A Forecast of 2025 Learning and Training Trends

As we approach 2025, the rapid pace of technological advancement is reshaping the workplace and, with it, the skills our teams need to succeed. That’s why keeping up with emerging tools and bridging the growing skills gap between generations has never been more critical. Our predictions for 2025 highlight the training and skills development that will help equip your team to thrive in an evolving work landscape – no matter what opportunities and challenges lie ahead in the coming year.

8 Topics to Prioritize in Learning and Training in 2025

Here’s what we see coming for the learning and training industry in 2025 and how to prioritize them with your team. Focusing on these areas can give your workforce the tools to stay competitive, innovative, and adaptable in the face of constant change:

1. Leadership Development Training

In 2025, savvy business leaders recognize that they have to provide their teams with more opportunities to focus on leadership development training – not only for current senior leaders, but also for emerging talent. For upper management, leadership development is about much more than simply managing day-to-day operations – it is about shaping the vision and direction of the organization, building a healthy and happy workplace culture, and mentoring team members so they can become mentors themselves.

Leadership development training should equip today’s leaders with essential skills like strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, decision-making, conflict resolution, and effective communication. However, forward-thinking organizations are also preparing the next generation of leaders, giving high-potential employees at all levels access to leadership training early on. This approach helps identify and nurture future leaders, ensuring they’re ready to take on greater responsibilities as the organization grows and evolves.

Equipping both senior leaders and future leaders with the tools they need to manage effectively creates a trickle-down effect that empowers everyone. It aligns team goals with the broader organizational strategy, enhances performance, and creates a workplace where employees feel engaged, valued, and inspired to grow. The result is a more resilient organization with higher productivity, greater employee satisfaction, and stronger retention rates.

2. AI/Machine Learning

There is no escaping the power and incredible impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning on learning and development. This past year saw incredible growth in the area of AI-powered tools and the sheer variety that people can choose from. ChatGPT, the company that owns OpenAI, an American research laboratory for artificial intelligence (AI), boasts an estimated 180 million active monthly users. That’s why embracing and purposefully integrating AI and machine learning into your workflows is a smart way to kick off the new year.

While your organization may want to place guardrails around how your team uses AI so that they do not accidentally commit intellectual property violations or inadvertently use AI in an unethical way, AI-powered tools are perfect to help ignite your team’s creative spark. When done effectively and with care, AI can help you save time when it comes to common workflow tasks, to quickstart brainstorming and notetaking sessions, and summarizing large amounts of data and information.

Related: 5 Tips to Help You Leverage the Power of AI in Course Authoring

3. Cybersecurity Training

Last year, cyberattacks hit a record-breaking high, affecting 343 million people worldwide. The financial toll of these breaches continues to rise as well, with the average global cost now reaching $4.88 million per incident. With nearly three-quarters of breaches stemming from human error, one of the most critical steps you can take to protect your business is to prioritize training that helps your team learn to identify potential scams and malicious actors. Failing to address common cybersecurity risks now can have catastrophic financial and reputational consequences from which your organization struggles to ever recover. Implementing a comprehensive cybersecurity training program in 2025 is an essential step to safeguarding your organization from a similar fate.

4. Mental Health Support

Mental health can be a tricky topic to broach, especially when it comes to the workplace. But savvy business leaders know they cannot simply ignore mental health issues and the impact they can have on employees and the work they do. In fact, depression is the single biggest cause of disability in the world and mental health issues cost the global economy $1 trillion in lost productivity a year. What’s even more alarming is that, from 2013 to 2017, more than 12% of suicides were found to be related to a work problem or crisis in some way. This is why prioritizing the mental health of your employees in 2025 is not only important to your business, it is necessary to protect your valued workforce.

This may look very different depending on your organization. For instance, you may approach mental health topics by offering training opportunities for your team, ensuring they are appropriately prepared for the jobs they have to perform every day, or else offering them courses on vital topics like stress management and suicide prevention. Perhaps you may choose to invest in some kind of performance management software to help you identify anyone who is struggling so you can intervene and offer them support. Or maybe you will offer your team self-care opportunities and access to wellness apps and mental health days. Whether you choose to protect your team with some combination of the options listed above or others that are critical for your industry, making a plan for the coming year is crucial.

Related: How Tech Can Help Support Mental Wellness in Your Organization

5. Multilingual Learning

In our global economy, most of us work with an increasingly diverse workforce. This is both good and exciting – and the best way to navigate the potential challenges that can come along with this is to face them head-on. That is why ensuring that you are prepared to meet the needs of all of your employees, including multilingual learners, is an important part of preparing your 2025 plan.

When it comes to multilingual learning, there are many benchmarks that you are required to meet. Although English is the dominant language in our country and often in business, providing training in the language your employees best understand is a regulatory requirement of OSHA. But even more than focusing on compliance, ensuring that your multilingual learners are trained properly will help you prevent accidents or possibly even deaths from occurring. For example, according to OSHA, about 25% of job-related accidents are at least partially related to language barriers. When you work to meet the needs of your multilingual learners, you are not only keeping your people safer, you are giving them the tools they need to thrive in their jobs.

Related: 6 Tips to Improve Safety Training with Translated Courses

6. Upskilling

With so many technological advances, the digital economy is transforming fast, meaning that everything needs to be done more efficiently and effectively – and all to the benefit of the customer. With all of these changes, it’s no wonder that some jobs are transforming into something unrecognizable, while other jobs are disappearing completely. Upskilling is what will keep the workforce ready to take on these new and transformed roles.

Upskilling entails learning new skills, but it also involves a cultural shift. If you want to help your team remain competitive in our rapidly shifting world, then you have to be ready to adapt. This also includes having a mindset that is much broader, willing to embrace cultural diversity and new ways of thinking. No matter what industry your company is a part of, your employees need to have technical skills and abilities that they have never needed to have before – and it’s in your best interest to get them there. According to Gallup, the expense of replacing a salaried employee can be up to two times the employee’s annual salary.

7. Immersive Learning (3D, Video, & Case Study Courses)

By embracing innovation and adopting more effective approaches to online training, your team will be better equipped to make safer, smarter, and better decisions on the job. This includes incorporating courses built around case studies into your training program as people tend to learn more effectively when lessons are tied to a relatable story. Case studies bring what might otherwise be a list of “dos and don’ts” to life by presenting real scenarios and individuals. Greater engagement leads to better retention, and when the content resonates, learners not only focus more on the training, but they are also more likely to actually modify their behavior going forward.

Research shows humans may learn best when processing a combination of visual and auditory information, which is why video learning works. Data from over 105 studies show video learning may even be more effective than learning via in-person lectures. Video learning forces instructors and content creators to edit for concise, impactful content and allows learners to skip over unnecessary or boring content.

3D training will also be a particularly important part of modernizing your training for 2025 and beyond. By boasting a more hands-on experience, and empowering learners to take control of their own learning, 3D training allows workers to practice the skills they most need in a much easier and safer environment. That’s why, for more than a decade, Vector Solutions has designed advanced 3D-animated courseware with over 1,000 safety and operations training modules that have helped train over 250,000 workers worldwide.

8. Diversity & Accessibility

The proliferation of online learning has many benefits, including ease of access for lots of different types of people, including those with disabilities and various special needs. But, if you’re not careful in your course creation process, bias and discrimination can still harm minority and female learners – and, particularly with online courses, bias and discrimination can be harder to spot.

In 2023, the employment-population ratio for working-age individuals with disabilities reached 37.2%, the highest recorded since data collection began in 2008. This significant increase underscores the importance of accessible education and training programs in enhancing employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

In 2025, inclusivity and accessibility should be cornerstones of your content creation process. Ensuring diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible content will help you provide learners with the relevant, updated, and results-driven content they need – when, where, and how they need it.

Making your courses accessible to all should include a consideration of the audience and whether that audience is well-represented in the story of the course. This may mean asking critical questions to evaluate the course content to reach, represent, and include everyone in your content. By auditing your courses, you can address inclusivity and accessibility concerns and use those learnings to optimize your process in the future.

Related: Impactful DE&I Training + The Modern Workplace: How We Can Help

How to Prepare for the Year Ahead

Our world and the landscape of learning and training continue to change – and it is our responsibility to evolve with them. At Vector, this is a powerful idea that aligns with how we perform our mission-driven work to meet the specific, dynamic needs of our clients in critical industries: leveraging best-in-class, cutting-edge tech solutions to increase safety and mitigate risk in the real world.

Prep for the year ahead and ensure your team is ready for anything with Vector’s powerful and customizable solutions for critical industries.