Leadership development is the top priority for L&D teams over the next 12 months, according to a survey from Video Arts.

The survey asked 417 learning and development professionals about the training they provide, how it is delivered and their plans for the future.

Leadership development was the top priority for organisational learning in the next 12 months, after 61% of respondents identified it as something they intend to provide. Other key priorities for learning are people management, coaching, teamwork, customer service, time management and change management.

Classroom training remains the most popular form of delivery, used by 90% of organisations followed by use of video clips (85%), 49% create their own self-authored e-learning, 45% buy in e-learning resources from specialist providers and 11% use mobile learning as part of their L&D strategy.

Martin Addison, CEO of Video Arts, said: "Although the take-up is still relatively small, mobile learning is the fastest growing medium for training.

"This reflects the interest in learning on-the-move, using hand-held devices such as smartphones and tablets. L&D teams are predominantly using m-learning to reinforce the messages from classroom training or e-learning."

Some 38% of L&D practitioners say they are open to introducing m-learning in the near future, whilst 71% claim they could reach more people if they used m-learning. However, 48% believe that there are technological barriers which make m-learning difficult to implement.

Despite the onset of m-learning, the survey shows that e-learning is still a popular option. L&D teams are using e-learning to provide training in compliance and legal skills (47%), health & safety (44%), personal development (43%), IT skills (40%), inductions (39%) and diversity and equal opportunities (37%). And 29% of L&D practitioners who don’t use e-learning say they plan to implement it in the future.

"The evidence shows that e-learning courses are used more widely for 'hard skills', such as IT training, compliance and health and safety, whereas video is used more for 'soft skills', such as leadership and management skills, customer service skills and professional skills,' said Addison.

The survey showed L&D teams use video in the following ways:

• As part of classroom-based training courses (79%)
• To provide short pieces of bite-sized learning (50%)
• For informal learning (32%)
• For standalone online learning (31%)
• To support one-to-one coaching (24%)
• In self-authored e-learning courses (23%)
• For mobile learning (10%).

"Video can support experiential learning but it is also an effective substitute," said Addison. "It is difficult to role play a situation if you’ve not had any experience of it. However, the next best thing for learning is to watch someone else do it. This is particularly true when you want to explore the emotional impact of real experiences in the workplace, such as redundancy."