I am ready to say goodbye and good riddance to 2020. This was a challenging, crazy year plagued by a virus that just will not quit. But before I bid this year an unfond farewell, I want to express how awestruck I am by Learning & Development (L&D) professionals’ remarkable ability to deliver effective, engaging, and valuable training even as they continue to toil tirelessly from home, are bleary-eyed from Zoom calls and virtual sessions, and often saw their budgets and resources slashed. Thank you for your unwavering commitment to helping people learn, grow, and be the best they can be in these turbulent times!
I also congratulate the winners of our crowd-sourced 2020 Training Magazine Network Choice Awards—these are the vendor partners you selected as the best of the best when it comes to providing the most effective tools and solutions for your work. See “Training Magazine Network Choice Awards 2020 Winners” for the list of winners who have helped the L&D industry successfully train workers throughout the crisis and beyond.
Serving as a temperature check for Learning and Development professionals during the last year are Training magazine’s exclusive Annual Salary Survey and Training Industry Report. Paychecks were a bit healthier in 2019-2020, our 2020 Salary Survey of 1,089 readers found, with average training salaries growing nearly 3 percent to $87,658. But our 2020 Training Industry Report found that overall U.S. training expenditures dipped a little more than half a percent to $82.5 billion as COVID-19 tightened its stranglehold on the world. Some 86 percent of respondents said at least some of their training was put on hold during the pandemic. In terms of the biggest training challenges during the last seven months, #1 was technology/ramping up remote training at 28 percent, followed by getting people engaged in remote training (19 percent) and converting content to digital format (18 percent). With hopes that we will rebound from the pandemic in 2021, more than half of respondents indicated they would return to some classroom training while maintaining some of the remote learning instituted during the pandemic.
Looking ahead, I am optimistic about 2021 and excited to share some changes coming to Training magazine. We will unveil a fresh new look for the print issue, which now will publish quarterly beginning in March and will focus on our exclusive research and best practices from award-winning organizations and leaders. We are also revamping www.trainingmag.com and supplementing our daily article postings with eight themed online-only issues, beginning with January 2021. Last but not least, our Training 2021 Conference will be 100 percent virtual, so you can safely network with and learn from your peers wherever you are. Register today at www.trainingconference.com!
I wish you and your loved ones a healthy holiday season filled with hope and happiness. And I look forward to turning the page and beginning a new chapter with you in 2021!
