insight
Need to upskill at scale?
The role of integrated HR data.
Workers demanding professional development
Across the world, people are working for longer than in previous generations. Their reasons for doing so vary; from cost-of-living pressures and inadequate pension provision, to sending money to family members, who can often live in a different country.
Globally, ADP Research found that 48% of workers aged 55-64 who hold down three or more jobs do so to cover essential expenses, while 44% of this age group say they’re working multiple jobs to build up savings for retirement.1
Employers may be even more interested in the fact that 20% of this age group working multiple jobs say they do so to finance their education or training (rising to 30% across people of all ages). Additionally, 24% are motivated by the desire to gain work experience.
People’s aspirations to keep acquiring skills into their fifties and sixties partly reflect how employee expectations about learning in the workplace are evolving. At the other end of the spectrum, younger generations question how employers will help develop their professional skills, while evaluating traditional education’s rising costs and deferred financial gains.
What’s clear is that on-the-job training and continuing education are set to become increasingly important for employees of all ages, especially as they strive to differentiate themselves amid the rapid uptake of new AI technologies.
Workers’ untapped skills potential
In our global survey, respondents ranked ‘career advancement’ as the second most important reason for staying with their employer (eclipsed only by the desire for flexible working). How effectively are employers equipping staff to secure the skills they’ll need to progress professionally?
Globally
- Most workers think their employers could be doing better when it comes to upskilling; only 17% strongly agreed that their employers were investing in the skills they need for career advancement
- Just 3.8% of workers learn new skills on the job within two years of starting
Europe
- Only 17% of workers say they have the skills needed to advance their careers
- Even fewer, 12%, say their employer invests in the skills they need to advance (both figures are the lowest of all regions we surveyed)
- 11% of workers strongly agree that AI will positively impact their job responsibilities in the next year (again, the lowest figure of all regions surveyed)
UK
- Nearly a third (28%) of workers list ‘professional training and skills development’ among the top three reasons to stay with an employer
- Less than a quarter of people in each age group strongly agree that their employer is investing in the skills they’ll need to advance their career in the future (ranging from 20% of workers aged 18-26, to just 6% of their counterparts in the 55-64 age bracket)
- Women (18%) are much less likely than men (26%) to strongly agree that they have the skills needed to advance over the next few years
While workers want more skills, employers want more skilled personnel
The opportunity to get ahead is important for workers and companies alike. ADP payroll data from the United States shows that upskilling correlates to a 37% wage increase. Employers, too, reap rewards from upskilling in the form of improved reputations, higher productivity and reduced employee turnover.
Labour shortages show no signs of abating, with more than 85 million jobs projected to go unfilled by 2030 because there aren’t enough skilled people to take them.2 And it’s an issue that’s got many CEOs worried. Over half (52%) of them say ‘Lack of skills in my company’s workforce’ is inhibiting their company from changing the way it creates, delivers and captures value.3
Workers know that today’s job market demands a diverse skills profile, and the signs are that they appreciate employers who invest in helping them achieve it.
ADP Research found that workers who felt strongly that their employer was providing the training they needed were nearly six times more likely than others to recommend their company as a great place to work. Staff were also 3.3 times more likely to describe themselves as ‘highly productive’ when they did receive training.
“When organisations invest in upskilling, their workers are much less likely to quit. And people are much more likely to describe themselves as highly productive when on-the-job training is provided.”
–
Nela Richardson, ADP Chief Economist and ESG Officer, Head of ADP Research
Organisations are typically tackling labour shortages with a three-pronged approach:
- Buying in external talent who possess niche expertise,
- borrowing through temp workers and flexible staffing models, and
- building upskilling programmes to develop existing employees (with a growing need to integrate these into daily workflows for better engagement).
In a survey of HR teams, ADP found that around 25-30% of firms plan to introduce programmes for upskilling or reskilling in the next 12-18 months.4 This sounds promising, yet the success of any such approach depends on the availability and reliability of the employee skills data HR has to work with, which needs to reflect people’s evolving skill sets in real time. According to Gartner®, only 8% of organisations have reliable data on the skills the workforce currently possesses and those that have the greatest impact on business success.5
The shift to skills-based strategies
HR professionals in companies of all sizes acknowledge that the traditional approach to delivering training and the ‘teaching’ of skills must change. The onus is squarely on HR leaders to facilitate new, non-linear learning models and embrace technology that can enable this dynamic skills development approach.
Adopting a skills-based approach to talent is more than an innovative hiring strategy; it’s a profound investment in employees.
"Adopting a skills-based approach to hiring widens the talent pool tremendously, and it also opens up access to more diverse candidates, which is great for innovation."
– Jason Delserro, Chief Talent Acquisition Officer, ADP
A skills-based approach to talent shifts the focus of hiring and development from inferred skills and traditional qualifications, such as degrees and industry experience, to the actual skills people bring. This approach can help leaders identify the best match for a role, based on a person’s strengths and abilities, regardless of how they acquired the skills they now have.
Powering skills development through integrated data
As more firms realise the benefits of shifting to a skills-based approach, centralising and connecting both implicit and explicit skills data across the company’s HR tech stack is becoming increasingly important.
To maximise workforce skills intelligence, companies should prioritise integrating applications such as talent management, learning management and analytics with core HR functions. The greater bandwidth from integration not only enhances the capabilities of HR processes but also provides deeper insights into employee skills and development needs.
With integrated systems, HR teams gain access to a comprehensive skills database that lets them better align the workforce’s skills with business strategies and growth priorities. Seeing the skills in scope means they can create personalised development programmes to boost performance at scale. This approach can also help reduce training costs and hiring missteps, serving as a valuable resource for all related decisions.
This level of integration provides more transparency around the learning outcomes themselves. HR teams can then demonstrate how they’re creating new skills within the workforce and link performance directly to compensation. This, in turn, helps HR managers with compensation planning, as the insights from the connected data feed into the overall performance and recognition strategy.
For many HR leaders who lack a single view of skills across the organisation, it can be very challenging to spot workforce trends or predict future skills needs with confidence. But the value of data integration isn’t just about greater visibility into workforce skills to identify the new expertise needed for business growth. Data integration reduces the administrative burden on overextended HR teams, creating the breathing space they need to fully commit to developing homegrown talent.
Company growth depends on developing skills
For any firm to grow, its staff must continually grow in competencies. From critical thinking to change management to AI literacy, successful employers view skills development less as the enrichment of an individual or team and more as an ongoing and embedded part of work. This mindset can prove essential for business and margin growth.
By integrating workforce skills data with other HR functions, HR leaders can advance their company’s digital transformation and take solid steps to future-proof the organisation. A recent ADP survey revealed that succession planning integrations are among the least likely to be prioritised by midsized companies.6 Firms that can harness integrated data to proactively identify skills gaps and match them with learning opportunities for succession planning can gain a competitive edge in strategising for the future.
Data integration is also fundamental for AI and automation. To get the most out of AI models and automated processes, companies need to establish a smooth and high-quality data flow along with integrated technologies. This approach enables effective data aggregation and analysis, which is vital for producing meaningful insights that help HR teams better understand workforce skills, crucial for any upskilling or talent development initiatives.
References
1 ADP Research, People at Work 2025: A Global Workforce View. All statistics taken from this study unless otherwise stated.
2 The $8.5 Trillion Talent Shortage, Korn Ferry, 2023
3 PwC’s 27th Annual Global CEO Survey
4 2025 ADP survey of HR teams in US-headquartered firms
5 Gartner Press Release, Gartner HR Research Finds Organizations’ Current Talent Management Efforts Inhibit Optimal Employee and Organizational Performance, September 18, 2024. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
6 2025 ADP survey of HR teams in US-headquartered firms
