Spending More, Learning Less
What the latest L&D statistics say about the knowledge-performance gap.
L&D budgets are under more scrutiny than ever. Most of the questions they face are about volume: how many courses ran, how many people completed them, how highly they were rated. But the hardest question gets asked far less often: Is all that training producing people who can actually do the job?
Look across the latest L&D statistics and the answer is uncomfortable. Misplaced L&D budgets have set off a knowledge-performance gap. The skills are taught, but habit always wins when the pressure becomes real. Five independent studies we explored, using five different methods, keep reaching the same conclusion. Training gets delivered, completed and rated, but capability isn’t keeping up.
The worry starts at the top
When L&D’s own leadership is passing a worry down to the team, there is a problem that must be tackled in team training. A concerning 49% of L&D and talent development professionals say their own executives are concerned about employees not having the right skills to execute the business strategy (LinkedIn's 2025 Workplace Learning Report).
Employees aren’t confident either
It isn't just leadership teams that sense an issue either. In fact, this gap between the knowing and the doing trickles down the entire organisation. Ask the trainees directly and the picture worsens. Only 1 in 4 of the global workforce feels sure that they have the skills needed to advance to the next job level (ADP Research Institute's People at Work 2025). Across all levels of the organisation is an endemic of doubt, too many people sharing the insecurity about skills that are not put into practice – it’s the same worry just from different sides.
Paying more for less
So the solution is to spend more of the budget on training. Another module, or another multi-choice quiz to round things off. But the statistics suggest that spending is not the problem.
ATD’s 2025 State of the Industry report found formal learning hours (per employee) fell from 17.4 in 2023 to 13.7 just a year on. But over the same period, the average cost per hour of training rose 34% to $165 (Association for Talent Development's 2025 State of the Industry report).
Organisations are clearly paying more for less training, but this isn’t a quality over quantity case. In fact, 65% of employees say that their learning actually happens on-the-job, during real scenarios – with only 47% crediting traditional training. So, whilst the budget being spent is gone over with a fine tooth comb, the actual training itself isn’t examined enough. In turn, the need for the rehearsal, application and embedding of new skills is never detected.
Big spend, low skill
The gap between knowledge and performance is widest where both the stakes and the spending are highest. Skillsoft’s 2024 IT Skills and Salary Report found that 65% of IT decision-makers report skill gaps within their own team. The report’s most striking finding however, was that whilst AI and machine learning received the highest investment priority (47%), it was the weakest skill out of 30 other competencies (34%) (Skillsoft's 2024 IT Skills and Salary Report).
A graph of these L&D statistics would show a strong negative correlation between money invested and employee capability.
The 7% problem
You may expect that the gap is easiest to close at leadership level, yet only 7% of leaders say that they are actually helping in leading the growth and adaptation of their workforce (Deloitte's 2026 Global Human Capital Trends research). If leaders can’t seem to help solve the knowledge-performance gap, then we have a much bigger problem than most L&D professionals realise.
What the statistics add up to
Five separate studies in five separate organisations, and one pattern repeats. These studies all show that understanding is being delivered and measured reasonably well. Capability – and confidence in that capability – is lagging behind, for individuals, teams and leaders alike.
None of this means training doesn’t work. It means training is usually good at what it was designed for, knowledge transfer. But it does far less of what capability development actually depends on, creating behavioural change through rehearsed practice. It's is the difference between what people can explain and what they can actually do when it counts. It’s the employee who passed the phishing-awareness quiz with full marks, then clicked the link in a convincing email the following week. At Totem, this is what we call the knowledge-performance gap.
Where your budget should go next
If you’re accountable for L&D spend, there are three practical takeaways:
Stop treating completion as the finish line. A completion rate tells you people went through the material. It tells you nothing about whether they could repeat the behaviour a week later, under pressure.
Find out where the gap actually is before buying more content. Is it a lack of clarity, missing skills, an environment working against the behaviour, or no chance to rehearse? Each needs a different fix, and adding another module is rarely the solution.
Fund practice, not just information. Choose one decision or behaviour your organisation already knows it gets wrong. Rebuild it as something people can rehearse, get feedback on, and try again before it counts for real. Then measure the behaviour itself, before and after.
It's time to go deeper
The statistics don’t lie, if anything, they set out a clear objective: get out the fine-tooth comb and examine your training in more depth. Think about what it is actually testing in your employees and whether it’s enhancing capability or creating a gap.
Our whitepaper, Knowledge isn’t enough: Exploring the knowledge-performance gap in L&D, covers the research behind why the gap exists. And gives you a four-factor Performance Readiness Framework for diagnosing your own gap, and four questions to stop you widening it through a misplacement of budget on another training module.