Organizations spend a staggering amount on training, yet the results often fall short.
In the United States alone, organizations invested $102.8 billion in training in 2025, up from $98 billion in 2024, yet research consistently shows that only 10–20% of training leads to sustained behavior change.
This disconnect rarely happens because training is a bad idea. It happens because training is launched before the right questions are asked and answered. So before you roll out your next program, pause. A few intentional questions can mean the difference between a check-the-box initiative and a transformation that actually sticks.
Launching a Training Program Questions
Question One: What specific problem are we trying to solve?
When something seems broken, many turn to training as the solution – yet training is rarely the right fix. If the real issue is unclear expectations, misaligned incentives, broken processes, or leadership behavior, no amount of training will fix it.
Basic management principles say to ask, “Are they willing and able to do it?” That question begs more questions like, “What has the organization done to inspire or harm willingness?” and, “In what ways does the organization facilitate or hinder ability?” Those answers will help you define whether the issue is a people or process problem.
If it’s a process problem, training is performative.
Question Two: Is training the right solution or just the easiest one?
Closely related to the first question, this requires honest reflection. Training is often chosen because it feels proactive and visible. However, many workplace challenges require structural or leadership changes instead.
For example, if managers are not holding employees accountable, a training on accountability may sound logical. Yet if leaders themselves avoid difficult conversations, the issue may be cultural rather than educational.
Training is meant to support change, not create change.
Question Three: Who truly needs this training, and why?
One of the most common mistakes organizations make is training everyone the same way. While this may seem efficient, it often leads to disengagement. Employees quickly tune out when content feels irrelevant to their role, level, or influence.
Instead, consider who has the greatest ability to impact the issue you are addressing and what they need to know to have that impact. Is it frontline employees or people managers? A specific department or the entire workforce?
With training topics like communication skills or giving and receiving feedback, we like to deliver the interpersonal skills version to the entire workforce and then give managers a part two focused on managing those interpersonal skills within their team.
When training is targeted and intentional, participation shifts from obligation to ownership.
Question Four: How should people behave after the training is over?
Training goals are often framed around knowledge, such as understanding policies or learning concepts. But that’s not training, that’s an announcement.
Training is really about behavior change, so be sure to clearly articulate what participants should do differently afterward. How should they speak, lead, respond, or intervene?
When behavioral outcomes are defined upfront, the training can be designed to support real-world application rather than abstract learning.
Question Five: How will leaders reinforce this behavior change after the session ends?
Training is a blip in time. No one changes their behavior after two hours.
Employees take their cues from leaders, not slide decks. If leaders are not prepared to model, reinforce, and reward the behaviors taught in training, the message fades quickly. That means you should be setting expectations around behavior change in advance of the training and defining the ways learners will be supported as they implement what they learned.
Without reinforcement, training is a one-time and easily forgotten event rather than a sustained shift.
Question Six: How will we measure the success of the training?
In other words, how will we know people are making the behavior changes we seek?
Post-training surveys often ask whether participants enjoyed the session. While satisfaction matters, it does not equal impact. A successful training program should be measured by what changes on the job. Consequently, think beyond completion rates. What metrics will indicate progress? This could include observable changes in behavior, reductions in complaints, improved engagement scores, or stronger retention.
When success is clearly defined, training becomes an investment with accountability rather than an expense justified by participation alone.
Question Seven: Who will carry this work forward?
Finally, consider sustainability. External facilitators can ignite awareness, but lasting change requires internal champions. Without internal capability, organizations often find themselves retraining the same topics year after year with little progress to show for it.
This is where internal trainers, leaders, and culture champions become essential. When organizations build internal capacity to teach, reinforce, and adapt content, training evolves with the organization rather than becoming outdated.
Turning Questions Into Capability
If you’d like to empower employees and managers to speak up for themselves and others when an interaction goes awry – so that issues don’t fester until they become an HR fire you have to put out – we invite you to purchase and download our Upstander Train-The-Trainer program.
Most companies have asked employees to speak up in sticky situations but haven’t provided the tools and resources to help them do so. Yet people will be more willing and able if you’ve told them they’ll be supported and given them tactics to implement.
One measurement of success will be that you’re receiving fewer complaints about conflict or personality clashes. Perhaps survey scores related to management capabilities to resolve team issues and effectiveness of team collaboration will improve as well.
To reinforce the learning, be sure to find ways to acknowledge people who do step in as a respectful bystander.
Who will carry the work forward? Why, you will, of course. This program comes complete with slides, a facilitator guide, and additional materials to help you make the training program a success.
Our clients invest thousands of dollars to bring this program in-house. It is our most requested training program.
You can access the program for just $99 through the end of February. After that, pricing will increase. If you are serious about making training stick by having the ability to deliver this program whenever you want, this program is for you.
P.S. Whether you’re an internal manager or HR professional, or an external consultant who wants to add an upstander program to your service offerings, this Upstander Train-the-Trainer program is for you.
