According to what emerged in a recent survey conducted among 247 employees of Italian companies (Figure 1), organizations able to create the conditions to improve learning processes on the part of their employees benefit from an unquestioned competitive advantage. This manifests itself in terms of employee satisfaction, improvement of their performance, innovation and attractiveness on the labor market.

Among the most interesting results of the survey – conducted within the research project of the SDA Bocconi School of Management and born with the goal of evaluating, from the perspective of employees, the commitment and efforts made by companies to support learning – it was found that companies are perceived, on the one hand, as very effective in promoting internal training that satisfies business needs; on the other, as less able to adapt this training to individual needs for development.

In general, learning programs were considered satisfactory by 75% of the respondents; 81% also believe that the programs are highly linked to their business mission; 75% that their company considers the development of personnel as fundamental for its organizational success; 72% feel encouraged to improve and develop all of their potential. However, 35% do not fully agree that companies are always able to identify the real training needs of employees; 40% report that they are not fully satisfied with how their learning and development needs are identified; and 39% do not receive any feedback at the end of the training course (Figure 2).

For a broader overview of the importance of learning experiences within organizations, we refer to the E&M Podcast on the issue produced by Beatrice Manzoni and Leonardo Caporarello, Associate Professor of Practice in the Leadership, Organization & Human Resources Knowledge Group at the SDA Bocconi, and Leonardo Caporarello, Professor of Practice of Organizational Behavior at the SDA Bocconi. The podcast is available on the E&MPlus site.

Figure 1 - The study sample

Source: L. Caporarello, B. Manzoni, B. Panariello, "Learning and Development Is the Key. How Well Are Companies Doing to Facilitate Employees’ Learning?" in Methodologies and Intelligent Systems for Technology Enhanced Learning, 9th International Conference, Springer, London, 2019, pp. 80-88.

Figure 2 - Some results of the survey

Source: L. Caporarello, B. Manzoni, B. Panariello, "Learning and Development Is the Key. How Well Are Companies Doing to Facilitate Employees’ Learning?" in Methodologies and Intelligent Systems for Technology Enhanced Learning, 9th International Conference, Springer, London, 2019, pp. 80-88.