Why Your Company's Training Budget is Being Wasted (And How I Know This Better Than Anyone)

Related Reading: Professional Development Insights | Communication Skills Training | Workplace Development | Training Effectiveness

Walked into another corporate training session last month and immediately knew I was watching $50,000 go down the drain. The facilitator - fresh from university, zero real-world experience - was explaining "synergistic paradigm shifts" to a room full of tradies who just wanted to know how to use the new safety software.

I've been in workplace training for 17 years now, and I can spot wasted training budgets from a mile away. It's become an epidemic. Companies throw money at glossy programmes while their actual problems fester like a forgotten lunchbox in a hot ute.

The PowerPoint Paradise Problem

Most training sessions I observe follow the same tedious formula: death by PowerPoint. Slide after slide of theoretical nonsense that has absolutely zero connection to what people actually do on the job. I've sat through "Leadership Excellence Workshops" where participants spent four hours discussing abstract concepts and precisely zero minutes practicing how to have a difficult conversation with an underperforming team member.

The worst offender? A mining company in Perth that spent $180,000 on a "Cultural Transformation Programme." Beautiful workbooks. Professional videos. Catered lunch. Absolutely no measurable change in behaviour six months later.

Here's what actually happened: people nodded politely, collected their certificates, and went straight back to doing things exactly the same way they always had.

Real Training Requires Real Problems

I learned this the hard way early in my career. Used to design these elaborate training modules with perfect case studies and hypothetical scenarios. Thought I was being thorough. Turns out I was being completely useless.

The breakthrough came when I started bringing actual workplace problems into the training room. Not sanitised examples from textbooks, but real situations people were dealing with that very week. Suddenly everyone was engaged. They weren't pretending to care about theoretical situations - they were solving problems that directly affected their daily work.

Take emotional intelligence training, for instance. Most programmes spend ages on personality assessments and abstract concepts. But when you give someone real feedback they need to deliver to a difficult team member tomorrow morning, that's when genuine learning happens.

The Follow-Up Fantasy

This drives me absolutely mental. Companies spend thousands on a two-day workshop then act surprised when nothing changes afterward. It's like expecting someone to become a master chef after watching one cooking show.

Effective training is 20% initial instruction and 80% ongoing practice and reinforcement. But most organisations treat training like a vaccination - one dose and you're sorted for life.

I once worked with a construction company that sent their supervisors to conflict resolution training. Excellent programme, actually. But three weeks later, when tensions flared on a job site, nobody applied what they'd learned. Why? Because there was no follow-up, no coaching, no accountability systems in place.

The smart companies I work with now build training into ongoing workflows. They create practice opportunities. They have managers check in regularly. They make it part of performance reviews. Revolutionary stuff, apparently.

Measuring the Wrong Things

Here's another classic mistake: measuring training effectiveness by how much people enjoyed it rather than whether behaviour actually changed.

Those happy sheets at the end of sessions? Completely worthless. Of course people rate sessions highly when they're fun, engaging, and include free coffee. But fun doesn't equal effective.

I've seen training programmes get rave reviews because they included team-building activities and motivational speakers, while completely failing to address the communication breakdowns that were costing the company actual money. Meanwhile, some of the most effective training I've delivered got mediocre satisfaction scores because it required people to confront uncomfortable truths about their work habits.

The only metrics that matter: Do people behave differently? Are problems getting solved? Is performance improving? Everything else is just feel-good theatre.

The Generic Solution Trap

Every industry thinks their challenges are unique, but most training companies serve up the same generic content with different branding. Customer service training for retail workers looks identical to customer service training for bank tellers, despite completely different contexts and pressures.

This is mental. A pharmacy assistant dealing with anxious customers picking up medications needs different skills than someone selling mobile phones. But somehow they both end up in the same "Customer Excellence Workshop" learning the same scripted responses.

Effective training starts with understanding specific workplace realities. What are the actual problems people face? What obstacles prevent them from performing well? What cultural factors influence behaviour in this particular environment?

The best training programme I ever designed was for a logistics company in Brisbane. Instead of generic time management theory, we focused specifically on managing interruptions from truck drivers, dealing with last-minute delivery changes, and communicating delays to frustrated customers. Immediately relevant. Immediately useful.

Technology Isn't the Answer (But Everyone Thinks It Is)

Don't get me started on the e-learning obsession. Companies love online training because it's cheap and scalable. Click through some modules, answer multiple choice questions, get your certificate. Job done.

Except learning doesn't work that way. Particularly for skills that involve human interaction, problem-solving, or complex decision-making. You can't learn to manage difficult conversations by watching videos any more than you can learn to drive by reading about it.

I'm not anti-technology, but it's a tool, not a solution. The most effective programmes I've seen blend different approaches: online content for knowledge building, face-to-face practice for skill development, and ongoing coaching for behaviour change.

The Senior Leadership Exemption

This one really gets my goat. Companies mandate training for everyone except the people who need it most: senior leaders. Apparently once you reach a certain level, you've learned everything there is to know about communication, decision-making, and team management.

Absolute rubbish. I've worked with CEOs who couldn't give constructive feedback to save their lives, and senior managers who created toxic environments through their communication style. But suggest they attend training alongside their teams? Suddenly they're too busy.

The most successful training initiatives I've seen have senior leaders participating as learners, not just cheerleaders. When the managing director is practicing active listening techniques alongside junior staff, it sends a powerful message about the organisation's commitment to improvement.

Budget Allocation Madness

Here's how most training budgets get allocated: someone attends a conference, hears about the latest trend, and decides the entire organisation needs it. Mindfulness training! Design thinking workshops! Agile methodology seminars!

Meanwhile, the fundamental skills that would actually improve performance - clear communication, effective delegation, basic project management - get ignored because they're not sexy enough.

I worked with a tech startup that spent $40,000 on innovation workshops while their customer support team couldn't write coherent emails to save their lives. Priorities, people.

The Consultant Carousel

Every year, companies hire different training consultants to deliver programmes on similar topics, starting from scratch each time. No continuity, no building on previous learning, no institutional memory of what worked or didn't work.

It's like hiring a different personal trainer every month and wondering why you're not getting fitter.

The organisations that get the best results from training invest in long-term relationships with providers who understand their culture, challenges, and goals. They build on previous learning rather than constantly reinventing the wheel.

What Actually Works

After nearly two decades in this game, I've learned that effective training has several non-negotiable elements:

It addresses real problems that people are actually experiencing. Not theoretical situations, not what someone thinks they should be learning about, but genuine workplace challenges.

It provides opportunities for practice in realistic settings. Role-playing with colleagues, working through actual case studies, practicing skills with immediate feedback.

It includes ongoing support and reinforcement. Follow-up coaching, peer learning groups, regular check-ins with managers.

It's championed by leadership through participation, not just endorsement. When senior people model the behaviours being taught, everything changes.

Most importantly, it's designed around outcomes, not activities. The question isn't "What should we train people on?" but "What specific behaviours need to change, and how can we support that change?"

The Bottom Line

Training isn't broken - how we approach it is. Stop treating it like education and start treating it like behaviour change. Stop measuring satisfaction and start measuring results. Stop buying generic solutions and start addressing specific problems.

Your people want to improve. They want to be more effective at their jobs. But they need training that actually helps them do that, not training that makes executives feel like they're investing in professional development.

Get this right, and your training budget becomes one of your best investments. Get it wrong, and you're basically paying for expensive team bonding sessions with certificates.

I know which option I'd choose.