Originally published in Fast Company. By Deborah Grayson Riegel and Chris Fenning.

Training programs are a significant investment for companies. According to the 2022 Training Industry report, U.S. training expenditures passed the $100 billion mark. For this investment, training programs aim to equip employees with new skills, improve productivity, and foster a culture of continuous learning.

However, even assuming that training is the right approach to bridge a knowledge or behavior gap, the effectiveness of these programs is often undermined by a common problem: the rapid decay of knowledge retention post-training. In other words, humans often forget what they’ve learned.

Historically, training programs have been event-based. Employees attend a session, engage with the content, and then return to their daily tasks. Unfortunately, there is a problem with this approach. Research shows that a typical learner will forget about 70% of new information within a day of the training ending. This increases to 90% within a week unless they actively work to remember it. That doesn’t even account for atypical learners, such as those who are neurodivergent, are learning in their nonnative language, or have other learning differences.

Regardless of the type of training, learning is not a one-time event but a continuous process. The traditional models of training often fail to account for the natural forgetting curve, where information is lost over time unless it’s consciously reviewed and applied. This leads to a gap between knowledge acquisition and its real-world application.

GREAT TRAINING IS NOT ENOUGH

The crux of the issue facing many workplace training programs is that most people will fall back into old habits when they return to the familiar environment of their work. This return to old habits isn’t done willfully, it’s something that is hardwired into our brains.

Onetime training events do help people learn if they are well designed, but is this enough? Many trainers incorporate best practices such as group discussions, practice activities, having training participants teach each other, and more—all of which can improve engagement during training and has been known to improve information retention slightly.

But even the most optimistic studies of retention rates say your employees will forget 50% of what they learn within a few days. Is it really a good investment to pay for training that loses value immediately after the trainer leaves? The true measure of training effectiveness is not what participants remember immediately after, but what they still apply months later.

Some might argue that the onus of information retention should be on the participants. After all, they’re the primary beneficiaries of the training. However, while individual responsibility is crucial, the training environment and follow-up play a pivotal role in ensuring knowledge sticks. Without the right tools and strategies, even the most motivated participants can struggle to retain and apply what they’ve learned.

BETTER TRAINING ROI COMES FROM THINKING LONG TERM

To help your employees—and by extension, your company—get the most value from training, your training should include support beyond the initial training event. By integrating retention-focused methods, both internal and external trainers can bridge the gap between learning and application, ensuring that participants don’t just understand the material but internalize and use it.

Trainers should keep in mind how the skills being taught will be used by participants in their real work outside the training room. Practice activities should match that real-world application to maximize the chance of retaining the information. Furthermore, employees need to practice retrieving and using the information if they want to retain it in the long term. 

HOW TO HELP EMPLOYEES RETAIN AND APPLY LEARNING IN THE LONG TERM

First and foremost, training needs to extend beyond a single classroom event.

One approach is to break training into smaller sessions delivered at intervals, which improves retention. Instead of a single full-day event, split the training into two half days, or multiple one-hour sessions. If spreading training over time is not practical, given the travel and scheduling challenges that come with large in-person training events, there are many other ways to support employees after the main training is done.

We asked for advice from several of our colleagues who are experts in making learning stick, including Chris Littlefield, Laura A. Gaines, Candela Iglesias, and Sher Downing. They shared many practical and cost-effective ways that they as trainers can support learners with long-term application and retention.

• Follow-up sessions: Schedule refresher courses or follow-up sessions a few weeks or months after the initial training. These sessions can address any challenges faced and reinforce learning.

• Digital resources: Provide participants with online resources like videos, articles, and exercises that they can access anytime to remind them of key concepts and techniques.

• Recap videos: Create and disseminate short, engaging recap videos of training modules. These can be sent out intermittently as refreshers.

• Accountability buddies: Have participants email or text their next steps to an accountability buddy (a friend, colleague, or supportive supervisor, for example) who checks in to remind them.

• Email reminders: Sign up all participants to a 30-day email drip sequence with follow tips of small actions they can do each day. This can extend to weekly reminders for the rest of a year.

• Visual reminders: Place QR codes around the office or send them digitally. When scanned, they provide quick tips, video lessons, or challenges related to communication skills.

• Collaborative online boards: Use platforms like Trello or Miro to create collaborative boards where participants can post their insights, questions, or experiences related to the training. This communal sharing can act as a reinforcement mechanism.

• Badges and certifications: Create a system of digital badges or certifications that participants earn when they showcase the use of specific communication techniques at work. They can display these badges on their internal company profiles, email signatures, or LinkedIn profiles.

• Challenges: Send out weekly email challenges that have participants respond to a hypothetical scenario in which they can apply the skills covered in their training. Have them reply to the email directly, and the best responses could be shared (with permission) in the next email.

• Office hours: Offer hours with an internal or external coach who will help participants work through application challenges on certain techniques. This immediate support will ensure they don’t fall back to old habits.

• Peer learning: Have participants form or join small peer learning groups where they can practice and discuss communication strategies together. This promotes ongoing learning and application. Encourage participants to create and share their own tips, videos, or writings about their communication journey post-training. This not only serves as a reminder for them but also as content for others.

• Post-Training Action Plan: Have each participant create an action plan at the end of the training session detailing how they will implement the techniques learned. When combined with accountability buddies this plan provides a reference point for their own development.

• Rewards: Recognize and reward employees who effectively apply the learning in their work. This could be through awards, public praise, or other incentives.

In an era when continuous learning is paramount, it’s not enough for companies to offer training. They must ensure that the training sticks. By integrating retention-focused strategies, companies can bridge the gap between knowledge and application, ensuring that their training investments yield tangible, long-lasting results.