI tools faster than they’re building AI upskilling programs to support them.
Employees are optimistic about AI’s potential but uncertain about how it fits into their specific roles. The 64% who say their company provides AI tools versus the 25% who strongly agree their employer has a clear vision reveals the core problem. Access to technology doesn’t equal clarity about how to use it strategically. Employees are figuring out AI through experimentation rather than structured learning, which leads to inconsistent adoption and missed opportunities to leverage AI effectively across teams.
The organizations making progress share a common characteristic. Career development champions are 42% more likely to be frontrunners in generative AI adoption, which suggests that mature learning cultures are better positioned to integrate new technologies into workflows. They’re treating AI upskilling the same way they treat other strategic capabilities—with structured learning paths, clear use cases and ongoing support rather than one-off workshops.
AI learning platforms play a role in closing this gap by providing guided learning experiences that move beyond tool tutorials and into practical application. The goal is to help employees understand not just how to use AI tools, but when to use them, how they integrate with existing processes and how to evaluate their outputs critically. Without that structure, organizations risk widening the AI skills gap even as they increase access to AI tools.
Manager and Resource Gaps Undermine Training Impact
Organizations are building training programs but struggling to create the support structures employees need to engage with them effectively.
The data from LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report:
- 50% of organizations say managers lack proper support
- 45% say employees lack support
- 33% say L&D/talent teams lack resources
In 2026, L&D investment is shifting from program creation to support infrastructure. Organizations that spent the last few years building training catalogs and career development offerings are realizing that program availability doesn’t guarantee program impact. The new priority is building the scaffolding that makes learning accessible and actionable—manager enablement, employee guidance systems and L&D resource allocation.
The data reveals a three-layer problem. Half of organizations report that managers lack the support they need to facilitate career development conversations, coach employees on learning goals, or integrate training into day-to-day work. Managers are expected to champion learning but often don’t have the time, training, or tools to do it well. When managers can’t support learning effectively, employees disengage even when strong programs exist.
The 45% who say employees lack support points to a navigation problem. Many organizations have built extensive learning catalogs but haven’t invested in helping employees understand what to take, when to take it, or how it connects to their career progression. Without clear pathways and proactive guidance, training libraries become overwhelming rather than empowering.
L&D teams are caught in the middle. A third report lacking the resources needed to scale programs, support managers and guide employees simultaneously. This creates a cycle where well-designed programs underperform because the support ecosystem around them remains underdeveloped.Technology can alleviate some of this pressure.
An LMS for employee training reduces administrative burden by automating enrollment, tracking and reporting. LMS for employee onboarding standardizes the new hire experience so managers spend less time coordinating logistics and more time coaching. These systems also surface data that helps L&D teams identify where support is breaking down, which managers need more enablement and which employees are falling behind before it becomes a retention risk.
Execution gaps start with infrastructure gaps.
See how D2L helps L&D teams scale training programs with integrated systems and real-time visibility into outcomes.
Staying One Step Ahead with Employee Training
The 2026 employee training statistics reveal a gap between what organizations plan to do and what employees actually experience. Leaders recognize that learning drives retention and that reskilling is urgent, but translating that recognition into programs that reach people consistently remains the hard part.
We’ve worked with L&D teams at financial services firms, healthcare systems and tech companies who’ve built impressive training catalogs over the past few years. The programs exist. The budget is there. But employees still report feeling unsupported, particularly around emerging skills like AI. The pattern we see most often is that organizations have invested heavily in content but underinvested in the infrastructure and support structures that make that content accessible and actionable.
The L&D leaders making real progress have stopped treating their learning platform as a nice-to-have and started treating it like their CRM or HRIS. They’ve built systems that integrate with existing workflows, surface real-time data on who’s engaging and who’s falling behind and automate enough of the administrative work that their teams can focus on strategy rather than spreadsheets.
Just as importantly, they’ve invested in the scaffolding around programs: manager training, clear learning pathways and proactive nudges that guide employees without overwhelming them.What changes the conversation with executives is connecting learning outcomes to the metrics they already care about. Retention rates. Time to productivity. Skills readiness for strategic initiatives.
When employee training and development becomes the mechanism that enables other business priorities rather than a separate HR initiative, the ROI case becomes significantly easier to make. Understanding employee training ROI starts with having the right data in the first place.
Execution gaps start with infrastructure gaps.
See how D2L helps L&D teams scale training programs with integrated systems and real-time visibility into outcomes.
FAQs About Employee Training Statistics
What are the Top Employee Training Statistics for 2026?
The most significant statistics for 2026 center on the gap between strategic intent and execution. 91% of L&D professionals say continuous learning is essential for career success, yet only 36% of organizations qualify as career development champions with robust programs. 63% of employers cite skills gaps as their biggest barrier to transformation and 39% of workers’ core skills are projected to be outdated by 2030.
On the AI front, 64% of employees say their company provides AI tools, but only 25% strongly agree their employer has a clear vision for how to use them. These numbers reveal that organizations understand the urgency but are struggling with delivery and support infrastructure.
How do Employee Training Statistics Connect to ROI?
The statistics on retention, reskilling and leadership training adoption provide the measurable evidence executives need to justify continued investment. When 88% of organizations cite retention as a top concern and learning emerges as the number one retention strategy, that creates a direct line between training programs and talent costs. Similarly, the data showing that career development champions are 42% more likely to be frontrunners in AI adoption demonstrates how learning maturity correlates with competitive advantage.
The challenge for most L&D leaders is surfacing this data in ways that connect learning outcomes to business metrics leadership already tracks. Understanding employee training ROI requires systems that can demonstrate impact rather than just track completions.
What Role Does AI Play in Training Strategies?
AI is becoming both a training content area and a tool reshaping how learning is delivered. The 2026 data shows that adoption is rising but clarity is lacking. Career development champions are 42% more likely to be frontrunners in generative AI adoption, which suggests that organizations with mature learning cultures are better positioned to integrate AI effectively.
However, 58% of employees report learning about AI on their own rather than through employer programs, which points to a significant support gap. The organizations treating AI as a strategic capability rather than just a tool are building structured learning paths, defining clear use cases and providing ongoing support rather than expecting employees to figure it out through experimentation.
How can Organizations Address Barriers Identified in the Data?
The barriers most commonly cited—manager support gaps, employee guidance needs and L&D resource constraints—all point to infrastructure and enablement challenges. Organizations making progress are investing in manager training so leaders can facilitate career development conversations effectively.
They’re building clearer learning pathways so employees understand what to take and when. They’re adopting platforms that automate administrative work and surface real-time data on engagement and outcomes. The goal is to shift L&D team capacity away from logistics and toward strategy, while giving managers and employees the tools they need to engage with learning programs without needing constant hand-holding.