Workers Globally Report Need for Training

According to centredaily.com, the survey concludes that the problem is even more pronounced within IT. Seventy-eight percent of IT professionals working in the U.S. said they have been asked to do tasks for which they were not trained, and 74% of IT workers employed in Europe and the U.K. said the same.

In Europe, more than three quarters of workers polled (76%) said they should have received training before beginning assigned work. Sixty-eight percent of North American workers polled agreed training would have helped had they received it before doing certain tasks in their jobs.

The survey suggests that regardless of location and job title, the majority of workers think ongoing training and development, and the flexibility to take the training when necessary, are essential. Of the U.K. employees polled, 67% said training is most important for senior managers, whereas 52% of U.S. workers responded the same. Throughout Europe, 51% said training was most important for senior managers.

In the U.K. and the rest of Europe, the top three tasks managers said they had to undertake without proper training were managing people, project management, and leadership. U.S. managers cited project management, technical tasks, and managing people.

In the U.S., the top three job functions within their organizations for which respondents feel ongoing training and development is most essential are supervisors (70%), customer service team (54.2%), and IT team (52.5%).

The workforce survey was conducted by OnePoll between October 2007 and June 2008, and obtained responses from roughly 6,100 employees in the U.S. and Europe (2,000 were from the U.S., 2,000 from England, and 2,100 from the rest of Europe). Nearly 1,000 respondents work in IT, and each organization involved in the survey employs in excess of 500 people. Respondents working in a managerial role represent more than a third of the total sample (2,189).