Management and leadership training is employees' top choice for aprofessional development program. (Photo: Shutterstock)

While pay increases remain the top choice of employers lookingto retain their best employees, the second mostpopular option is training.

But, according to PayScale, Inc.'s Professional Development: What Employees Wantreport, employees have very definite notions aboutwhich sorts of training they are most interested in—and employersshould pay attention.

Although pay raises were the top retention strategy for 61percent of employers, only a hair less—59 percent—said they'd befocusing on offering employees training. But, according to WendyBrown, director at PayScale, it's not all that simple.

Related: The key to retaining your top-performingemployees

"While there are some significant trends, our research showsprofessional development is really not a one-size-fits allapproach," Brown says. "Employers should take the time to trulyunderstand which programs and training opportunities would be mostimportant to help every employee progress in his or her career in ameaningful way."

The report cites specific training goals among employees, suchas the big winner—management and leadership training—chosen by 32percent of respondents as their top choice for an employeeprofessional development program. Next most popular among workerswere professional certification (30 percent) and technical skillstraining (17 percent).

Then there are the less popular options, chosen by less than 10percent of respondents: teamwork/interpersonal skills training (8percent), employer-subsidized degree (7 percent),communications/public speaking (4 percent) and diversity andinclusion training (2 percent).

Men look to training courses as stepping stones forpromotion/advancement, at 37 percent, while women see them as meansto higher pay, at 35 percent. And when it came to type of training,that varied depending on the field in which employees work. Forinstance, 36 percent of health care employees said they were mostinterested in professional certifications from the selection oftraining program options, but workers in human resources were themost likely to want professional certification (43 percent) whencompared to other occupations.

Then there's the age variation. Millennials wanted professionaldevelopment across the three top programs: management/leadershiptraining, professional certification and technical skills training.But boomers were more interested in teamwork/interpersonal skillstraining and public speaking training than millennials.

Read more: 

• Amazon to invest $700 million in retraining itsworkforce
• How staff training and development helps the bottomline
• How you can improve your leadership developmentprogram–according to millennials