The vast majority of big U.S companies now train workers across the world. Yet most of their training dollars remain focused on delivering education at home.
A study by outsourcing company Expertus of 268 firms found almost half spent less than 10 per cent of their annual training budgets on training delivered outside their home countries.
Among more than a third of those polled, employees outside of home countries received less training than those located within home countries.
Yet nearly two thirds of companies managed global training through a centralised learning organisation, with four out of 10 employing training staff in both U.S and non-U.S countries.
English was by far the most commonly used language for training, although almost 40 per cent of companies translated training into Spanish, 30 per cent into French and a quarter into Chinese or German.
More than half of the companies polled gave their employees access to e-learning.
The top challenges identified were budget constraints, making content locally focused and translated, effective learning delivery, and the best use of e-learning.
"Global training presents a whole new range of challenges to most companies," said Ramesh Ramani, president of Expertus.
"While most companies recognise that all employees should have equal access to corporate training resources, few know how to meet this goal with existing budgets and technology infrastructures.
"We've seen demonstrable results from those companies that have made global training a priority – including increased revenues, reduced spending, and improved utilisation of workforce resources," he added.
