IX ASFOR Learning Survey “Italian Education in Turbulent Times
ASFOR (Italian Association for Management Education Development) has recently presented the results of the eighth Learning Survey focused on Italian organizations.
From March to September 2013, ASFOR received 72 on line questionnaires from the main Italian companies: manufacturing (for example: Eni, Ferrero, Pirelli etc..); financial and insurance activities (e.g., Assicurazioni Generali, Banca Intesa San Paolo, Reale Mutua, etc.), services (e.g. Chloride, ENEL, Ernst & Young, , Telecom etc.); subsidiaries of multinational companies located in Italy (e.g. Auchan, Basf, Denso, IKEA, Merck Serono, Osram, Robert Bosch, Skf Industrie, Sky Italia, STM Microelectronics, Webasto, Whirpool,etc.) and well know medium size companies (e.g. Ariston Thermo, Aziende Chimiche Riunite Angelini Francesco, Brembo, Bticino, Chiesi Farmaceutici, Landi Renzo, Loccioni, Lombardini, Riello, Technogym, ecc.).
IX ASFOR Learning Survey: Breakdown by Industry
Main results
1. The Budget: the growing role of social Funds
Italian education is living in a turbulent and volatile environment; the economic recession is influencing the amounts of investments in training and development. in 2012 many organizations reduced their investments, in 2013 the scenario shows some signs of recovery. A significant amount of the organizations (50.0%) maintained the budgets at the same level of previous year. Notably there are more companies that have decreased the budget (30.9%) than companies that have increased the resources devoted to training (12.8%): unfortunately the trend of the previous year has been confirmed although a growing number of companies is increasing their budget All the Italian organizations of training and development continue to be concerned about efficiency. They are more attentive to all training costs (facilities, travel expenses, professional fees). Almost all the organizations are more interested on using the public funds that have been available to finance the training programs such as those inflowing from the European Union, the Italian State and the social Funds. For the first time the Survey shows that the financial resources from social and public Fund have been more substantial than the resources coming from the parents company. The most relevant part of the learning budget is focused on technical training (55.0%, while the 38.1% of the resources is dedicated to the executive education; almost the 6% of the budget is for consultancy and research.
2. Focus of learning activities
In 2013 as in 2012 two trends strengthened: most of the Italian organizations are focusing their training activities on the customised programs as well as on topics able to improve business results quickly. The main topics of learning programmes are: technical and professional competencies; leadership and the improvement of the overall efficiency of the companies. The most innovative Italian organizations are testing social learning networks: for example, some of them are using Youtube and Facebook to promote new ways and methodologies to promote learning.
3. Education providers
Most of the organizations – not only the large companies but even the medium enterprises - are developing customized programs and sometimes strategic alliances with business schools and some executive training companies to foster innovation and the sensitivity to multicultural environment. Italian organizations continue to show an increase on the relevance of the role of the managers as trainers mainly for technical issues.
4. What the companies request from the education providers
The respondents continue to show a good level of satisfaction of the learning providers that are facing the new challenges coming from the new social and competitive environment.
Generally the respondents request the education providers to offer more tailored programs in terms of contents and methodologies as well as an increased knowledge of the business of their customers. Other common requirements are: to be more innovative and adaptive to the customer needs; to obtain results aligned with the strategies of the organization that could be measured even through reliable indicators; to find more efficient solutions without decreasing the quality level.
Author:
Prof. Elio Borgonovi – Deputy Vice President ASFOR, Dr. Salvatore Garbellano, Senior Researcher ASFOR, Dr. Mauro Meda, General Secretary ASFOR
