Why Learning & Development Isn't Working

Learning and development doesn’t work. At least, for many organisations it doesn’t. They throw good money after bad in an attempt to train staff, yet things fail to improve, and they can’t figure out why that is.

The answer lies in the attitude to training, as these four all-too-familiar scenarios illustrate:

?“You’re underperforming; I’m sending you on a course”

In way too many organisations, courses are viewed as a punishment. People are only sent on them when they underperform, and the following day they have to endure the walk of shame – returning to the office when everyone knows that they were on a time management course the day before. Any course notes they have are clutched in cold, clammy hands, only to be buried in a drawer the moment they reach their desk, never to see the light of day again.

“John isn’t very good at X, so let’s make the whole team do a course”

One manager, let’s call him John, isn’t that great at an important aspect of his job; but rather than address this with John individually, the organisation decides the solution is to train all the managers. So they book someone to deliver a course. The thing is, because no one has explained to John, or the rest of the managers, why the course is being delivered, the delegates rock up ready for battle. John has no idea what the problem is, or what he’s supposed to be learning. His fellow managers, meanwhile, know that they’re only there because no one wants to tackle John, so they’re pretty fed up too. Sounds far-fetched? It’s more common than you might think, and I’ve witnessed it more than once.

“You can go on this course, but you’ll need to make up your billable hours afterwards”

Billable hours rule, to the point where they get in the way of learning. Professionals can attend training courses, but they will be required to make up their billable hours elsewhere. Then the organisation wonders why the dropout rate is so high for training courses. On the plus side, those people who do attend are so deeply committed to learning that they make excellent delegates, and they’ll put their new knowledge into practice straight away.

“Going on courses is all about getting your CPD, so just do the minimum”

The regulator has set out minimum requirements for CPD. And, for many people, that’s the maximum amount of dedicated learning they’ll do. So when the end of the year looms and they’re short of a few hours, they’ll book themselves onto pretty much any course going, just to hit the target. Reflections will be rushed through, with very little proper thought, and anything they learned on the course will most likely be forgotten by the time they get home. This is particularly damaging when it’s one of the senior team, because that’s the message they are sending out to everyone else about how much the firm values learning.

?

It’s thanks to scenarios like these that so much time and money is wasted on training courses. Now imagine the difference it would make if you offered training and support to build on people’s strengths, rather than address their weaknesses, or talked to your team before and after a course to make sure they knew how it would benefit them. Think about how attitudes could be transformed by making allowances within billable hours to encompass learning, and by supporting and encouraging everyone to do more than the bare minimum?

Surveys have repeatedly found that staff turnover remains a major problem within professional services, and that the most effective way to tackle it is via well-structured and supported learning and development. Yet L&D is still not seen as a business-critical resource, and it's usually the first budget to be cut when things get tight.

So why doesn’t learning and development deliver? Largely because it’s not allowed to. It’s never truly embedded and supported across the business – many firms have the best of intentions, but when things get busy, these soon fall by the wayside.?

In those organisations where it is allowed to flourish, the return on investment will speak for itself, with an engaged and motivated workforce who consistently deliver above and beyond your business plan.