Most training programmes don’t fail in the training room. They fail in the conversations that happen weeks before anyone thinks about content. The brief that gets accepted without question. The timeline that gets agreed without pushback. The follow-up that gets traded away before the programme even starts.
These are the five conversations that quietly derail learning impact. And what to do when you find yourself in one of them.
Five Reasons Your Training Isn’t Working
1. Why skipping training needs analysis is the most expensive shortcut in L&D…
“We don’t need discovery time, we already know the problem.”
We hear this a lot. Well-intentioned line managers saying “they just need a course on…”. But when training gets designed around what we think the problem is rather than what’s actually happening, impact falls short.
Before designing any learning solution you need the full picture. Knowledge gaps, skill gaps, confidence levels and the systemic barriers getting in the way of performance. And then there’s the perception gap which absolutely should be considered every time. This is the difference between how issues are seen by leadership or HR and the reality experienced by people in different roles and departments across the organisation. Design for one and not the other and you’re setting up to fail.
In a nutshell: skipping discovery feels like saving time, but it usually wastes it.
Hack: Focus groups facilitated with psychological safety front of mind can really deepen insight. But with today’s technology a well-designed survey can surface valuable signals quickly, and AI tools can help identify patterns in the data. Just make sure responses are anonymous. Get the problem right at the start and the training time you invest will be focused exactly where it makes the biggest difference.
2. Why removing pre-work reduces your training ROI before it even starts…
“Take the pre-work out. No one will do it anyway.”
Layering learning improves retention and those small touchpoints around a workshop make a bigger difference than most people realise.
Pre-learning from short videos to reflection prompts or reading not only helps participants arrive prepared, it allows workshop time to focus on behaviour change rather than basic knowledge transfer. And that’s where the real impact happens.
Keeping pre-work in place means you get a much bigger return on the time everyone spends in the training room.
In a nutshell: keeping pre-work in place means you get a much bigger bang for your buck in the training room.
Hack: Clear internal communication about the why, what and how of a programme helps people understand why the pre-work matters and how it connects to what’s coming. Make sure managers are on board too. When they advocate for each step, participation is more likely to follow.
3. Why short training sessions fail to deliver behaviour change…
“Can we just do it in an hour?”
We’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve been sent a long list of learning objectives alongside a request for a 60-minute “masterclass”. In the words of our founder, “maybe they think we’re ting-fairies?” (Picture a fairy with a magic wand that goes ting and suddenly everything is fixed.)
Of course high-impact masterclasses exist. When there’s a single sharp insight to land they can work brilliantly. But if the goal is behaviour change, squeezing everything into a short session rarely ends well. Real change requires time to explore ideas, discuss real situations and practise new approaches.
In a nutshell: meaningful learning rarely happens at the speed of a ting.
Hack: Think about what’s driving the one-hour request. If the constraint is time away from the job, design a series of shorter sessions supported by strong pre and post learning touchpoints, peer discussion and manager follow-up. If it’s about budget, ask the bigger question. What’s the value to the business if the learning works? And what’s the cost if only a fraction of it sticks?
4. Why cutting the follow-up session is cutting your training ROI…
“How much cheaper is it if we remove the follow-up session?”
We get it. You’ve got the main workshop. The follow-up feels like an upsell.
But multiple touchpoints are one of the biggest drivers of learning impact. A follow-up session gives participants the chance to revisit ideas, ask the questions that only emerge once they’ve tried applying the learning, and explore what has and hasn’t worked in practice.
It’s also where learning shifts from understanding to application. Once the core workshop is done, follow-ups can focus entirely on real life scenarios, problem solving and sharing experiences. Actor-led interactive scenarios, time-bound hackathons or group coaching circles.
Remove this step and the learning fades before behaviour has had a chance to change. Reinforcement strategies can improve training results by up to 186% compared with training alone.
In a nutshell: behaviour change rarely happens after a single learning event.
Hack: Follow-ups don’t always need to be delivered by the training provider. Equipping managers or in-house facilitators with simple structures to run reflection sessions and peer learning conversations keeps the momentum going without adding cost. With a little guidance, organisations can reinforce learning themselves.
5. How to measure training effectiveness and prove ROI to your stakeholders…
“Let’s just launch it. We’ll know if it worked.”
It’s an easy trap to fall into. The budget is signed off, the supplier is selected and the dates are in the diary. Measuring impact feels like something to figure out later.
But without clarity on what success looks like before you start, it’s almost impossible to prove it worked afterwards. Did behaviours shift? Did performance improve? Did the programme solve the problem it was designed to solve?
Without that clarity you risk getting stuck in a cycle. Cutting corners on development because its value is never consistently proven, which makes the next budget conversation harder, which means more corners get cut.
Only 8% of organisations measure learning in terms of business impact. That’s not a measurement problem. It’s a design problem.
In a nutshell: if we don’t define success upfront, we rarely prove impact afterwards.
Hack: Keep it simple. Track a few existing metrics linked to the behaviours you want to shift. Ask line managers to share regular observations as learning gets applied. And repeat the original TNA survey after the programme to compare results. Just make sure your internal communication is clear so people don’t dismiss it as something they’ve already done.
Next Steps To Make Your Learning Stick
None of these conversations are unique to your organisation. Every L&D professional has been in versions of all five. The ones who consistently deliver results aren’t the ones who avoid them. They’re the ones who walk in prepared.
Because the problem was never the training. It was everything that happened before it.
If you want to go deeper on every step of a properly designed learning programme, what superb looks like, where it goes wrong and how to make it work even when budgets are tight, the Learning That Lasts playbook has everything you need.
