One-third of adult employees in the United States do not receive formal job training, a study released Tuesday from Axonify found.
The study examined over 1,000 employed adults in industries including manufacturing in November and December 2017.
Of these, 31 percent said that they do not receive any formal job training and 43 percent said it is ineffective. The number of those who did not receive training at all is slightly up from 30 percent in 2016.
Axonify is a corporate learning platform, so it isn’t impartial when it comes to job training. A May 2017 study from the Pew Research Center said that on-the-job training is changing along with increased automation and a wider trend of changing attitudes about education and skill sets. The Pew Research Study also included a broader discussion of higher education and online learning. This is especially relevant with the manufacturing age gap, in which new workers struggle to find a pipeline from education to employment as experienced workers retire.
Unsurprisingly, employees want job training to be interesting and engaging: 90 percent of respondents wanted training that is “engaging and fun.” Refreshing skills is also important to workers: 80 percent said that they valued having frequent training to remind them of the information previously learned.
In manufacturing in particular, 68 percent of workers in the manufacturing/logistics category said that training was “very effective” in helping them perform well.
Millennial workers in particular reported that they prize short training sessions (74 percent), anytime/anywhere training (75 percent) and training that offers rewards (69 percent).
In 2013 Boeing published a guide to their process for on-the-job training.
