It seems outlandish to consider that the amount spent by companies on training has risen steadily over the past decade, culminating in a whopping $70.65 billion spent on training expenditures by U.S. firms in 2016 alone. Yet with all that money spent training their workforce, very few companies actually take the time to look at the actual effectiveness of their training programs.
The Association for Talent Development reported 95 percent of training was enjoyed by participants, but only 37 percent of training resulted in participants learning the material, only 13 percent reached a level where participants applied what they learned, and a mere 3 percent of training reached a level where the organization felt an impact.
One third of what I do is training (hiring, retention, and performance management). I do 50-60 talks a year for CEO groups and senior executive groups like YPO, EO, and Vistage. I also do the same presentation at larger management retreats, tradeshows, and conferences. In the last 20 years, I've probably trained over 25,000 CEOs and senior executives. I'm stunned to see a survey that shows only 3% of executives feel training had an impact. Either something is wrong with the training delivery or the process after the training to gain value/impact. Maybe it's a little bit of both.