# Why Your Company's Training ROI is Poor - And What Actually Works [Read more here](https://skillcoaching.bigcartel.com/blog) | [Other recommendations](https://ethiofarmers.com/blog) | [Further reading](https://ducareerclub.net/blog) Stop me if you've heard this one before: Your CFO walks into a training session and asks, "What's the return on investment for this?" The trainer fumbles through some corporate buzzwords about "employee engagement" and "knowledge transfer," while everyone in the room slowly dies inside. I've been running workplace training programs for over fifteen years now, and I'm here to tell you something that'll make your HR department uncomfortable: most corporate training is an expensive theatre production that nobody remembers three weeks later. Last month, I was chatting with a mate who runs procurement for a mining company here in Perth. He told me they'd just spent $180,000 on a "comprehensive leadership development program" that involved flying twenty managers to Sydney for a weekend retreat. The facilitator had them walking on hot coals and doing trust falls. Three months later? Not a single behavioural change could be measured. The same managers were still micromanaging, still avoiding difficult conversations, still treating their teams like replaceable cogs. But here's where it gets interesting - and where most training consultants will hate me for saying this. ## The Uncomfortable Truth About Adult Learning Adults don't learn like university students cramming for exams. We learn through repetition, practice, and immediate application. Yet most corporate training programs are designed like academic lectures: download information, hope it sticks, move on to the next topic. The research is crystal clear on this. Hermann Ebbinghaus figured out the forgetting curve back in 1885, showing that people forget 50% of new information within an hour, and 90% within a week. But somehow we're still running one-day workshops and expecting miracles. I learned this the hard way early in my career. Back in 2009, I designed what I thought was the perfect [communication skills training course](https://angevinepromotions.com/why-professional-development-courses-are-essential-for-career-growth/) for a manufacturing company in Adelaide. Two full days packed with theory, role-plays, and interactive exercises. The participants loved it - great feedback scores, lots of enthusiasm, promises to implement everything they'd learned. Six months later, I did a follow-up survey. Nothing had changed. Absolutely nothing. That's when I started questioning everything I thought I knew about workplace education. ## The Real Problem With Training ROI Here's what your training providers won't tell you: measuring ROI on learning is deliberately made complicated to hide poor results. They'll throw around terms like "Kirkpatrick Model" and "Level 4 evaluation" to sound scientific, but most training evaluation stops at "Did participants enjoy the session?" That's like judging a restaurant based on how nice the waiters were whilst ignoring whether the food gave everyone food poisoning. The companies getting genuine ROI from their training budgets - and I mean measurable, bottom-line impact - are doing three things differently: **First, they're ruthlessly focused on behaviour change, not knowledge transfer.** Instead of teaching people what good customer service looks like, they're practicing specific scripts until they become automatic. Instead of explaining the theory of delegation, they're having managers delegate actual tasks with structured follow-up sessions. **Second, they're treating training as a process, not an event.** The best programs I've seen spread learning over 90 days minimum, with weekly practice sessions and peer coaching. [More information here](https://www.alkhazana.net/2025/07/16/why-firms-ought-to-invest-in-professional-development-courses-for-employees/) about why this approach works so much better than traditional methods. **Third, they're measuring what matters.** Not satisfaction scores or quiz results, but actual workplace behaviours and business outcomes. Are sales conversations longer? Are customer complaints decreasing? Are team meetings finishing on time? Are people actually using the new software features they learned about? ## What Actually Works (And Why Nobody Does It) The most effective training program I ever designed was for a small accounting firm in Brisbane. The managing partner was frustrated because his senior accountants couldn't have difficult conversations with clients about overdue fees. Traditional approach would've been a workshop on "Difficult Conversations Skills." Instead, we did something radical: [Here is the source](https://momotour999.com/why-professional-development-courses-are-essential-for-career-growth/) for the methodology I adapted. We had each accountant practice the exact same conversation script with me over the phone, every Friday afternoon for eight weeks. Same script, same objections, same responses. Boring? Absolutely. Effective? You bet. Within three months, their accounts receivable had improved by 23%. More importantly, the accountants reported feeling confident rather than anxious about these conversations. They'd moved from knowing what to do to actually being able to do it. But here's why most companies won't take this approach: it requires sustained commitment from managers. It's easier to book a motivational speaker for a day than to commit to eight weeks of practice sessions. It's more convenient to believe that awareness equals ability than to acknowledge that skill development takes time and repetition. The training industry has convinced us that learning should be entertaining, convenient, and quick. We've turned professional development into the business equivalent of fast food - appealing in the moment but nutritionally worthless. ## The Australian Way Forward Look, I'm not suggesting we abandon all traditional training methods. Some things genuinely benefit from face-to-face workshops and group discussions. [Personal recommendations](https://ducareerclub.net/why-companies-should-invest-in-professional-development-courses-for-employees/) include combining different approaches based on what you're trying to achieve. But if you want actual ROI from your training investment, you need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. You need to tell your team they'll be practicing the same thing multiple times until it becomes natural. You need to schedule follow-up sessions even when everyone's busy. You need to measure results that matter, not just results that make people feel good. The companies that figure this out first - the ones willing to treat skill development like athletic training rather than academic education - they're going to have a massive competitive advantage. Their people will actually be able to do the things they've learned, not just talk about them in meetings. I've seen it work with sales teams in Darwin, management groups in Melbourne, and customer service departments across regional Queensland. It's not revolutionary science - it's just common sense applied consistently over time. Your training budget isn't too small. Your expectations aren't too high. Your approach is just wrong. And until you fix that, you'll keep having the same frustrating conversation with your CFO about training ROI that never quite materialises. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly whilst expecting different results. Time to try something different. The question isn't whether your team needs better skills - of course they do. The question is whether you're committed enough to the process to make it actually work. [Further information here](https://www.globalwiseworld.com/why-professional-development-courses-are-essential-for-career-growth/) about implementation strategies that deliver real results. Because anything else is just expensive theatre. Most training providers know this, by the way. They just hope you don't.