Employees at the top of the career ladder benefit most from allocated training funds, leaving those on the lower echelons vying for funding.

This is the claim of a new study which says that while many organisations deliver training at all levels, for others it is management that benefit most from career development funds.

The research, conducted by Cegos UK, a learning and development provider states that 61% of respondents say that priority is given to senior staff at the expense of lower level employees.

Over half (53%) said their boss failed to give them clear training goals to assist career development while three quarters felt that the programmes they were offered were either useless or irrelevant to their goals.

Joint Managing Director of Cegos UK, Jeremy Blain blamed this training situation on a lack of ‘competitive edge’ in the marketplace.

“Unfortunately many companies fall into the trap of spending their training budgets on expensive management courses, scraping the barrel when it comes to the rest of its workforce - their potential future leaders, and wondering why their organisation isn’t gaining a competitive edge.

“It’s also no wonder that return on investment from training is so hard to measure if so many people are getting the wrong training, even at management and leadership levels.”