Make Learning Stick: What to Do After Training

Why the Ability to Make Learning Stick Is So Hard — and What Actually Works
Even well-designed training programs often fail where it matters most: sustained behavior change on the job. Trainers, instructional designers, and learners alike wrestle with the same challenge — how to ensure that what happens in the classroom translates into real-world performance once the workshop ends.

Assuming the usual training strategy pitfalls have been avoided — unclear business objectives, weak facilitation, or irrelevant content — the real test begins after the session is over. Without intentional reinforcement, accountability, and application, most learning decays rapidly. Knowledge fades. Old habits resurface. Performance plateaus.

The good news is that learning transfer is not a mystery. There are proven, practical ways to bridge the gap between a workshop and the workplace by deliberately embedding new skills into daily workflows, manager expectations, and business priorities. When learning is reinforced in context and tied to real outcomes, it stops being an event and starts becoming a capability.

What Is Learning, Really?
Learning is commonly defined as the acquisition of knowledge or skills through experience, study, or instruction. That definition is technically correct — and practically incomplete.

From a performance perspective, learning only matters when it shows up on the job. If newly acquired knowledge and skills do not translate into observable behavior change, they remain academic exercises, not business capabilities. Attendance, completion, and satisfaction scores may look good, but performance stays the same.

The ability to make learning stick is therefore not about exposure to content. It is about transfer. Real learning occurs when people apply what they have learned in their day-to-day work in ways that measurably improve individual and organizational performance. Until that happens, training has not delivered its intended value.

Some Alarming Learning Statistics
Unfortunately, by most accounts, corporations struggle to make learning stick even after they invest heavily in training and development.  Here are some alarming statistics:

• National training laboratories report only a 5% learning retention rate from lectures, a 10% learning retention rate from reading, and a 20% learning retention rate from audio visual.
• Our own research based upon over 800 training measurement projects found that only 1-in-5 participants change behavior or improve performance from stand-alone training events, regardless of training modality —  whether it is online, live, blended, or microlearning.
• On average, 80% of training investments focus on training design and delivery while only 20% focus on what happens before or after the training session.

How to Beat the Odds and Make Learning Stick

If you want to make learning stick for your corporate training initiatives:

1. Be Clear About the Current Reality
   Before you can improve learning effectiveness, you need an honest view of where you are today — and where you intend to go. That means understanding your organization’s position on the learning maturity continuum, not where you hope it is or where it claims to be.Clarity upfront matters. When leaders fail to define the current state and the desired future state, learning initiatives drift, expectations fracture, and credibility erodes. Setting and managing stakeholder expectations at the start is not optional — it is foundational. A shared understanding of scope, pace, and outcomes creates alignment, reduces friction, and establishes the conditions for meaningful progress.
2. Create 3x Relevance
   Focus on training relevance to three groups of stakeholders before you determine how to invest in what happens before, during, and after training.
   • • The participants
     • Their bosses
     • The senior leadership team

   Unless all three stakeholders agree upon the importance of the learning initiative, you are bound for a lack of transfer to the job.

3. Match Your Design and Reinforcement Plan to Your Relevance Level
   When training is strategically important enough to justify the investment required to make learning stick, design decisions must extend well beyond the workshop itself. The first priority is clarity around application and reinforcement — specifically, what support participants and their managers will provide before and after the program.  High-impact learning works best when participants actively partner with their managers to set expectations, diagnose gaps, and commit to the transfer of training.

   Reinforcement must be intentionally designed, manager-enabled, and integrated into how work actually gets done.

   Before Training, participants should work with their manager to:

   • Clarify the business and people outcomes the program is expected to deliver
   • Identify strengths to leverage and priority development areas to address
   • Diagnose skill gaps using training needs assessments, assessment centers, 360 feedback, and simulations
   • Agree on the post-training support required to apply new skills on the job
   • Protect the time and space needed to fully engage in the learning experience

After Training, participants should work with their manager to:

1. • Build an individual development plan that translates learning into action
   • Create time, space, and permission to practice, experiment, and receive feedback
   • Reinforce learning through refreshers and by sharing commitments with their team
   • Access targeted performance coaching
   • Align new capabilities with performance management processes and long-term career goals

3. Monitor and Measure Progress
   Just like any organizational change, learning must be tracked to ensure it sticks. Use training measurement to identify what is working well and where additional support is needed. This approach enables timely adjustments, encourages participants to collaborate and seek guidance from peers, and allows managers to provide focused performance coaching that reinforces the desired behaviors and outcomes.

The Bottom Line
Most training fails after the workshop because learning is treated as a one-time event rather than a deliberate change initiative. To make learning stick, it must be tied directly to real business priorities and reinforced in the context where work is done. Strategic relevance drives commitment, while ongoing support strengthens confidence and capability. When learning is managed with the same rigor as any organizational change, behaviors shift, skills are applied, and measurable performance improvements follow.

To learn more about how to make learning stick and to improve the transfer of training, download the The #1 Reason Training Initiatives Fail According to Executives

by Tristam Brown: CEO

Tristam Brown is an executive business consultant and organizational development expert with more than three decades of experience helping organizations accelerate performance, build high-impact teams, and turn strategy into execution. As CEO of LSA Global, he works with leaders to get and stay aligned™ through research-backed strategy, culture, and talent solutions that produce measurable, business-critical results. See full bio.