Most training programmes fail quietly.
Not because the content is bad.
Not because the facilitator isn’t engaging.
Not even because learners don’t care.
They fail because the workplace gets in the way.
People return from training with good intentions, then hit real work. Time pressure. Competing priorities. Old habits. Helpful colleagues who say, “That’s not how we do it here.”
So change, and therefore impact, relies on memory and motivation.
Which means it doesn’t scale.
If behaviour change depends on people remembering to do the right thing, it’s already fragile.
The programmes that work, design for transfer, not hope for it.
They build prompts into the workflow.
They make progress visible.
They support line managers to reinforce the change.
They reduce reliance on heroic learners.
They pull the right levers.
Call to action:
Look at one programme you’re running right now and ask:
What has to go right, after the training, for behaviour to actually change?
If the answer is “people just need to remember”, that’s your risk.
If you want to go further:
This question is explored across a two-part webinar series with The Learning Network: Making training programmes work.
Part 1, delivered by Melanie Martinelli, CEO Institute for Transfer Effectiveness, on 12 levers of transfer effectiveness (11 February), looks at the design factors that make learning transfer more likely.
Details and registration: 12 Levers of Transfer Effectiveness
In Part 2, I focus on how technology can support those levers so learning transfer actually works at scale, without relying on memory or heroics (25th February).
Details and registration: How Technology Enables Learning Transfer at Scale
