Dive Brief:

• The latest Association for Talent Development’s Talent Development Executive Confidence Index (TDXCI) is out for the second quarter of 2016, and it shows that learning industry leaders are still pessimistic about the outlook for talent development than in previous years at this time. Some think that this could signal that the demand for L&D pros is starting to slow down. 

• The survey of more than 300 talent and development leaders measures 4 key factors influencing these functions, including: impact on corporate influence, perception of the value of the talent development function, ability to meet talent development needs, and resource availability.

• In the second quarter of 2016, the TDXCI held steady at 60.9 since Q1 of this year. This represents a score that is less than any noted in 2014 and 2015. The low score indicates that learning and development pros are not confident that companies will have the budgets or the demand for learning and development functions, and this could affect the quality of talent development programs going into next year. 

Dive Insight:

While the TDXCI score is low for the first two quarters of 2016, it may be too early to determine what this means in the context of the full year. Many companies are struggling to find skilled talent, therefore efforts to train in-house talent is the next best option – meaning learning and development pros can expect an upswing in hiring and budgets for this purpose by the end of this year.

A basic job search conducted online shows plenty of jobs for learning and development candidates. The TDXCI results were that one in five learning and development leaders anticipated adding more team members, while two-thirds believed that staffing levels would stay the same. It could be that the rapid growth of the learning and design industry is slowing down somewhat as companies solidify their talent development programs and look to ready-to-use training content as a cost-effective solution.