Employees feel strongly that professional development programs are more important than other benefits and they prefer programs that offer a choice over those with a fixed curriculum.
Your program may not be as successful as you think. Employers rated their professional development offerings higher than employees did. In fact, most employees rate their benefits as “neutral” rather than “good/beneficial.”
Employers without professional development resources received a lower satisfaction rating from employees.
Underrepresented groups are less satisfied with professional development—to the tune of BIPOC rated their likelihood of being at the same company a year from now 13% lower than White respondents.
Men in leadership positions have a higher opinion of their representation efforts than women leaders do. In fact, 81% of men vs. 59% of women reported having more diversity in comparison to other companies.
Women leaders reported less turnover in 2021 than men did. This of course begs some important questions for our 2023 survey about men’s and women’s perceptions.
In 2022, employers think that investment in professional development programs is 65% more critical this year than last year (they’re right!)
Terawatt’s research program began in 2020 as a way to understand the difference in how HR leaders and employees viewed professional development benefits.
What we’ve discovered is that leaders have a long way to go to catch up with what their employees-especially BIPOC and women—want.
And, turns out, professional development is at the top of the employees’ list.