Most business will continue to invest in learning and development into 2011, according to a survey from leadership training provider Ken Blanchard Companies.

According to the 'Corporate Issues Survey', more than three quarters (78%) of organisations polled say they will be spending the same or more on L&D initiatives in the next financial year.

This is a 6% increase on last year's survey, and comes despite findings in the same survey showing that almost 40% of companies are cautious about the economy, and 60% saying they are facing economic challenges. Although 21% of companies say they will spend less or significantly less on training, this is a dramatic improvement on 2009 figures, when 49% confirmed they intended to slash training budgets.

The top two management-training priorities are managing change, and creating an engaged workforce. Yet the area most companies fall down on is developing future leaders; although 62% of respondents recognise they are not being effective in this area, just 44% say they will be working on this issue - a gap of 18%.

The Blanchard survey also asked respondents about social media for the first time, and discovered that for marketing and client outreach, Facebook is the most popular tool, followed by LinkedIn. 57% of companies said they plan to use more social media in the next year; only 5% will use less.