Training is a process, not an event.
I've watched the same loop play out in many organisations.
Something goes wrong — service quality, product knowledge, a behaviour, the numbers.
The conclusion lands quickly: "the staff need training."
A provider is brought in to "fix" the staff.
The desired outcome is not clear. Budget is tight, so the training has to be short. People are sent without being properly chosen, and without being told why they have been chosen to attend training. They come back, no one asks what they learned, or what they are going to do differently. Nothing shifts, and the training is blamed.
Then, it isn't a training problem, but an organisational problem that cannot be fixed by training alone.
The research has said the same thing for forty years. Robert Brinkerhoff's classic **40/20/40** model put the impact of learning at 40% before the event, 20% during, and 40% after. Less than 20% of what people learn in training is ever applied on the job. Estimates suggest 70–90% of training spend is wasted, and most of what does land is gone within a year.
The updated figure pushes the weight further along the timeline: **30% before, 20% during, 50% after.**
Because the actual learning doesn't happen in the room. It happens in the weeks afterwards — when follow-up, applied learning activities with immediate feedback are given, and then when someone tries something different in their real work and either gets backed up, or doesn't.
The harder look starts with the questions most organisations skip: what specifically should change, who needs to change it, how we'll know it's changing, and who will reinforce it once people are back at their desks.
What if it isn't the staff who need to be "fixed" to solve the problem — but our whole approach to staff development that needs a harder look?
