The future of organisational learning

Purpose The paper's purpose is to compare and contrast employees' view of training and development with that of employers. It seeks to identify synergies between what employees want to learn and the way in which they would like to develop their skills, with the training made available to them by their organisations. Design/methodology/approach Two separate but complementary surveys were carried out simultaneously: a qualitative study, consisting of in‐depth, face‐to‐face interviews with senior HR executives in large organisations from a cross spread of industry sectors, including Atos Origin, BDO Stoy Hayward, DHL, GSK, HBOS, ING Direct, LloydsTSB, Nestlé Purina, Parexel, Pilkington Group, Reuters, Royal Bank of Scotland, SITA, TDK, T‐Mobile, and Virgin Atlantic. The second survey was a quantitative web‐based survey, open to anyone in full time employment. Over 5,360 people participated and almost all industry sectors were represented, as was most of the public sector. Findings The findings focused on the following areas: employee engagement; quality, value and impact; the critical role of managers; employee productivity; focus on the learner; and the future vision. Practical implications The paper provides HR professionals with a benchmark for shaping learning and development programmes. Originality/value The paper shares current best practice in organisational development and gives a steer on future delivery methods and approaches.