6 Trends to Inform Your Learning and Talent Development Strategy

With uncertainty renewing its hold on many industries and functions, talent development is feeling positive and ready to take on future challenges. 

The Association for Talent Development’s (ATD) 2025 State of the Industry Report shows that talent development executives are feeling more confident in their function’s ability to meet organizational needs and have a positive impact on corporate performance over the next six months.

However, this report—based on responses from 539 organizations averaging 6,902 employees each—shows there are plenty of opportunities to change, adapt, and optimize the talent development function. In this article, we’ll explore the core talent development trends and how to use this information to plan your learning and development activities for the remainder of 2025 and beyond.

ATD’s talent development trends report

Since 2020, ATD has been keeping a close eye on talent development trends to keep companies and individual professionals informed. This year’s report, sponsored by Absorb, aims to help organizations like yours measure and adapt your own talent development activities to see the most impact. 

The State of the Industry report gathers responses on:

• Average direct expenditures
• Learning hours used
• Cost per learning hour
• Talent development staffing
• Content distribution and delivery methods
• Technology in training and development
• On-the-job learning
• Measuring the impact of learning

Before you use this data, ATD suggests:

1. Note that the data points reported here are averages and that participating organizations change from year to year.
2. Don’t aim to replicate the data presented. Instead, observe trends over time and use the information as a benchmark to compare your data and trends.
3. When possible, use the data reported by industry and type, which will more closely mirror your organization.

💡 Download the 2025 State of the Industry: Talent Development Benchmarks and Trends report or read past ATD State of the Industry reports here.

Trend 1: Learning hours continue decreasing

The average number of formal learning hours used per employee in 2024 was 13.7—a downward trend since ATD first started measuring this metric in 2020 (35 hours per employee).

Formal learning hours means time spent in structured, planned learning including instructor-led classroom learning, instructor-led online training, certification programs, workshops, college courses, etc.

Key takeaway: Measure and address a decline in learning hours used

A decrease in formal learning hours used per employee is something to be concerned about as it directly ties to employee engagement, skill gaps, and the overall effectiveness of talent development activities.

Here are a few actions you can take with this information:

1. Measure how many hours your employees participate in using this formula:

2. Compare benchmarking data for your industry in the report and determine what your industry’s and your company’s ideal numbers are.
3. Ask yourself questions such as:
   
   • Are there barriers to employees participating in formal training? (Time, travel requirements, etc.)
   • Do training programs cover enough topics, skills, and functions?
   • Are training programs offered in enough formats with both synchronous and asynchronous learning options?
   • Are programs being effectively promoted to your employees?

Trend 2: Cost of learning and talent development

The average direct learning expenditures per employee across surveyed organizations for 2024 was $1,254—a decrease from $1,283 in 2023.

Direct learning expenditures include:

• Talent development staff salaries
• Travel costs for talent development staff
• Administrative costs
• Nonsalary development costs
• Delivery costs (classroom facilities, online learning tools, etc.)
• Learning supplier expenses
• Tuition reimbursement

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Over half (53%) of this cost is considered an internal expenditure, such as staff salaries and content delivery costs.

Key takeaway: Optimize talent development activities cost vs. effectiveness

So, if employees are attending fewer and fewer learning hours, but the learning costs are staying fairly consistent, there are a few considerations to look into:

1. Too much, too fast? Large-scale programs are great, but if you introduce too much at once without the proper buy-in and support, these programs can quickly become unsustainable for both administrators and participants. Consider pilot programs and talent development activities that can scale with your company’s needs.
2. Prioritize learning and talent development investments. A skills gap analysis is a great way to help your team prioritize what topics and functions need the most learning investment. This will help you hone in on what is truly necessary instead of bulky, broad training programs.
3. Make learning less formal. Peer learning such as mentorship programs or a job shadowing program leverages experience and resources you already have in your company, which can help you reduce external costs such as learning supplier expenses or tuition reimbursement.

Trend 3: The talent development team is growing

More than one third of surveyed organizations saw an increase in talent development staff in 2024. Organizations had, on average, 63 talent development staff in 2024 compared to 55 in 2023. However, the most common response from organizations was one talent development staff member.

The average ratio of talent development staff to employees was 1:212, an increase from 1:352 in 2023.

Most common positions added to the talent development team:

• Instructional designers
• Trainers and facilitators
• Training and development coordinators

💡34% of organizations increased their talent development staff headcount in 2024 and 41% foresee their talent development team growing in the next six months.

Key takeaway: Matching staff to learning goals

Based on ATD’s research, there’s no magic ratio of talent development staff to employees. It all depends on company goals and learning needs. Here are a couple of examples to think about:

• Reducing external expenditures and building your resource library: The increase in hiring internal trainers and instructional designers says more companies want their training created and delivered in-house rather than outsourcing. If your company and team’s talent development goals include reducing external learning expenditures and building your internal resource library, then adding instructional designers is a great way to do that.
• Closing technical skills gaps: On the other hand, if your goals are to close technical skill gaps where there’s little internal expertise, administrators and coordinators may be a better staffing fit for your talent development team.

Trend 4: Top learning content priorities

In 2024, ATD found the 13 most common content areas in organizations’ learning portfolios:

1. Executive development training
2. Managerial and supervisory training
3. Sales training
4. Customer service training
5. Mandatory and compliance training
6. Communication skills training
7. Teamwork training
8. Information technology and systems training
9. New-employee orientation
10. Product knowledge training
11. Artificial intelligence (AI) technical skills training
12. Artificial intelligence (AI) practical skills training
13. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training

The topics that an organization chooses to focus on can reveal a lot about priorities and whether your company should follow suit.

That being said, it’s important to dive into industry and company size to get a true understanding. For example, large organizations (2,500 employees or more) prioritize technical and practical AI training more than small organizations (100 employees or less). Goods producing industries (natural resources, construction, manufacturing, etc.) prioritize teamwork training more than service providing industries (information, finance, hospitality, etc.).

Key takeaway: Talent management and succession planning plus AI training

Two of the most important themes to talk about here are leadership skills and artificial intelligence training.

• Evaluate leadership training: Leadership succession planning has long been a challenge for many organizations. It persists, with a 2024 ATD study finding 90% of organizations are experiencing a major or minor leadership skills gap. While the data says 90% of responding organizations provide managerial and supervisory training and 69% provide executive development. With so many organizations experiencing leadership skills gaps even though they provide training, this is a cue for all organizations to evaluate the effectiveness of leadership training in your talent planning.
• The relevance and importance of AI training: With AI becoming such a common part of personal and professional life, training employees on proper, effective, and ethical AI use has quickly become a necessity, yet only 55% of organizations reported offering technical and practical AI skills training. Start considering how AI affects:
  
  • Your industry
  • Your unique company
  • Your employees’ work or how they may leverage AI

💡62% of respondents foresee their company increasing the availability of AI training in the next 6 months

Trend 5: Blended learning programs on the rise

In 2024, only 40% of organizations offered asynchronous e-learning options, down from 57% in 2023. However, just over 40% used a blended learning approach, which includes both synchronous and asynchronous elements.

Research tells us that most employees want or need flexibility in their work and professional development should match that. Blended learning supports that flexibility and a variety of learning needs and styles through instructor-led training, self-paced e-learning, and on-the-job learning.

Top technology-based learning methods used by organizations in 2024 include:

1. Simulations and scenario-based learning: Defined by ATD as “a self-contained immersive environment the learner interacts with to learn or practice skills or knowledge.”
2. Microlearning and short-form learning: Short, quick pieces of learning content that aim to teach new information and reinforce current skills in the most efficient, effective way.
3. Podcasts and videos: Video and audio delivery of information that learners

Key takeaway: Diversify your blended learning approach

The beauty of talent development is there are so many ways it can be done. This benchmarking data can help spur new ideas for your own learning and talent development strategy and help some break free from the idea that learning hours need to be formal, standalone affairs.

• Peer and social learning: Learning hours data misses the less formal, more organic learning hours spent in the flow of working, such as mentorship programs, employee coaching, or job shadowing programs. Look at ways you can leverage more social learning in your company.
• Lean on technology: Technology can supplement and enhance existing development programs or introduce completely new learning opportunities that you may not be able to provide otherwise. For example, microlearning is becoming more commonplace because it’s effective—with one study reporting microlearning increased information retention by 170%. 

Trend 6: Measuring the success of a learning and talent development strategy

There are several ways organizations measured the performance and success of their learning and talent development strategy in 2024.

Key takeaway: Business metrics vs. function metrics

Communicating and demonstrating the importance of the talent development function is a big deal, but it’s not the only way to use data. Measuring performance and success not only helps you build and improve your programming, but also supports a business case for continued investment in talent development.

When planning your next steps in your talent management and development strategy, do not skip the measurement aspects. Creating the reporting infrastructure that measures business metrics like productivity improvement, employee retention, etc. is equally as important as program metrics like learning hours delivered, time to employee readiness, etc.

Take on your learning and talent development strategy with technology

These six talent development trends are all affected by and can be supported by technology. Whether it’s increasing learning hours, reducing costs, supporting talent development staff, creating and delivering content, or measuring the performance and success of your learning and talent development strategy—technology is and will continue to be a close ally in your talent planning.

For mentorship programs and other peer learning initiatives, Together’s suite of mentoring software takes the guesswork out of mentor matching, performance measurement, feedback, managing mentoring activities, and more. Combined with Absorb’s learning platform, your team can deliver personalized, scalable, measurable, and engaging learning experiences with less heavy lifting.

Book a demo with Together to explore how mentorship fits into your learning and development strategy or learn more about Absorb’s AI-driven learning solutions.