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Workers want to grow where they are, but many believe their employers are not clear on what skills will be most important in the years to come.
A recent learning and development report by employee experience platform Perceptyx found nearly 40% of employees are lacking this skills clarity. The survey of nearly 3,000 professionals in the U.S. and Europe also showed an equal amount lack confidence that their organization is actively helping employees like them build skills for future roles. And, while 75% of executives believe their organization has a clear learning strategy, only 43% of employees agreed.
For both organizations and employees, the skills picture has grown murkier as artificial intelligence (AI) continues to rewrite the rules and roles. More than 80% of workers are willing to be reskilled for a different role within their organization, but two-thirds believe they will have to leave their current job to advance their career, according to a Talent Mobility at Work in 2026 report by workforce assessment platform SHL. The survey is based on responses from more than 2,000 workers in the U.S. and United Kingdom.
“There’s a gap between the skills employees feel they need and the support they’re getting from their current workplace,” says Lucy Beaumont, SHL’s senior vice president of product and design. “Organizations are struggling to determine what skills they need. It’s a difficult task.”
WorldatWork members can access bonus articles on this subject:
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What’s Behind the Skills Challenge?
Identifying critical skills has become increasingly important as AI changes day-to-day responsibilities and organizational charts continue to flatten.
“We see static job descriptions, but the skills people are using are changing all the time,” Beaumont said. “That is becoming a bigger problem than ever before.”
“We know that supporting learning and development and giving people a sense of that is really important,” he said. “But a lot of leaders behind closed doors are saying they don’t know what the future is going to look like.”
Still, employees recognize the value of skills development. In a survey of 6,000 full-time employees conducted by HR software company Workday, 79% said they know what skills they need to succeed, but only 66% believe their employer is actually helping them develop those skills. That finding is supported by another data point in the same report: mentions of training skills in job requisition data fell 13% between September 2025 and July 2026.
“Leaders need to be honest about what’s different and give people a way to keep up,” Phil Willburn, Workday’s vice president of people system, intelligence and support, said in a statement about the findings.
But the fast-changing impact of AI and other external conditions is a key obstacle, according to Brad Wilson, Perceptyx’s global head of workforce insights and innovation.
“We know that supporting learning and development and giving people a sense of that is really important,” he said. “But a lot of leaders behind closed doors are saying they don’t know what the future is going to look like.”
Longstanding internal structures also make skills development more challenging. While it’s easier and more cost effective to develop talent internally, companies often have better visibility into skills for external candidates than their own employees, said Beaumont. In fact, the SHL research found 59% of surveyed U.S. workers believe their employer favors external hires over internal ones.
Within siloed organizations, managers have “never been rewarded for internal mobility,” Beaumont noted, adding the way organizations are set up drives talent hoarding.
Employees can sense this: The SHL report found just 42% of them believe their managers fully understand what skills they possess. Visibility into team members’ skills also has been made more difficult in today’s dispersed workplaces, Beaumont said.
All this calls for new strategies for identifying and developing skills, according to Wilson.
“The old model of ‘let’s develop a course, put it in a catalog and leave it alone’ doesn’t work,” he said. Instead, when learning and development is “aligned with a clear purpose and vision of the future, it gives employees a sense of purpose and stability,” he added.
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