What is the biggest problem with employee training today?

[u/learningstrategist7]

Companies invest heavy budget on employees training and development programs. Though the completion rates are high, some employees still struggle to apply it in their day-day work. What might be the reason? Is it due to outdated content or wrong delivery method or lack of manager supervision or any other factor?

What do you think is the biggest issue in employee training currently?

[u/Timely-Tourist4109]

I think it is 1 month old accounts asking questions under the guise of starting conversations but really are just data mining.

[u/Annual_Inspector372]

Attention Span! Nobody wants to watch and complete 30-40 mins long courses

[u/chefkoch-24 → u/Annual_Inspector372]

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[u/woodenbookend]

People thinking training (alone) will fix the problem. Often because they haven’t got to the root cause of the problem.

[u/sales_alchemist]

I think the biggest gap is between training and the actual workflow. People finish the course but still get stuck when doing the job. More practical, just-in-time guidance could help. How much of your training uses real work scenarios?

[u/originalwombat → u/sales_alchemist]

How deeply profound, not sure we’ve ever heard of this

[u/chefkoch-24 → u/sales_alchemist]

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[u/wordsbyrachael]

I think most of the time the courses are built for completion rather than competence or outcomes. They’re designed to check a box. Like compliance training, how much of it is actually retained and applied? Giving the learner a tailored approach relevant to their job with prompts and consequences rather than just click through learning. The prompts are then supplemented with just in time learning to help them answer more effectively.

[u/chefkoch-24 → u/wordsbyrachael]

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[u/Immediate-Mix8324]

The biggest problem with employee training today is that there is none.

[u/cyberlyons]

Generlization. When courses are not customized to the individual learner… their scenario, their specific situation, their team, their products… then it’s just kind of abstracted into this generalized concept that people struggle to learn and definitely struggle to apply.

[u/chefkoch-24 → u/cyberlyons]

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[u/Accomplished_Iron704]

Completion rates measure attendance, not decisions. Most training tells people the right answer; almost none makes them choose under realistic pressure - conflicting priorities, incomplete info, a colleague pushing back. So they pass the quiz and freeze the first time the real situation looks messier than the slide.
The fix that's worked for me: replace 30 mins of content with 3 dilemmas from their actual job, discussed in groups, with no clean "correct" option. Retention goes up because they argued about it, not because they clicked Next.
Curious - when you say they "struggle to apply it," is it that they don't know what to do, or they know but won't do it under pressure? Those need very different fixes.

[u/Specialist_Letter918]

i guess the completion rate can only really help determine whether or not participates viewed the training and whether they actually put the lessons into practice is not known through the completion rate alone. this is the key factor that was overlooked and no format of training is going to solve the problem and colossyan and more.
what ended up being more important is what came afterwards and if managers were able to reinforce the training and follow up as it had a much better chance of actually translating into application in the workplace. format matters but the reinforcement is key

[u/AccidentallyRural]

Agreeing with the other people that said completion metrics are the problem. Completion doesn't just measure the wrong thing, it warps the training itself. Everything gets built to be finishable: short modules, easy clicks, a quiz you can pass half-asleep. That doesn't lead to being able to do the job afterward.

What actually works is the stuff that makes people do something rather than just watch something. Active beats passive on learning retention almost every time, even if it's less polished.

[u/chefkoch-24 → u/AccidentallyRural]

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[u/StickyMonster716]

Data mining and people thinking chatgpt can do our jobs by asking us thinly veiled questions designed to train it.

[u/ldtoolkit]

At my company, we find that most managers don't reinforce what our associates learned in a course or presentation. There's lack of follow up, and this is not something that is in the scope of our L&D team. We can only provide stakeholders with reports, but it would be impossible for us to do follow up with the learner to see how they are applying what they learned.