Workplace Learning Facts And Figures

Learning at Work Day has been co-ordinated by the Campaign for Learning, an independent learning charity, for the last seven years and each year has grown in terms of the number of organisations taking part, the number of events happening across the country and the number of employees being given the opportunity to learn at work.
Learning at Work Day (LAW Day) 2005 took place on 26 May as part of Adult Learners' Week. Between 3000 and 5000 organisations are estimated to have taken part of which 2275 were new registrants.
Nearly a quarter of organisations taking part in Learning at Work Day 2005 stated that more than 50% of their workforce participated.
79% of organisations taking part in 2005 provided further learning opportunities both inside the company and outside and 73% of employees who participated gave feedback to say that they did intend to continue learning.

23% of people of working age are likely to have 'very poor' literacy skills and /or 'very poor' numeracy skills. 47% of people are in work. (Source: Adult Literacy in Britain, ONS). (Employer Toolkit, DfES)
Only a quarter of UK managers include literacy and numeracy tests as part of their screening process for new recruits, despite 86% of them being concerned about the lack of basic skills in their workplace.(Source: Monthly Labour Market Report).(Featured in Scottish Banker, 1 February 2004)
One in six graduates have experienced difficulties with maths at work. (Cornelius, 1992)
A business with over 50 employees could lose £165,000 a year because of poor basic skills. (Skills for Life Strategy Unit)
The cost of poor literacy and numeracy skills to the country could be as high as £10 bn a year. (Skills for Life Strategy Unit)

Over 20% of employers report that their workforce has insufficient skills to meet business objectives. (National Skills Task Force)
20 per cent of employers report a significant skills gap. Over a third of companies with a literacy and numeracy skills gap say that they have lost business or orders to competitors because of it. (Skills for Life Strategy Unit)
Levels of employee commitment in the UK are significantly lower than in most other major world economies. The most important factor driving employee commitment is the perception of the organisation's leadership followed by opportunities for personal development. (International Survey Research, 2002)
Financial services customers rate staff knowledge as one of the most important factors affecting service quality, but this is the area with the greatest gap between importance rating and service delivery. (Managing the Service Business report, 2001)

One third of workers say they could do their job better if they had more training. (MORI, A Nation Ready to Learn? 2002)
Training and development are the most important considerations when looking for a new job, after basic salary. (MORI, A Nation Ready to Learn? 2002)
Only 15% of firms provide training for the entire workforce. (Employer Skills Survey, 2001)
55% of workers with degrees received training in the last year compared to 5% of those without qualifications. (International Adult Literacy Survey)
There is evidence that education and learning enhance health. (Wider benefits of social learning research report no. 6)

85 per cent of managers identified the main value as enhancing team morale and 80 per cent said coaching is good at generating responsibility on the part of the learner. Managers said coaching can be used to support an individual through restructuring and change in the organisation, or as part of a programme to motivate and retain staff. (Attitudes to Coaching in the Workplace, Campaign for Learning, 2002)