A new survey from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development finds that despite the growth of initiatives such as Investors in People, the role of training in strategic development and helping to support business objectives is still far from established.

According to the survey results, only 26% of respondents felt that training had an important role to play in helping companies to achieve business objectives, with 40% stating that there was a strategic role for training. Interestingly, up to 60% of respondents did not respond to the question of whether training had a strategic role or a role in achieving business objectives, which suggests that even more training managers and directors do not see a role for training in supporting their company's performance at a higher level.

Despite this, over 86% of respondents said that their senior managers regarded training as a key part of their overall strategy, and nearly 50% said that their senior management took the role of training very seriously. This suggests that there is some discrepancy between the percieved importance of training by those involved in putting it into action, and those involved in managing the company itself. Almost half of respondents said they found it a problem getting sufficient information from senior managers or directors to develop a proper training strategy. The findings also suggest that many senior managers don't take training so seriously that they provide adequate information on which to build training plans.

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