Skills pay dividends - Accounting for human capital: how to increase employer investment in training and make it more visible in company accounts: final study report

The study explores ways to enhance the visibility of companies’ investments in employee training, with the aim of recognising human capital as a value-creating resource, encouraging private sector investment in training and ultimately reducing skills shortages. Currently, only a limited number of companies disclose their training expenditure and where disclosure exists, it tends to be inconsistent. The study assesses several options including ways of capitalising training investments, approaches to reporting training costs and the development of guidelines. Among the assessed options, the introduction of clear guidelines—complemented by appropriate reporting incentives— emerged as the option with the most potential. Such guidelines, focusing on the measurement, tracking, and reporting of training investments, could support companies in making more informed and effective decisions, ultimately enhancing the efficiency and return on their training investments.