Interestingly, training is undertaken mainly as a result of the employee's own initiative (61%). Germans (68%) and Spaniards (67%) in particular take the initiative for this. For the French however, this is only the case for one in two workers. Lastly, English managers are the most involved in the training of their teams: in 40% of cases the training is due to a joint employee / manager initiative, and English managers are twice as likely to carry out a post-training follow-up compared to their European counterparts (31% vs. 13%).


The level of satisfaction with training across all countries is striking: nearly all employees (94%) are satisfied with their training. In addition to this basic satisfaction, they find it useful for networking with other professionals (94%), and 80% believe that what they learn from the training will contribute to their personal development.


The majority of employees are also prepared to go even further: 76% of them state that they are willing to undergo training outside working hours, and 53% would be prepared to fund the training themselves. The French are more reserved than their European cousins on these proposals: They mostly approve the possibility of undergoing training in their spare time (64%), but only 34% of them are prepared to pay for the training out of their own pocket.


The situation for employees varies with the size of the companies. As such, of the four countries studied and contrary to some preconceptions, it is not necessarily the biggest companies that offer the most training: medium-sized companies (250 to 1000 employees) train 86% of their staff as opposed to 71% for companies with more than 1000 employees. They use mixed formats in 35% of cases as opposed to 32% for large organisations.


Onsite training remains a strong favorite: 92% of Europeans trained over the last three years were trained in this way. However, classroom training co-exists with other training practices such as self-paced eLearning (42%) or mixed onsite / eLearning methods (31%). In terms of training modalities, there are strong differences among the countries: nearly three times as many Spanish as French employees have undergone eLearning (54% vs 19%).


Spaniards are also the champions of training by video conferencing: 57% of Spanish employees that trained via eLearning have been involved in video conferencing. The English are also at the forefront of eLearning training, with 42% trained in this way. The Germans, behind the Spanish and the English in terms of eLearning in general, are leaders in practices such as the serious game (21%) or m-learning / training via mobile phone (15%).


France, despite legislation that is particularly favorable toward training, continues to lag behind its European neighbors, practicing eLearning and mixed training less than their European counterparts.


When asked about their expectations for the three years ahead, Europeans are overwhelmingly in favor of on-the-job learning (89%) and onsite training (87%), as well as a variety of learning methods: mixed training (86% of respondents are in favor of their development), eLearning (86%), and collaborative training tools (67%).


Mathilde Bourdat, manager for the "Training Management" product at Cegos, states, "We can be quite disappointed that despite one of the most pro-training legislatures in Europe, France is lagging behind on several issues. French are those least likely to take the initiative for their own training. Nearly a quarter (22%) of untrained French employees said that they simply don't complete part of their training plan, whereas only 6% of Germans cite this reason."


Laurent Reich, Engineering Training Manager at Cegos, adds, "France is also lagging behind in terms of training methods. While the Spanish and the English undertake as much classroom training as we do, they also vary the training methods by using eLearning modules, virtual classes, or serious games. In France, even today, very few employees have the option of using all the different training methods."