The latest L&D news, reports, research and updates, personally compiled by TJ’s Editor, Jo Cook. This week: AI hierarchy risks emerge, leadership behaviour shapes change in others, jobseekers report heavier workloads, new grants target youth employment skills, and research challenges assumptions about children’s screen time and cognitive performance in adolescence.
iSpring research asks why only 11% of L&D teams can prove business impact
L&D continues to face one familiar question: “What’s the business impact?” iSpring has returned to the subject in its new Training ROI Playbook 2026: How Top L&D Teams Drive Business Impact, following its research into L&D ROI in 2025.
The new research focuses on a striking finding: only 11% of L&D teams are able to demonstrate measurable business impact. The data also points to some of the difficulties behind that figure. 47% of respondents report challenges around connecting learning with business results, while 57% highlight another barrier to making that connection.
Disability discrimination training: 71% of UK employers have failed to train managers on disability discrimination or staff on neurodiversity
Seven in ten UK employers (71%) have failed to train either their managers on disability discrimination or their staff on neurodiversity, according to a new poll of 398 HR, legal and compliance professionals by compliance eLearning provider, VinciWorks.
More than a third (35%) have trained neither group at all. Looking at the two areas separately, around half of employers (50%) have not trained managers on disability discrimination, and more than half (57%) have given staff no training on neurodiversity whatsoever.
Almost half the time spent on AI is on fixing its output, BambooHR says
Workers on average spend an hour and a half talking to or using artificial intelligence daily, adding up to about 47 days per year, according to a recent BambooHR survey. But nearly half of that time — equivalent to about 20 days per year — is spent on troubleshooting AI errors or on prompt iteration.
Nonetheless, 65% of employees said they felt confident and enthusiastic about using the technology at work, and 58% said they were motivated by time savings gained from AI. BambooHR’s survey, which included more than 1,600 full-time, salaried U.S. workers, also found that those at the vice president and C-suite levels spent nearly twice as much time with AI compared to individual contributors.
AI innovation outpaces human readiness, creating capability gap
Talogy research suggests AI is evolving faster than our ability to understand what good AI-human performance looks like.
- 95% of organisations say AI is automating work at least moderately
- 78% face challenges when assessing AI skills, with current frameworks lacking depth and personalisation
- Just 38% feel ‘very prepared’ to adapt job descriptions and career paths for AI
AI may respond differently to bosses and subordinates
In a new study, researchers cast large language models as bosses and subordinates — principals and teachers, managers and employees — then let them talk. The lower-ranking agents were easier to persuade and more likely to follow unsafe requests from those above them.
The findings point to a concerning trade-off: AI systems that realistically navigate human hierarchies may also reproduce the dangers of deference.
New research from Insights reveals how leadership behaviour impacts productivity
More than two in five leaders (44%) whose behaviour was seen as becoming more negative during significant organisational change appeared to be unaware that it had changed, according to our new global research with 880 HR and people leaders across 11 markets.
The Global Change Readiness Report found that four in five senior HR and people leaders (81%) observed senior executives behaving differently during their organisation’s most recent significant change. Most described the change positively overall, with 63% reporting more positive behaviour.
86% of jobseekers feel they are working more than ever – Gi Group
86% of jobseekers said they feel they are working more than ever, according to the latest survey from Gi Group. More than 1,600 respondents agreed workloads have increased, while only 14% did not.
Gi Group said this reflects rising stress and burnout in the UK labour market as businesses face skills shortages, changes in National Insurance and rapid advances in technology.
New grants of up to £500,000 to build evidence on helping young people facing barriers to work
The Essential Employment Skills Fund (EESF) is now open for projects that will build robust evidence on how best to support young people to develop the skills they need to move into work.
They are inviting applications to evaluate programmes supporting 16-24 year olds to develop the skills, behaviours and attributes needed to access and progress in work. The fund is looking to build stronger evidence about what works, support learning across the sector and help scale effective approaches.
Scientists tracked kids for 8 years — the screen time result was unexpected
A Finnish study has found an unexpected association between screen use and cognitive performance. Children who accumulated more screen time as they grew up tended to show better cognitive processing during adolescence.
One of the researchers cautions against viewing screen time as entirely harmful and says the goal should be to balance physical activity with screen use that encourages active thinking.
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