The Risks of Poor Training
What happens when it doesn't deliver?
Rising costs, mixed results
A recent LinkedIn workplace learning report stated that 90 percent of organizations are concerned about employee retention and have identified learning as the top retention strategy.
That’s not surprising, considering 75 percent of employees will stay at a company that offers growth opportunities. Yet many companies haven’t figured out how to meet those needs despite record spending on learning and development budgets.
Experts suggest it’s not training that’s the problem—it’s poor training. Passive training, where employees watch hours of presentations or click through dozens of slides, doesn’t engage learners. Disengaged learners don't retain or implement new skills, no matter how much you spend on venue rental, instructors, and a delicious lunch buffet.
Moreover, a poor program leaves employees feeling ill-equipped and disengaged.
Opportunity and growth
E-learning offers many promising opportunities to engage learners and activate desired change. With the right tools and practices, creators can save money and boost employee performance and retention.
Let's dig into it.
Training budgets for small, midsize, and large companies exceeded $101 billion annually in the United States alone in 2023. With that much at stake, getting it right is critical. But what's the impact when training misses the mark?
Risk and liability increase when staff lack the necessary skills to work safely.
Poor training for employees and their managers correlates to burnout.1, 2
Companies with a poor learning culture have higher employee turnover, while a strong culture has up to 57 percent higher retention rates.3
Decreased engagement costs an average company $228–$355M in lost productivity.4
Poor business outcomes occur when employees don’t understand how to work effectively.
Lost opportunities, missed KPIs, and low performance drive reduced revenue.
1McKinsey, 2SHRM, 3LinkedIn, 4McKinsey
When we don’t train our people or cease training after onboarding, we are only hurting ourselves. We stunt our growth. To underestimate the importance of training is a costly mistake that we cannot afford to make.”
The simplest definition of e-learning is any training or study delivered electronically—typically via a tablet, smartphone, or desktop computer.
Many mediums qualify as e-learning: slides, screencasts, video modules, and interactive courses. Technically, e-learning can be simple and passive—think text-heavy slides with “next” and back” navigation. It can also be complex, with interactions like virtual reality role-playing, decision-making scenarios, and gamification.
The best method depends on the job. That doesn’t mean all e-learning is built the same or of the same quality.
While there's a time and place for passive “click, click, test” learning, the best learning often engages the learner to participate. Quality E-learning is well-suited to encourage active participation and is typically:
Self-paced and asynchronous
Interactive rather than passive
Media-rich and compelling
These are just a few common e-learning characteristics. The next chapter explores some of e-learning's unique benefits.
Read on
Speed—it takes so long to create and distribute
Cost—conducting a training workshop is expensive
Scale—with so many variables in our workforce, it’s tough to meet all needs
Access—feels impossible for distributed or frontline employees
Time—we can't pull teams from core duties to learn
Measurement—it's not clear who completed training or how they performed against desired outcomes
Impact—desired behavior change doesn't happen
