UK Training Report: Industry Trends 2018

2018 UK TRAINING REPORT: Industry trends

FINDCOURSES.CO.UK |

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EDITOR: Abby Guthrie

LAYOUT:

Darrah Caughey

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: The findcourses.co.uk team

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FINDCOURSES.CO.UK

TABLE OF CONTENTS 04 06

FINDCOURSES.CO.UK: PART OF EMG – EDUCATIONS MEDIA GROUP

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FINDCOURSES.CO.UK: OUR AUDIENCE

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A breakdown of our audience by company size, level and industry

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HEADLINES FROM FINDCOURSES.CO.UK

What we’ve been up to and what we’ve got on the horizon

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TOP TRAINING TOPICS BY DELIVERY METHOD

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TOP ORGANISATIONS USING FINDCOURSES.CO.UK

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TRAINING SUPPLIER SURVEY

Market predictions and marketing trends from UK training suppliers

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Where findcourses.co.uk fits in the training purchasing process

MARKETING YOUR TRAINING A media cost survey of the industry

INBOUND MARKETING TIPS FOR TRAINING COMPANIES

Our top tips to help you attract the right audience to your brand

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THE VALUE OF PERSONAL EMAIL ADDRESSES

A deeper look into corporate versus personal email addresses

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CUSTOMER OUTREACH

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MAKING THE GDPR WORK FOR YOUR BUSINESS

POPULAR TRAINING TOPICS An overview of visitor traffic and interest by training topic and geographic region

THE TRAINING BUYER’S JOURNEY

30 35

How responsive are training providers and which methods of outreach do they use?

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS: APPRENTICESHIP LEVY POTENTIAL UK L&D BENCHMARKING SURVEY: 2018

UK professionals report on their employee learning budgets, biggest challenges and more

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FINDCOURSES.CO.UK: PART OF EMG – EDUCATIONS MEDIA GROUP At findcourses.co.uk, we are passionate about empowering companies and professionals find the right training. As the UK arm of EMG – Educations Media Group, the market leader for education search worldwide, we’re part of a network of targeted search engines for educaiton throughout the world.

The modern organisation relies on external partners to help meet today’s accelerated human capital demands, and keeping up requires a platform where they can find, compare, and reach out to new training partners easily. By helping corporate training buyers more easily compare vendors, our directory helps them find the right-fit provider faster.

In addition to our cost-free search engine, our findcourses pro solution offers a number of enterprise services for learning procurement and contract management. Talk to us about simplifying and getting the most out of your existing learning framework agreements through single entry booking and invoicing, LMS integration, navigating global regulatory compliance and much more.

We’re proud to work with our partners at The Independent, Campaign for Learning, and now CareerBuilder to help their audiences find the right professional education. Together, we’re making it easier than ever for training buyers to access the UK’s most comprehensive course and training search engine.

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EMG'S REACH

30 million people from 221 countries turned to EMG to find the right education last year

4,000 training providers 1.6 million conversions 70 million+ page views

1 000 visitors

18 000 000 visitors

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FINDCOURSES.CO.UK: OUR AUDIENCE A breakdown of our audience by company size, level and industry Our online audience of training buyers is at the heart of findcourses.co.uk.

To help our clients better understand who the platform is reaching, we’ve analysed and presented our corporate audience in more detail than ever before using data from our 2017 information requests which included a corporate email address and job title.

TOP 10 INDUSTRIES

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Finance and Insurance 16%

Engineering and Industry 16%

Public Bodies and NGOs 14%

Professional Services 11%

Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals 8%

Consumer Goods 8%

Education 8%

Information Technology 7%

Oil & Gas and Energy 6%

Automotives and Logistics 5%

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COMPANY SIZE

100+R L15+ 100+R L25+ 100+R L18+ 100+R L 42+ 41%

16%

25%

18%

Small

Medium

Large

Enterprise

1-200

201-1,000

1,001-10,000

10,000+

JOB TITLE / LEVEL

C-Suite

Director / VP

Manager

Professional

Consultant

4%

11%

36%

48%

1% FINDCOURSES.CO.UK |

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HEADLINES FROM FINDCOURSES.CO.UK What we’ve been up to and what we’ve got on the horizon

PARTNERSHIP WITH CAREERBUILDER We are pleased to announce our new partnership with CareerBuilder. By powering their new course search engine, we’re placing our training providers in front of more potential training buyers than ever.

APPRENTICESHIP SEARCH We’ve launched the only open list of Registered Apprenticeship Training Providers, an easy to use search for apprenticeship training aimed at connecting levy paying companies with providers.

CALL TRACKING & ANALYTICS In September we embedded Freespee software into our site to enable us to track phone calls for all of our clients. Using dynamic numbers, training buyers are redirected to client’s phone numbers, and all calls are tracked allowing us to provide insightful analytics into location of the caller, numbers of times called, and time spent on each call.

We believe this is an incredibly valuable marketing metric for our clients, as training buyers who pick up the phone to call providers are further along in their buying process and more likely to purchase.

NEW DESIGN & SEARCH ALGORITHM Our tech team are releasing responsive elements of our site weekly, which together with the new site design, is already resulting in more conversions and satisfied users as they find what they are looking for quicker and see more relevant options to their queries.

IMPACT AWARD findcourses.co.uk proudly sponsored the Learning at Work Week Impact Award for Innovation in Learning & Development and announced the award winners on November 28th: The Bread Factory and Edge Hill University’s Learning Services. We were impressed by the outstanding quality of our applicants and look forward to our sponsorship of the award continuing in 2018.

L&D TRENDS REPORT In order to strengthen our relationship with training buyers, we released our premiere annual edition of the UK L&D Trends Report in January of 2018. This report was born out of a running dialogue with our users who have asked us to help disseminate more information about what features high-functioning L&D departments have in common.

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TOP TRAINING TOPICS BY DELIVERY METHOD An overview of interest by the delivery method of training COMPANY-SPECIFIC / IN-HOUSE

PUBLIC / SCHEDULED

1

Business & Management

1

Finance

2

Health & Safety

2

Business & Management

3

Oil & Gas

3

Oil & Gas

4

Communication Skills

4

Health & Safety

5

Finance

5

Law & Legal

6

Sales

6

Construction

7

Personal Development

7

Office Management

8

Supply Chain Management

8

Supply Chain Management

9

IT User

9

Quality Assurance & Auditing

10

CAD

10

Human Resources

E-LEARNING / ONLINE

APPRENTICESHIPS

1

Health and Social Care

1

Business & Management

2

Business & Management

2

Engineering / Industry

3

Office Management

3

Finance

4

Hospitality & Tourism

4

Construction

5

Design

5

Human Resources

6

Health & Safety

6

Health and Social Care

7

Personal Development

7

Teacher & Instructor Training

8

Engineering / Industry

8

Project Management

9

Science & Research

9

Marketing

10

Finance

10

Science & Research FINDCOURSES.CO.UK |

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POPULAR TRAINING TOPICS

An overview of visitor traffic and interest by training topic

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TRAINING CATEGORY

VIEWS

SHARE OF TOTAL (%)

1

Business & Management

147 385

11.03 %

2

Finance

133 658

10.00 %

3

Health and Social Care

128 774

9.64 %

4

Construction

64 100

4.80 %

5

Health & Safety

63 685

4.77 %

6

Engineering / Industry

56 198

4.20 %

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Office Management

52 668

3.94 %

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Law & Legal

48 007

3.59 %

9

Oil & Gas

45 740

3.42 %

10

Supply Chain Management

40 354

3.02 %

11

Communication Skills

39 085

2.92 %

12

IT Pro

38 206

2.86 %

13

Human Resources

36 398

2.72 %

14

Personal Development

35 107

2.63 %

15

Hospitality & Tourism

31 690

2.37 %

16

Teacher & Instructor Training

31 674

2.37 %

17

Sales

29 311

2.19 %

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CAD

27 373

2.05 %

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Quality Assurance & Auditing

27 179

2.03 %

20

Project Management

26 240

1.96 %

21

Design

25 351

1.90 %

22

IT User

24 797

1.86 %

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Marketing

22 433

1.68 %

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Science & Research

21 514

1.61 %

25

Real Estate

17 673

1.32 %

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POPULAR TRAINING TOPICS

An overview of visitor traffic and interest by geographic region

CITY

TRAINING CATEGORY

1

London

Finance

2

Birmingham

Excel

3

Manchester

CAD

4

Leeds

First Aid

5

Edinburgh

Health & Safety

6

Glasgow

Manual Handling

7

Liverpool

Excel

8

Bristol

Train the Trainer

9

Nottingham

Social Media Marketing

10

Sheffield

Business & Management

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TOP ORGANISATIONS USING FINDCOURSES.CO.UK

Every day top companies come to findcourses.co.uk to search for training.

Below is a list of the top organisations using the site, listed by industry.

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AUTOMOTIVE & LOGISTICS

HEALTHCARE & PHARMA

BMW Group Eurostar Europcar DHL FedEx Trade Networks

Pfizer NHS Varian Medical Systems Westminster Home Care Astra Zeneca

AVIATION, AEROSPACE & DEFENSE

HOSPITALITY & TOURISM

Qatar Airways Star Alliance British Airways Emirates Airlines Airbus Operations Ltd.

Marriot Hotel Royal Lancaster Hilton UK Raddison Mandarin Oriental

CONSUMER GOODS & RETAIL

IT & TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Harrods Unilever Costco Wholesale UK Ltd IKEA Whirlpool

FIS IBM Microsoft Apple Vodafone Group

ENERGY, OIL & GAS

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

Technip FMC Engie PETRONAS EDF Energy Saudi Aramco

Costain Harte Hanks Booz Allen Hamilton Simmons and Simmons Salesforce

ENGINEERING & INDUSTRY

PUBLIC BODIES & NGOS

Babcock International Thames Water Balfour Beaty Alfa Laval The Linde Group

Age UK UK Parliament Civil Aviation Authority YMCA British Red Cross

FINANCE & INSURANCE

MEDIA

AIG Ernst & Young HSBC Hitachi Capital Nationwide

MacMillan Guardian News & Media Associated Press Warner Music Lionsgate UK

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TRAINING SUPPLIER SURVEY

Market predictions and marketing trends from UK training suppliers We reached out to our directory of over 4,000 training suppliers to ask them for their perspective on the professional education market.

In our 2nd annual survey, we were interested to explore their experience of market spend, how they plan to value their own training services in 2018, and which segments of the market that are most valuable. We also asked for information on their marketing goals, channels, and how they measure the return on investment.

58+42+y

WHAT DO YOU PROJECT FOR YOUR COMPANY’S 2017 TURNOVER?

20+3820+ +15+6+1

DO YOU BELIEVE THERE’S BEEN AN INCREASE IN SPENDING ON PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE LAST YEAR?

20%

Below £100,000

42%

£100,001 £500,000

No, there has not been an increase

£500,001 £1,000,000

58% Yes, there has been an increase

38%

20%

£1,000,001 £10,000,000

15%

£10,000,001 £20,000,000

£20,000,000 +

6%

1%

HOW WILL THE PRICE OF YOUR TRAINING IN 2018 COMPARE TO 2017?

434+ 54 The price of our training will increase

The price of our training will decrease The price of our training will remain the same

43%

4%

53%

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WHICH TRAINING DELIVERY METHOD IS MOST VALUABLE FOR YOUR COMPANY?

WHO ARE YOUR TARGET TRAINING BUYERS? 85%

29+7+4+50+10

Public / Scheduled / Open

29%

e-Learning: Self-Paced and Flexible

7%

e-Learning: Scheduled Webinars

4%

In-House / Company-Specific

50%

DO YOU PREDICT AN INCREASE IN COMPANY TRAINING CONTRACTS IN 2018?

9%

80%

Yes, we will likely work with more companies

HOW DOES THE NUMBER OF COURSE PARTICIPANTS COMPARE FROM 2017 TO 2016?

We trained fewer participants

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Individual employees, either being sponsored for training by their company or self-funded

HOW DOES THE NUMBER OF COMPANY TRAINING CONTRACTS YOU HOLD COMPARE FROM 2017 TO 2016?

100+R L 80+11+9y 59+ No, we will likely work with less companies

11%

15%

10%

Blended Learning

No, we will likely work with the same amount of companies

L&D, Talent Management, HR or Managers buying on behalf of their company

We’ve trained approximately the same number of participants

FINDCOURSES.CO.UK

We trained more participants

59%

100+R L 25+ 100+R L 16+

We had training contracts with more companies this year than last year

25%

We had training contracts with the same amount of companies this year than last year

16%

We had training contracts with less companies this year than last year

9+20+925+ +8

DO YOU OFFER APPRENTICESHIP TRAINING FOR COMPANIES LOOKING TO UTILISE THE LEVY?

IF YES, WHAT PERCENTAGE OF YOUR 2018 TURNOVER DO YOU PREDICT WILL COME FROM APPRENTICESHIP TRAINING?

17+22+60

Yes, we offer apprenticeship training We do not offer apprenticeship training but we plan to

17%

22%

No, we do not offer apprenticeship training

0%

18%

1-20%

56%

21-40%

13%

41-60% 61-80%

2% 4%

80-100%

7%

61%

DO YOU CURRENTLY HAVE A PLAN IN PLACE FOR BREXIT?

16+47+37y 16% Yes

37%

No, but we don’t need one

47% No

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST CHALLENGE IN 2018?

35%

28%

13%

Competition

13%

Brexit and Economic Uncertainty

Apprenticeship Levy

11%

Decreased Training Budget

Sales and Marketing

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9+1420+1612+819+2

WHAT FIGURE BEST DESCRIBES YOUR 2017 MARKETING BUDGET? 20%

19%

16%

14%

12%

9%

8%

2%

$01k

$1k5k

$5k10k

$10k25k

$25k50k

$50k100k

$100k- $500k+ 500k

HOW MUCH OF YOUR MARKETING BUDGET IS MADE UP OF DIGITAL MARKETING?

12+14+212528B 12%

28%

81-100%

0-20%

14% 21-40%

25%

61-80%

21% 41-60%

WHICH MARKETING CHANNELS DO YOU INVEST IN MOST? Email Marketing Social Media Listing Sites / Search Engines AdWords Exhibitions Web Banners Traditional Advertising Native Advertising Job Sites TV Advertisements

WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR WHEN MEASURING A MARKETING CAMPAIGN?

10+1765+9 Exposure / Branding (Number of Target Audience Reached)

10%

17%

Number of Leads

64%

Quality of Leads

Click-Throughs to Your Website (Referral Traffic)

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9%

MARKETING YOUR TRAINING A media cost survey of the industry

There are multiple channels you can use to promote your professional training services, brand yourself as a market leader in the industry and attract qualified buyers.

To help you evaluate these different channels, findcourses.co.uk undertook an in-depth analysis during Q1 2018. This can serve as an accurate gauge for training providers interested in their marketing choices.

SERVICE

COST*

REACH*

CONVERSION RATE*

£1,749 per article

646 views

Not tracked

£5,500 per article

2,750 views

Not tracked

£2,000 per press release

1,000 views

Not provided

£0.20 - £10 per click

Variable depending on investment

1.91% CTR

£0.25 per email

Database of 15,000 members

14% OR 12% CTR

£4.78 per click

Variable

0.13% CTR

£0.60 per click

Variable

2.3% CTR

£6,000

1,000 - 3,000 individuals

Not provided

£0.90 per click

Variable depending on investment

5%

Native Advertising in Industry Publications • Awareness stage • Thought leadership • Audience: Targeted

Sponsored Articles in National News Publications • Awareness stage • Releasing industry news • Audience: General

Press Releases • Awareness stage • Releasing industry news, generating links • Audience: General, journalists

AdWords • Consideration & decision-making • Promoting company and course pages • Audience: Targeted

Industry Publication Email Blasts • Awareness stage • Promoting industry relevant news and events • Audience: Targeted

LinkedIn • Awareness stage • Promoting in-house solutions and high-end services • Audience: Targeted

Facebook • Awareness stage • Promoting guides, blog pieces, and inspiration • Audience: Targeted

UK L&D Exhibitions • Awareness stage • Promoting new products and services, expanding your email database • Audience: Industry professionals

findcourses.co.uk course listing • Consideration and decision-making stage • Promoting programs • Audience: Targeted training buyers * All values are based on the averages found in our March 2018 Media Survey

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THE TRAINING BUYER’S JOURNEY Where findcourses.co.uk fits in the training purchasing process

Every marketing channel for professional training is different. In order to understand where findcourses.co.uk fits into the training buyer’s journey, we have mapped our member cycle through their interactions with content, tools, and services.

The timeline below assesses which stage of the process buyers are in when they interact with findcourses.co.uk. We hope that by sharing these insights about our audience, training providers can better understand our services and our place in your marketing strategy.

AWARENESS

1

CONSIDERATION

2

DECISION

3 4 18

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LOYALTY

1

AWARENESS Most training buyers enter findcourses.co.uk well into the consideration and decision-making phase. This is mostly due to years of SEO focus on attracting buyers who have identified their need for training and are ready to compare options.

When awareness-stage buyers do enter findcourses.co.uk, it’s usually through the homepage or articles, and they frequently make use of our live customer service chat. We also reengage previous training buyers through our monthly newsletters who may identify a new training need through articles, quizzes or a report.

2

CONSIDERATION When training buyers have reached the consideration-phase, they often enter our site through the listing pages of courses in a particular training category. The average visitor comparing training views 3.4 training providers and engages for far longer with course pages at an average of 2 and a half minutes per page.

Visitors in the consideration-stage may send exploratory information requests to providers, usually asking for information that is missing from the page, and often click-through to training provider websites from our site to gather more details about the course and provider.

3

DECISION After training buyers have collected enough information to consider a handful of potential options, the decision-making process has begun. Depending on the level of investment and brand-recognition, this process may end quickly in a booking or purchase on findcourses.co.uk or the provider site.

If the training is a large investment, a bespoke request, or the buyer is unfamiliar with provider brands, the decision-making process is longer. It’s more common for training buyers to consult a full page of reviews about the provider, information requests become far more detailed and urgent, and we find that fastest response-time in answering enquiries is rewarded with business.

4

LOYALTY Earning loyalty from training buyers occurs almost entirely away from the findcourses.co.uk platform. However, feedback and reviews are an important area where we can help. We believe digital reviews are an essential part of the buyer’s journey. To serve this need, findcourses. co.uk hosts over 90,000 reviews, bringing in over 10,000 visitors and growing, directly from training buyers searching Google for reviews.

Collecting and responding to meaningful feedback can help win loyalty from past buyers.

Digital reviews offer an additional benefit of influencing buyers in the decision-making phase and steering them toward your brand.

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INBOUND MARKETING TIPS FOR TRAINING COMPANIES

Our top tips to help you attract the right audience to your brand Inbound marketing is shaking up the way set of materials at your disposal that the world’s leading companies communi- other industries would drool over – training cate with consumers. course materials. Worksheets, practicetests, expert content written by trainers and In a nutshell, it is a holistic, data-driven even online courses can capture training approach to marketing that attracts buyers in the awareness and consideration individuals to your brand and converts phases and give you an edge when they’re them into business. This means that rather ready to make a decision. than shouting your message to individuals who have learned to tune-out traditional By gating some of your materials to convert marketing tactics, you draw them to your visitors into members, you’ll become the brand by creating content, tools, and go-to expert in the subject area and gain services that they love. the standing for your marketing and sales team to reach out to them later. findcourses.co.uk has handpicked our top inbound marketing tips we believe are Professional education, and the education easy wins for the training industry. industry in general, is late to the game in digital marketing so it’s not too late to grow your database of leads and distinguish CONVERSION-ORIENTED CONTENT yourself from the competition by selectively As a training provider, you have a unique offering gated training materials.

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LESSON-BASED NURTURING There are a multitude of ways to nurture the leads you’ve gained into buyers.

Our favorite for the training industry?

Lesson-based nurturing. It’s a series of bite-sized content members can sign up to receive. It might be a series of text emails, blog posts, slide decks or video content helping training buyers solve a meaningful problem.

The good news? As a training provider, expertise is at your fingertips. Whether you’re an open course provider specialising in communication skills and can offer a series of 5 weekly blog posts on public speaking tips, or an in-house provider that can provide small slide decks on communicating the value of L&D to top management, you have the know-how and instructional skills to help your audience solve challenges.

YOUTUBE PRESENCE 48% of marketers planned to add YouTube to their content marketing strategy in 2018. We’re willing to bet training buyers are not immune to the massive migration towards video content. If you’re interested in cultivating a YouTube presence but unsure of the type of videos you’ll be sharing – perhaps you’re already dreading the long storyboarding and production time corporate videos used to require – here are our suggestions for quick wins for any training provider.

Try informal student interviews with participants on your courses covering what they’ve learned and how they plan to leverage it for themselves or their organisation, thought-leader interviews with your trainers most seasoned in their industry about need-to-learn skills in the next year, or short how-to videos featuring your best advice from your courses.

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THE VALUE OF PERSONAL EMAIL ADDRESSES A deeper look into corporate versus personal email addresses As a search-engine fueled by long-tail organic search engine traffic – i.e. latestage training buyers who are finding exactly what they’re interested in buying – we don’t hear many complaints about the quality of leads we deliver to training providers.

addresses used to contact training providers on findcourses.co.uk are connected to a LinkedIn account?

Unsurprisingly, the demographics of LinkedIn account-holders skew towards university-educated, decision-makers aged 30-49, an audience that may not be far off However, we have picked up on a trend. from your training buyer profile.

Many sales teams don’t care for leads from training buyers without corporate domains in their email address and some even have WHY DO TRAINING BUYERS policies to not contact those leads in fear LEAVE THEIR PERSONAL EMAIL of wasting time. We decided to explore the ADDRESSES? value of personal email addresses left on Looking deeper into the data through training enquiries and share the following interviews with training buyers and to help you better decide whether these suppliers, personal email addresses tend enquiries are valuable to you: to follow one of three paths: 1) an individual buyer who isn’t currently employed, 2) an individual buyer who is not comfortable PERSONAL EMAILS DO NOT leaving a work email address as they will INDICATE LACK OF PROFESSION be self-funding the training and might Did you know that 84% of personal email be interested in changing companies, 22

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or 3) a high level training buyer who is skittish to reveal the size of their company in worry that it will be flagged for additional marketing and sales while they’re still in an exploratory phase.

nationally in the UK, many people approximate the country’s average job tenure to that of the United States, which is 4.6 years.

In any case, a personal email address – though irritating for your sales team that will be displeased to qualify the lead in the short term – has some great long-term benefits.

TARGET YOUR AUDIENCE MORE ACCURATELY ON SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS

LONG-TERM VALUE FOR YOUR DATABASE

If you would prefer to prioritise your social media marketing budget to reach the individuals who have previously been in contact with you and will recognise your brand, personal email addresses are the key. These personal email addresses are connected to social media platforms far more often than corporate domains.

One final advantage to receiving personal email addresses is that you can transform your targeted audience on social media.

People change jobs, but they rarely change personal email addresses. If you receive a high level of “soft-bounces” to your emails as response to your marketing emails, how many of those are messages stating the individual has left the company? Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to find and reconnect with them at their new company? In our experience, approximately 80% of personal email addresses sent through A personal email address is held for 10 information requests to training providers years or longer by 51% of people in the are connected to Facebook accounts, United Kingdom according to a report by while only 5% of email addresses with a corporate domain are linked to profiles. It the Data & Marketing Association. is important to note that this will likely vary Although data on job tenure is not collected by training category.

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CUSTOMER OUTREACH

How responsive are training providers on findcourses.co.uk, and which methods of outreach do they use?

Professional education comes in a variety of price-points, but the right training can have a lingering value, impacting job performance, personal development, and long-term career success. As a manager, HR or L&D professional purchasing training for others, the right choices in training can have a profound and positive impact in their organisation. findcourses.co.uk believes the best training providers take the time to reach out to training buyers who have questions. A speedy and personal response is a touchstone of attentiveness, professionalism, and respect for customers.

only 17% responded within the hour.

Our account management team has worked to consult with and educate our clients on getting the most value out of our service, taken a more selective approach in providers listing their courses on our site, and conducted spontaneous mystery shops for clients interested in evaluating the speed of their sales team.

Understanding that training providers on findcourses.co.uk were missing out on value by missing communication with training buyers, we’ve also hired a customer service professional dedicated to bridging the gap between training According to our survey of training buyers, buyers and training providers.

39% expect to be contacted within an hour and 33% expect to be contacted within a We’re proud to say that in 2018, 36% of day about their enquiries. Unfortunately, findcourses.co.uk institutes responded to when we put trainers to the test in 2017, enquiries within the hour.

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THE EXERCISE In order to test the responsiveness of training providers on findcourses.co.uk, we began conducting a mystery shop exercise in 2017. We sent a test enquiry which includes a name, email address, and request to be contacted to training providers and record the response time and contact method.

• Two hundred and eighteen institutes were included in this exercise.

• Only institutes with enquiry forms on findcourses.co.uk and training locations in the UK were included in the mystery shop.

• All response times were calculated from business hours only.

• All enquiries were placed in the morning or early afternoon.

• All training providers received an identical enquiry which included a phone number, email address, and request to be contacted.

• Automatic emails were not counted as a response. Personal emails and phone-calls after the automatic email were counted.

THE RESULTS: RESPONSE TIME

36++Q64L75+Q25L82 18+Q82L88 100Q+ L 36%

75%

82%

88%

Responded within 1 hour

Responded within 1 business day

Responded within 2 business days

Responded within 5 business days

THE RESULTS: METHOD OF RESPONSE

57%

43% Responded via phone call

Responded via email FINDCOURSES.CO.UK |

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MAKING THE GDPR WORK FOR YOUR BUSINESS

Train to adapt to the GDPR because the changes are significant, but so are the opportunities, says Jane Cave, MD of the IDM. The General Data Protection Regulation the receptionist to the CEO, needs to adapt (GDPR) will change the ways in which all to and understand how the GDPR will have training businesses deal with data forever an impact on their daily work. when it comes into force on 25 May. The GDPR gives more rights to individuals Training will be the answer for most with regard to their personal information. businesses. The upcoming changes are a This clarifies that the personal information step-change in complexity from what you belongs to the individual and that the might be used to. In addition, the onus organisation can only use it with the trust shifts from a kind of passive accountability and permission of the individual. If an that businesses operate now, to a more individual loses trust and confidence active accountability where organisations that an organisation will look after their will have to be able to demonstrate to the personal information properly, perhaps Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), because of a data security breach, the data protection regulator, that they are then that organisation will be in serious in compliance with the GDPR. difficulty.

This means everyone in the business, from Recent research by the DMA suggests that 26

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businesses consider the GDPR to be a mixed blessing: good in parts.

Businesses understand that they need the GDPR, but they also believe it will make their lives more difficult. Two-thirds (65%) of marketers say the GDPR will hinder their marketing.

Actually this view that the GDPR will be a ‘problem’ is rather pessimistic. To begin with, valid data will be of higher quality, and so of more use to business – the GDPR will focus your marketing. Also, because the GDPR focuses attention on your customers, it should allow your business to develop a stronger relationship with them.

Michelle de Souza, Age UK’s Chief Data Officer, poses this question: “What will we do to ensure that individuals are respected, and that we are responsible marketers?”

The Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham told the Institute of Directors in October 2017, “The GDPR gives specific new obligations for organisations, for example around reporting data breaches and transferring data across borders.

“But the real change for organisations is understanding the new rights for consumers and citizens. It’s an evolution of the current law and a step change that brings greater accountability, transparency and consumer control,” said de Souza.

HOW DOES THE GDPR APPLY? The GDPR is unusual because of the scope and scale of the regulation. There is no quick fix and no immediate answer to getting GDPR-ready. The right response to almost all businesses will be: “it depends” because every business is different and preparations will necessarily vary from company to company.

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and what the implications of that usage might be. Will it have been collected properly? Will the data move outside the EU? Will it be at risk? Look at where the data moves and keep risk to a minimum.

This process is referred to as ‘privacy by design’, building data protection into business plans right from the start. Training will be essential to make sure employees understand their responsibilities.

HOW HAVE BUSINESSES MANAGED THEIR GDPR PLANS? We can infer how businesses prepare for the GDPR by looking at those who have developed their plans over the past two years.

According to that same DMA research, businesses tend to concentrate on appointing a Data Protection Officer and classifying their data first. In a second phase, businesses move on to looking at the concept of privacy by design, how to give customers more control of their data,

auditing third party data and conducting impact assessments.

Training comes in the third phase of preparation, along with exploring processes for data breach management, auditing the state of their existing business and updating the business privacy policy.

But these are the companies with longrunning and systematic plans. If you are starting to think about the GDPR now then you need get up-to-speed as soon as you can.

The IDM has seen a surge in demand for courses to help businesses understand what the GDPR means to them now. The IDM has developed two courses, both accredited by the DMA, designed to get you GDPR-ready: The Award in GDPR gives a comprehensive overview of the law and what marketers need to consider.

The Professional Certificate in GDPR goes into more depth, with detailed information on the specifics of the law and how it applies to different businesses.

JANE CAVE, MD AT THE IDM Jane Cave, Managing Director of the Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing (IDM), has extensive commercial and Not-For-Profit marketing experience on both agency and client-side sectors.

Cave has board-level experience in business strategy review and development and has a reputation for her meticulous evaluation skills in market research, highlighting new marketing opportunities and defining accountable objectives.

Under Jane’s leadership, the IDM is dedicated to delivering inspirational learning experiences designed to raise professional standards and competencies across the marketing industry in the UK and internationally.

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OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS: APPRENTICESHIP LEVY POTENTIAL

How can training providers turn the challenges of the Apprenticeship Levy into valuable opportunities for the year ahead?

WHAT’S AT STAKE? It is forecast that the Apprenticeship Levy will raise £2.7 billion in 2018-19. In theory, that’s a minimum of £2.7 billion that employers could access to spend on apprenticeship training with one or more of the c. 2,500 training providers on the government’s Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers (RoATP). Although only c.2% of employers pay the levy in the UK (which equates to around 19,000 companies), it is estimated that at least 60% of employees work for an employer who pays the levy.

And the incentives to spend are there, with additional monthly top-up funds, fund expiration dates and co-investment support for non-levy-paying employers.

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In the public sector, apprenticeships are a requirement. All employers with 250 employees or more in England must employ new apprentices amounting to 2.3% of their headcount each year. It’s an exciting time for providers to be offering apprenticeship training: in theory.

A SLOW START WITH GROWING AWARENESS The reality is that the number of new apprenticeship starts is not in line with the numbers needed to reach the government’s objective of 3 million by 2020. In the first quarter of the 2017/18 academic year there was a 26.5% drop in the number of apprenticeship starts compared to those reported at the same time in 2016/17.

Another great concern is that, according to the CIPD’s ‘Assessing the early impact of the Apprenticeship Levy’ report, over a fifth of employers surveyed still don’t know whether they are liable to pay the levy or not.

This excludes any additional co-investment, uplifts and additional payments. It is also interesting to see that as of November 2017, 12,200 Apprenticeship Service Accounts were registered and over 93,000 commitments were entered into the apprenticeship service. Of these commitments, 39,000 were for apprentices aged 25 and over, 38,800 were for intermediate apprenticeships, and 40,600 were for advanced apprenticeships. This indicates that employers are beginning to invest the levy in development for staff at higher levels, which, in the longterm is a necessity for the saturation of apprenticeships, and indeed the levy.

However, as with any major new government scheme these things take time. Apprenticeships present the extra challenge of requiring a rebrand after decades of being undervalued. The CIPD has recommended that the government should develop an awareness-raising campaign to ensure employers of all sizes understand the benefits of quality apprenticeships and the support available to implement them, which would help the system pick up Even more promising, the majority (73%) momentum. of levy-paying organisations expect to use the Apprenticeship Levy to either develop The promising news is that there have or expand an apprenticeship programme. been 67,200 levy supported starts since the introduction of the Apprenticeship From the employers we’ve been speaking Levy. According to the Education and Skills to, it is clear that more knowledge is Funding Agency a total of £80 million required before significant movement was paid for learning from employer levy can happen. Many employers need more accounts for 2017, based on the December time to implement a strategy for their levy 2017 return from training providers. spend.

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PROVIDERS ON THE FRONTLINE

future. They are likely to need to partner For some, however, apprenticeships are up with main providers in order to deliver already in play. According to our survey, areas of training they can’t fulfill.

14% of training providers are on the RoATP and delivering apprenticeship training. A GETTING EMPLOYERS ON BOARD sizeable 22% are planning to get on the Getting employers to spend their levy funds register in 2018. Of this total number is harder than it sounds. It is no secret that of providers who intend to be delivering some employers are absorbing the levy as apprenticeships in 2018, nearly 60% just another tax, in order to eliminate the predict that up to 20% of the year’s turnover costs and complexity involved in setting will come from apprenticeship training. up apprenticeships, and to swerve the 18% predict that apprenticeship training restrictions of the 20% off-the-job rule. will make up 21-40% of their turnover This is particularly true of levy-paying in 2018. These results encompass a fair SMEs, where over a third report that they spread of both smaller and larger-sized will write the levy off as a tax. training providers, which are encouraging projections for the relatively new levy The CIPD has recommended that the system. government invests in boosting SME engagement with the levy. And the system certainly needs more flexibility in order to encourage employers to utilise it. While WHAT ARE THE MAJOR nothing has been confirmed, the 2017 CHALLENGES? Autumn Budget did indicate that the government may introduce more flexibility GROWING COMPETITION when it comes to the off-the-job rule. This The Apprenticeship Levy doesn’t just could ease one of the biggest objections impact the training industry, it affects the employers have to taking on apprentices education system as a whole. As such, or upskilling existing staff, and pave the many further education institutions are way for more levy utilisation. offering a range of higher apprenticeships targeting both individuals and businesses A WIDER IMPACT ON L&D? looking to utilise the levy. As it stands, around 16% of the RoATP is made up of A further concern for providers is that universities and colleges, although this employers will try to ‘shoehorn’ more – or all – of their learning and development number is growing steadily. activity into apprenticeships, in order to utilise the levy. According to the CIPD TRAINING FROM THE INSIDE survey, 46% of employers think that their Around 10% of the RoATP is made up of organisation will be encouraged to rebadge employer providers. This indicates large current training activity as apprenticeships. organisations are considering (if not Although this is concerning, there is not already) investing their levy funds internally enough data to illustrate the reality of this to deliver their own apprenticeship prediction. Employers must follow strict training to their staff. While this is of course guidelines to access levy funds, and the a concern for providers, it is unrealistic effort required to create apprenticeships to expect employers to be able to deliver for every L&D need would not be practical all the apprenticeship training they need or sustainable. Not to mention the fact that internally, at least not for the foreseeable standards have not yet been created for 32

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every role and cannot exist for every L&D need. However, the CIPD has advised the government to consider broadening the Apprenticeship Levy into a wider training levy, which would then change the game entirely.

The findcourses 2017/18 survey revealed that 34% of L&D departments predicted a budget increase in 2018 and 40% predicted it would stay the same. So while L&D budget cuts remain a significant concern for training providers, it seems likely that investment in training will rebalance throughout 2018.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO STAY COMPETITIVE? TEAM UP WITH OTHER PROVIDERS Our feedback from employers indicates that a significant number are looking for providers who can deliver apprenticeship training across multiple business functions, and therefore offering a ‘one call’ solution. This means they have less contracts to manage and can be more responsive to new apprenticeship needs.

With this is mind, you might consider broadening your offering by partnering with other providers to cover training areas you don’t specialise in, and vice versa. This goes for training providers of any size, as our aforementioned survey results indicate.

Ian Taylor, Managing Director of apprenticeship specialist The Education and Skills Partnership (ESP), did just this. “In March 2017 we founded an organisation called The Learning Network (TLN). TLN started to build a network of providers that wanted to work together in their own specialist fields, in a non-competitive way, with the client company and its interests as a priority. This allows each of them to FINDCOURSES.CO.UK |

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engage with large organisations, knowing some concern about the time it takes to through the network, all their needs can receive government co-investment funds. be met by the specialist providers.�

The reality is this: the government will pay 80% of the agreed price, up to the funding band, in monthly installments to the BROADEN YOUR SERVICES training provider. The government will then Employers have also indicated that they pay the remaining balance of the agreed are looking for holistic services from their price, up to the funding band, when the apprenticeship training providers. Such as, apprentice has undertaken all learning that a provider who can help the company is relevant to the apprenticeship. So while source apprentices, deliver the training, the individual payments may be smaller, and offer consultation on their levy strategy the cumulative totals may be worth the and spend. If you have the potential to investment. deliver extra services, this may well give you the upper hand.

WORK WITH NON-LEVY-PAYERS Working with smaller, non-levy-paying employers may not result in major, country-wide apprenticeship contracts, but non-levy-payers make up the bulk of UK business, and this should not be overlooked. Apprentices from smaller companies could make up a cohort for day/block release training, culminating in more sizeable payoffs. There is also 34

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STAY RESPONSIVE AND OPTIMISTIC!

For training providers, now is the time to prepare for these emerging opportunities.

Deliver more standards. Market your services. Hone your expertise and offer consultations.

Forge partnerships. Adapt to employer needs. And above all, stay optimistic. The levy may be moving slowly, but when it picks up speed, you need to be ready.

L&D BENCHMARKING SURVEY: 2018

UK L&D professionals report on their employee learning budgets, their biggest challenges and more We surveyed HR and L&D professionals from some of the largest companies in the UK to answer key questions about where their organisations are investing in talent, how much they’re investing, and additional insights into challenges.

Pinpointing corporate training buyers, we collected survey results through our member database and only included responses from professionals managing or directing learning initiatives in their organisation.

Our goal in sharing this survey is to help you better understand the corporate training market and to shed light on the challenges and trends that will shape the market in 2018.

To read the full report, visit: findcourses.co.uk/ld-report-2018

HOW MANY EMPLOYEES WORK IN YOUR ORGANISATION?

26+22+2513410N 10%

4%

5,001-10,000

10,000+

26% 1-50

13%

1,001-5,000

25%

251-1,000

22%

51-250

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1518+302313+7912+105+1331+02530+23917+140+1114+2

WHAT TRAINING METHOD DOES YOUR COMPANY USE TO TRAIN SENIOR-, MIDAND ENTRY-LEVEL EMPLOYEES

Senior-level employees Mid-level employees

Entry-level employees

30% 20% 10% 0%

On-the-job In-house Coaching by e-learning Conferences Workshops, training training from managers seminars external and peers and open providers courses

Blended learning

Tuition reimbursements

External coaching

WHAT IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE YOUR L&D DEPARTMENT FACES?

34+66+R L 17+ 14+86+R L 14+86+R L 10+90+R L 7+93+R L 6+94+R L 5+95+R L 3+R97+ L 2L 2+R98+ 1+R99+ L 36

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34%

17%

14%

11%

7%

Limited budget

The small size of our team

Getting employees involved in L&D

Showing ROI on talent development initiatives

Aligning L&D goals with the company strategy

6%

5%

3%

2%

1%

Getting the top-level of our organisation to support L&D

Keeping staff engaged during L&D programmes and training

No way of knowing which efforts are most effective

Poor training materials

Poor trainers

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35+ 10172+ 20511+ 79+

WHAT IS YOUR ANNUAL TRAINING BUDGET PER EMPLOYEE? 100% 90% 80% 70% 60%

50%

50% 40% 30%

17%

20%

13%

10%

12%

4%

4%

£601-800

£801-1,000

0%

£0-200

£201-400

£401-600

£1,000+

HOW MANY DAYS OF TRAINING DOES AN AVERAGE STAFF MEMBER RECEIVE PER YEAR? 20%

20%

17%

15%

11%

10%

10%

11%

9%

7%

5%

5%

5%

3%

2%

0%

Less than 1 day

1 day

2 days

3 days

4 days

5 days

6 days

1 week

1-2 weeks

2-3 weeks

More than 3 weeks

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RECOMMENDED CITATION findcourses.co.uk (2018). UK Training Report: Industry Trends. Retrieved from http://www.findcourses.co.uk/training-report-2018 38

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