Employees Value Training, but Many Feel Overlooked

By AMA Staff

AMA 2025 Career Development Survey: Training, Effectiveness, and Advancement

With technology and the competitive landscape evolving at blistering speed, keeping professional skills sharp and employing a highly trained workforce have never been more crucial. But are organizations investing adequately in their talent through training and development? Is the training effective? And what about career advancement opportunities? Are they accessible? Is there a clear path, regardless of job level?

To explore these and other key career-development questions, the American Management Association (AMA) queried more than 1,100 people worldwide on a variety of metrics. Countries represented in the survey include more than a dozen of the world’s largest economies.

Among AMA’s findings were:

• When leadership training is available, it’s impactful.
• Nearly all respondents who had participated in such training found it to be worthwhile.
• About three-quarters of organizations leverage high-quality training as a tool for career advancement, engagement, and retention.
• Of respondents who lacked access to leadership training, two-fifths said it was hindering their career.
• The vast majority of respondents were interested in advancing their careers.
• Managers and senior leaders could benefit from being more proactive in recognizing their team members’ accomplishments. Two-thirds of individual contributors said their work lacked visibility.
• Having a clear process for transforming top performers into leaders appears to be a highly effective intervention, but nearly half of organizations lacked such a process.
• Respondents sought numerous types of training, particularly management, leadership, strategic thinking, and AI.
• Senior leaders were particularly interested in AI training, far more so than managers or individual contributors.

Access to training and development

AMA’s 2025 career development survey revealed that, in general, organizations are providing training and development opportunities, and employees value it. Three-quarters of respondents (75%) said that most people in their organization had access to training and development opportunities. Training and development vary in depth and quality, and the effectiveness of the training likely falls across a broad spectrum.

As a training organization, AMA learned that 18% of organizations surveyed did not offer training opportunities to their employees, while another 8% were unsure, suggesting their organizations failed to clearly communicate available options. Altogether this means more than a quarter (26%) of organizations were neglecting training, revealing a need to increase awareness about how high-quality behavior-change training boosts engagement and retention.

Not only were most organizations offering training and development, but a significant proportion of respondents were taking advantage of it. More than half of respondents (57%) had participated in leadership training in the past year. Participation differed substantially by job level. Individual contributors were the least likely to have received such training (33%), followed by managers (68%) and senior leaders (76%). Of those who had participated in leadership training, nearly all (90%) said it was valuable and beneficial to their career.

Among respondents whose organizations did not offer training and development programs to most employees, 41% said it was hindering their career growth. Nearly half of manager-level respondents believed this (48%)—more than the share of individual contributors (38%) and senior leaders (34%).

Respondents blamed the lack of training access at their organization primarily on budget constraints (44%). This is ironic, considering that recruiting, hiring, and onboarding new talent is typically more costly, while employees whose organizations invest in them tend to be more engaged and more likely to stay. Other top reasons organizations were not providing training included management preferences (42%), job-level limitations (39%), and time constraints (28%).

Levels and effectiveness of training

• Awareness — Exposure to information and passive consumption. Introduces concepts but does not require engagement. Examples: articles, videos, keynotes, podcasts. Effectiveness: useful for introducing new topics and sparking interest but does not generally lead to significant behavior shifts.
• Knowledge sharing — Helps employees understand new concepts, frameworks, and theories. Examples: webinars, case studies, assessments. Effectiveness: raises understanding but may not result in sustained improvement unless the employee is self-motivated.
• Skill development — Learning through experience and applying newly gained knowledge. Examples: live workshops with role playing, hands-on learning and simulations, practicing skills, and receiving feedback. Effectiveness: enhances retention and confidence and can lead to greater competence if practice is consistent.
• Behavior change — Sustained application of skill development in real work, including ongoing practice, reinforcement, and accountability. Examples: post-training coaching from a manager, on-the-job skill application, and ongoing feedback and follow-up from management. Effectiveness: the highest level of learning, leading to effective and sustained improvement.

Advancement opportunities

Nearly three-quarters of respondents (72%) said advancement opportunities were accessible to employees in their organization who “qualified,” meaning those on an identified career track. Thirteen percent said such opportunities were not available, and 15% were unsure. Individual contributors were less likely to believe this (61% yes, 16% no, 23% unsure).

Among those who said their organization lacked advancement opportunities, the most common reasons were lack of leadership support (49%) and limited positions available due to organizational structure (46%), followed by budget constraints (33%) and a lack of understanding of promotion criteria (27%). A much greater proportion of U.S. respondents cited the top two reasons. The survey also found a correlation between a lack of access to training and development opportunities and the perception that advancement opportunities were not accessible.

Career advancement and motivation

On several career advancement metrics, the survey found significant differences among job levels. Individual contributors reported being less ambitious than managers and senior leaders. However, they were still concerned about recognition for work and visibility to senior leaders. Even when individual contributors are content in their role, they report being motivated by recognition and visibility. If senior leaders were lax about extending recognition, individual contributors said they were less likely to feel as if their accomplishments were visible to supervisors, and they tended to believe that recognition was unequally distributed.

About three-quarters of respondents (76%) said they actively pursued career advancement opportunities. Respondents with higher levels of responsibility were more apt to say they sought such opportunities. This could suggest that more ambitious employees tend to rise in the ranks, or that succeeding at advancement inspires people to pursue additional opportunities.

Recognizing accomplishments

The survey found that leaders could do more to acknowledge their employees’ work and their teams’ accomplishments. We asked how much visibility respondents had with leadership to recognize their work and accomplishments. Nearly half (48%) said they never (7%) or only occasionally (41%) had visibility. Fifty-two percent said it often (39%) or always (13%) provided such exposure. Respondents at lower job levels reported significantly less visibility. Two-thirds of individual contributors said they had no (14%) or only occasional (52%) visibility. About two-fifths of managers (43%) said the same (4% no, 39% occasional visibility).

About two-thirds of respondents (68%) said they felt as if they received the same levels of recognition as their colleagues. Three-quarters of senior leaders (75%) and managers (73%) said this. Only 59% of individual contributors agreed, suggesting that about two-fifths (41%) of individual contributors feel unfairly treated.

Developing leaders

Nurturing top performers should be a priority for any successful organization. The survey confirmed that having a clear policy to support top performers for leadership roles can be an effective intervention. Among respondents who said their organization had a clear process, 70% said it had supported their own advancement to leadership; the proportion was marginally lower in the U.S. (64%).

That proportion rose substantially when we filtered out individual contributors, whose advancement to leadership is still likely in its early stages. Globally, nearly all senior leaders (88%) and about three-quarters of managers (78%) said a clear process for supporting top performers helped their advancement to leadership.

Despite the effectiveness, 43% of survey respondents perceived that their organization lacked a clear process for identifying and supporting top performers for leadership roles. The proportion rose to 54% among individual contributors and dropped to 34% among senior leaders. Senior leaders would naturally be more attuned to their organization’s process since they may have been identified and supported to reach their current level. The fact that individual contributors are less aware of such a process suggests they may perceive a lack of support for their growth, which could lead to disengagement, frustration, or even attrition.

Targeting areas of improvement

Through our findings, AMA determined that most organizations appear to be proactive in furnishing training opportunities for their employees, particularly at the upper levels of responsibility. Professionals also value the training and development they are receiving and say that it has helped them advance their careers. However, there is room for improvement at all levels. AMA determined that organizations need to do a better job of identifying and supporting top performers for leadership roles. Additionally, many employees continue to feel overlooked and unrecognized, and many senior leaders desire AI training.

Where can organizations focus their training efforts? AMA found a note of consistency in the types of training and development that employees seek. Worldwide, respondents remain hungry primarily for training in skills relevant to leadership, such as management, communication, and strategic thinking. With the exception of training in AI, these skills were in higher demand than hard skills such as project management, analytics, and finance. This suggests that despite the rapid evolution of technology and competition, strong leadership remains the most vital competency and valuable skill set.

For more detailed insights about the importance of leadership training and how to build better career pathways for employees, read the full whitepaper.

For over 100 years, American Management Association (AMA) has helped millions of people, through its world-class training and development programs, bring about positive change in their performance in order to improve business results. Learn more: amanet.org