Learning debt in companies: how to identify skills gaps in your team?
5 de June, 2026
Imagine that, in order to ensure your company’s competitiveness, you invest in new tools, processes or artificial intelligence. Now ask yourself a critical question: does your team have the necessary skills to take advantage of this investment?
According to the Future of Jobs Report 2025 by the World Economic Forum, 39% of key skills are expected to change by 2030. If the demands of the job market are changing rapidly, learning in companies needs to keep pace. In this context of accelerated change, a concept that is still little publicized is gaining relevance: the learning debt.
What is learning debt in companies and why does it happen?
As work becomes more complex, skills don’t always evolve at the same pace. This mismatch between the real demands of the job and the skills available is called learning debt. learning debt.
New tools, responsibilities and ways of working call for more professional training to reinforce know-how within the organization. If this learning is delayed, the gap between “what there is to do” and “what you can do” widens – and can become increasingly difficult and even costly to catch up.
And why are companies postponing training or retraining? According to an OECD study, the biggest obstacles for employees continue to be lack of time – due to workload or family responsibilities – and the cost of learning. Although organizations and employees recognize the importance of developing skills, the day-to-day reality ends up postponing this investment.
3 signs that your company is accumulating learning debt
The most challenging thing is that this phenomenon is not always obvious. Learning debt in companies is something that accumulates gradually, almost silently, until there are difficulties in adapting, internal resistance to change and excessive dependence on external solutions.
Is it already a reality in your organization? It’s worth paying attention to these 3 signs:
1. New tools already implemented, but little or poorly used
The company invests in software, artificial intelligence or automation, but the teams continue to work “as they always have”.
Even when the benefits of change are clear, there can be mistrust or frustration about innovation or modernization. Often, this is not due to a lack of desire, but to insecurity or a lack of mastery.
2. Excessive dependence on some employees
Having someone who “knows how to solve everything” is very convenient when a new process or challenge arises. It may even be efficient in the immediate term. In the medium and long term, it creates too much dependence on that employee’s performance and shows that knowledge has not been well distributed throughout the team.
3. Frequent use of external solutions
When the company repeatedly looks outside its teams for solutions – be it new hires, external consultants or greater reliance on specialized agencies – to operational problems that could be solved internally, this can indicate a weakness in existing skills.
Why it’s important to act early
Even in an era of rapid change, the learning debt in companies rarely arises overnight. It accumulates discreetly, almost without you noticing – in a poorly used tool, a postponed skill or excessive dependence on external services.
The earlier it is identified, the easier it will be to bring the skills of the teams closer to the real demands of the job. Finding the availability to implement learning is the next step, which is not always just a question of time: it can also be a question of financial capacity – and making learning more accessible can make a difference. In this context, extra-salary benefits linked to education and training can be an interesting ally in the continuous development of employees.