Canadian training investments lag competitors'.

Canadian organizations are under-investing in employee training and development, and they are failing to allocate training dollars in ways that lead to stronger business performance, according to survey findings from the Conference Board's Learning and Development Outlook 2005.

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"Canadian organizations have reached a plateau in their spending on training and development," said Lawrence O'Keeffe, director of human resources management research. "Training is a critical component of innovation, which leads to higher levels of productivity. Organizations need to align training investments with their overall learning strategy, so the dollars spent contribute directly to meeting business goals."

Canadian organizations spent an average of $914 per employee in 2004, an increase from $824 in 2003. By comparison, U.S. organizations averaged per employee expenditures of $1,135 (converted to Canadian dollars) in 2003, the most recent U.S. data available. In several key areas of training investment, Canadian organizations reported little or no change between the two most recent Conference Board surveys, which were previously known as the Training and Development Outlook.

Only one-third of survey respondents described themselves as learning organizations. Moreover, Canada fell from 12th in 2002 to 20th in 2004 in the Institute for Management Development's Competitiveness Survey, which compares the priority that organizations place on employee training. Canada is on par or just above some of its major trading partners, such as the United States, the United Kingdom and France. But Scandinavian countries, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, and emerging economies such as Singapore and Malaysia are placing a higher priority on training, putting Canada's global innovation position at risk.

The report, Moving Beyond the Plateau--Time to Leverage Learning Investment, outlines the findings of the Conference Board's eighth biennial survey. A total of 206 mostly medium and large-sized organizations participated in the survey.

For more information visit www.conferenceboard.ca.