Top 3 Reason Why Business Training Programme can Fail

Since so much time and money is invested in professional development training, here are the top reasons workplace training programs fail - the red flags you should look out for when identifying an effective training solution for your business.

1. Training that isn't actually training - it's education, masquerading as training

Before you even start to analyze the training program, ask yourself: Is it even training? Or is it education? Because education is not training! This may sound obvious, but we've found many people have trouble separating the two.
When the "training" is simply a transfer of information from the "trainer" to participants, all about 'what' and not 'how and why', and its purpose is to provide people with knowledge, then it's education. The provision of knowledge or information is not training. Training is about changing (habitual) behaviour. The purpose of training is NOT to provide people with knowledge; knowledge is simply a vehicle or tool used in the process because the purpose of training is to get action. And this action or, expressed another way, behaviour change can't simply be achieved through a one-day lecture or seminar; there has to be a commitment to ensure people ingest and understand the 'what, how and why' of training, make changes to how they behave and progressively improve on it.

2. Training that isn't presented in context

Training needs to be presented in context so that participants can absorb the principles and practice the skills, in the context of their daily roles. Training like this can bore participants to tears and turn them against learning. How easily people can become disillusioned, skeptical and even cynical about training. If the training isn't shaped and interactive so that it can be experienced in context, then it won't be (emotionally) engaging, and not only will your investment be wasted, your people will resent being put through the process!
 

3. Training that has no buy-in from management

You'd think that line management, frequently responsible for bringing training into a business, would be (fully) committed to supporting it from beginning to end. But too often this is not the case: managers will put the onus on the facilitator and walk away, thinking their job is done in arranging it. But far worse are the stories of management directly contradicting the training! "I know what they taught you there, but here we do it differently." Words to that effect kill training stone-dead!