When Great Training Goes Nowhere: Why Learning Doesn’t Stick (and What to Do About It)

You know the drill.
You send someone on training—they come back buzzing.
You give it a month—and it’s like it never happened.

Sound familiar?

Despite best intentions (and hefty budgets), much of workplace training fades faster than a Friday afternoon. So what’s going wrong?

📚 Science Has Entered the Chat
According to Grossman and Salas—two researchers who’ve studied this in depth—training transfer boils down to three crucial areas:

The Learner: Are they motivated, confident, and ready to actually use what they learn?
The Training Design: Is it engaging, relevant, and built for real-world use (not just a pretty slide deck)?
The Work Environment: Does the organisation encourage people to apply what they’ve learned—or quietly hope it wears off by Monday?

In other words: it’s not just the learner. It’s the whole system.

🎯 Real Change Needs More Than a Good Course
At Thriving Today Academy, we’ve taken this research to heart. That’s why our programmes don’t stop at “great content.” We build in reflection, coaching, feedback, and practical application—so learning moves from theory to action.

No more training that gets a round of applause… then gathers dust.

Instead, we help teams shift from “That was interesting” to “This is working.”

 “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”
— Plutarch