Organizations are struggling to keep up with the rapid pace of new skills, or “speed-to-skill,” according to employee training platform TalentLMS’s new “Speed-to-Skill” report.
The data, based on a survey of 1,500 U.S. respondents—including 964 managers and 536 employees— is the latest in a series of industry research all saying the same thing: Learning is not keeping pace with how fast work is changing.
For example, almost half of the respondents to LinkedIn’s annual survey view the ongoing skills gap as a crisis. Moreover, the Josh Bersin Company’s 2025 report, “Dynamic Skilling, Anticipating and Mitigating Current and Future Skills Gaps,” advocates for a strategy called dynamic skilling, in which workforce skills development is continually realigned to evolve with business needs.
TalentLMS’s new report revealed that seven in 10 employees say they need faster ways to practice skills to keep up with the pace of work, but 44 percent of respondents also say that work keeps cutting into their time to learn.
More than half of respondents—53 percent—are taking skills development into their own hands, due in part to both managers and employees reporting that some of their job skills have become outdated within the last five years.
Managers are struggling with uncertainty about which skills their teams will need even in the next 12 months; three in four want their employees to be able to practice skills faster. A massive driver of this shift is, of course, the rise of artificial intelligence and its fundamental impact on how work is evolving.
Employees are learning on the job rather than depending on traditional learning programs to develop the skills they need. Formal learning still plays a role—33 percent of respondents use resources in their company’s learning platform—but learning by doing remains the most popular approach.
As managers and employees run this marathon together, senior and learning and development leaders can help alleviate the pressure by:
- Creating protected time for learning. When work consistently crowds out development, learning becomes aspirational rather than actual. Leaders can also model the behavior by blocking time on their own calendars and advocating for team norms that treat skill-building as a business priority and not a nice-to-have.
- Shifting from courses to continuous learning. Rather than relying on annual training cycles, organizations can build skill development into the flow of work.
- Listening across levels. Front-line employees often know first when skills are becoming outdated. Building feedback loops that bring these to light will give leaders the information they need to stay ahead of gaps rather than react to them.
The “speed-to-skill” gap is unlikely to close on its own. But organizations that treat learning as an ongoing operational function will be better positioned to keep pace with a workplace that shows no signs of slowing down.
