Why most professional development doesn’t stick

Having worked across multiple roles and industries (as a coach, trainer and executive) I’ve been on all sides of professional development.

I’ve designed and delivered training. I’ve commissioned learning programmes. And I’ve sat in the room as a participant too.

Over time, one question has kept coming back to me:

Why does some development genuinely change how people work, while other training is forgotten before you even leave the room or log out of the portal?

This question isn’t just important to me as a learning and development professional. It matters just as much (if not more) as a business leader.

When development works well, it can transform motivation, performance and loyalty. It helps people grow, strengthens cultures, and supports organisations to thrive.

But when training feels irrelevant, disconnected from real work, or unsupported once people return to their day job, it quickly becomes ineffective.

Not only does the investment fail to pay off, it can actively undermine trust, motivation and engagement.

Over time, businesses start to see development as a cost to minimise rather than an investment worth making. And people feel it.

That tension (between the potential of development and the reality of how it often lands) is what pushed me to look more closely at how we develop people.

Not to ask how do we deliver more training. But to ask a different question:

How could professional development be designed so that it actually sticks? So the investment businesses make in their people genuinely pays off, and people can progress by learning and applying new skills?

That’s the problem we’ve been trying to solve.

And it starts with understanding why so much development fades away in the first place.

 If you step back and look across organisations and sectors, a few familiar patterns start to appear.

Most professional development fails not because people don’t care, but because of how it’s designed and what happens (or doesn’t happen) once the training ends.

1. Development that feels disconnected from real work

One of the most common issues is relevance.

People are often asked to attend training that sounds good in principle, but feels distant from the realities of their role. The language is generic. The examples don’t quite fit. The scenarios feel borrowed from somewhere else.

Participants may enjoy the session, but they struggle to see how it applies to the pressures waiting for them back at work.

When development doesn’t reflect the actual challenges people face (the constraints, the trade-offs, the messy reality of day-to-day work) it’s hard for learning to take root.

Good intentions alone don’t bridge that gap.

2. One-off events with no space for application

Another pattern is the assumption that learning happens in a moment.

A workshop is delivered. A course is completed. A certificate is issued. And then people are expected to return to their role and somehow translate new ideas into practice on their own.

In reality, this is often where learning quietly disappears. People go back to full inboxes, competing priorities, and established habits. Without time, support, or permission to experiment, even useful ideas get crowded out.

It’s not that people forget what they learned. It’s that there’s no structure helping them use it.

3. Too much focus on content, not enough on behaviour

Many programmes are designed around what people should know, rather than exploring what they could do differently.

Slides are polished. Models are introduced. Concepts are explained. But behaviour change (especially in leadership, communication, feedback or culture) is rarely achieved through information alone.

Those skills develop through practice, reflection, feedback and support over time. When development stops at content delivery, it rarely reaches that point.

4. People positioned as recipients, not owners

Another issue that shows up repeatedly is how development is framed.

When learning is designed for people rather than with them, it subtly shifts ownership away. Development becomes something that happens to people (a requirement to complete) rather than something they actively shape.

This can create resistance, disengagement, or quiet compliance without commitment.

Ironically, the very programmes intended to support growth can end up reducing people’s sense of agency.

5. No system supporting learning after the session ends

Perhaps the biggest reason development doesn’t stick is what happens (or doesn’t happen) afterwards.

Managers are rarely supported to help people apply what they’ve learned. Peers aren’t brought into the conversation. There’s no shared language or follow-up structure.

Learning becomes isolated, rather than embedded in everyday work. Over time, organisations start to notice the pattern: money spent, little change seen. And gradually, development is treated with more scepticism.

The result: development as cost, not investment

When this cycle repeats, the consequences extend beyond wasted budgets. People become cynical about training. Motivation drops. Development feels performative rather than meaningful.

For businesses — especially SMEs — this is a real risk.

Investment in people is one of the most powerful levers for performance, loyalty and culture. But when development doesn’t land well, leaders understandably start to question its value. The danger is that development is then reduced or removed altogether; further limiting growth and progression.

Doing development differently

What we’ve learned over time is that development sticks when it’s designed differently from the start.

When it:

• is shaped with the people involved

• connects directly to real work

• focuses on behaviour, not just knowledge

• is supported beyond the session

• and is embedded into everyday practice

Learning stops being an event — and becomes part of how work gets done. That’s the shift we’re interested in.

Not more training. But development that actually sticks.

Over the coming months, we’ll be exploring what this looks like in practice and how SMEs can invest in development that pays back, for both the business and the people within it.