My Thoughts

Why Your Company's Training Budget is Being Wasted (And What I Learned After 20 Years of Watching Money Disappear)

The other day I watched a procurement manager spend $47,000 on a "leadership excellence program" that consisted mainly of trust falls and personality quizzes. This was the same bloke who'd cut our coffee budget because "every dollar counts." Made me wonder if we're all just pretending corporate training works because admitting otherwise would be too uncomfortable.

I've been in workplace training for two decades now, first as a reluctant participant, then as someone designing the bloody things. And here's what I've learned: 89% of training budgets might as well be flushed down the toilet for all the lasting impact they create.

The Cookie-Cutter Catastrophe

Walk into any training room in Melbourne, Sydney, or Perth, and you'll see the same thing. Generic PowerPoints. Role-playing scenarios that make everyone cringe. Facilitators who've never actually worked in your industry telling you how to do your job better.

It's like getting marriage advice from someone who's never been on a date.

The problem isn't that training doesn't work - it's that we're doing it all wrong. We're treating skill development like a vaccination: one shot and you're immune to incompetence forever. But effective communication training requires ongoing practice, not a single workshop.

Most companies approach training like they're ticking boxes for compliance rather than actually developing their people. They'll spend thousands on a two-day seminar, then wonder why nothing's changed three months later when everyone's back to their old habits.

The "Sheep Dip" Mentality

Here's where I might lose some HR friends, but someone needs to say it: stop treating all your employees like they need the same training. The sheep dip approach - where everyone gets dunked in the same solution - is fundamentally flawed.

Your top performers don't need basic time management skills. Your veteran salespeople don't need "Introduction to Customer Service." Yet every year, companies force their best people through the same generic programs as their worst performers.

It's insulting. And it's wasteful.

I remember working with a manufacturing company in Geelong where they made everyone attend a presentation skills course - including the warehouse staff who literally never gave presentations. Meanwhile, their actual presenters (the sales team) were crying out for advanced negotiation training that never materialised.

The Follow-Up Failure

But here's the real kicker - and this is where most training programs completely fall apart - there's no bloody follow-up. Companies spend big on the initial training event, then treat it like a wedding: expensive, memorable, but essentially a one-time thing.

Real learning happens in the weeks and months after the training room. It happens when someone tries to apply what they learned and struggles. It happens when they need coaching through their first difficult conversation or complex project.

Yet how many companies budget for this ongoing support? I'd estimate about 12%. The rest just hope for the best.

The ROI Reality Check

Let's talk numbers for a minute. The average Australian company spends roughly $1,200 per employee per year on training. For a company with 100 employees, that's $120,000 annually.

Now ask yourself: can you point to $120,000 worth of improvement in your organisation from last year's training? Can you even remember what training you attended last year?

I thought so.

The companies that get training right - and there are some brilliant examples out there - don't measure success by how many people attended or how good the catering was. They measure behaviour change. Revenue impact. Customer satisfaction improvements. Actual business outcomes.

Telstra, for instance, has done exceptional work linking their leadership development programs to specific business metrics. They track participants for 12 months post-training and can show direct correlations between program completion and team performance improvements.

The Skills Mismatch Disaster

Here's another uncomfortable truth: most training programs are teaching yesterday's skills for tomorrow's problems. We're still running courses on email etiquette while our teams struggle with virtual collaboration tools. We're teaching traditional project management while our industry shifts to agile methodologies.

It's like teaching people to use typewriters in the age of smartphones.

The pace of change in business is accelerating, but our training programs are stuck in 2015. Maybe 2010. I've seen companies running the exact same leadership program they implemented eight years ago, wondering why it feels stale.

The world has changed. Your customers have changed. Your employees have changed. But your training? Still the same old recycled content.

The Internal Expertise Blindness

This might be my most controversial opinion, but here goes: your best trainers are probably already working for you.

Every organisation has subject matter experts who could teach circles around external consultants. Yet we consistently overlook internal talent in favour of expensive external providers with fancy credentials and slick marketing materials.

Your top salesperson understands your customers better than any external sales trainer ever will. Your best manager has solved problems specific to your industry that no generic leadership course addresses.

But instead of leveraging this internal expertise, we send people to learn generic skills from generic trainers who've never walked in our shoes.

The Technology Trap

Don't get me started on e-learning platforms. Actually, do get me started.

E-learning has its place, absolutely. But it's not a magic bullet. Watching someone click through 47 slides about conflict resolution doesn't prepare them for an actual difficult conversation any more than watching MasterChef makes you a chef.

Yet companies love e-learning because it's scalable and measurable. You can say "100% of staff completed diversity training" without mentioning that most people clicked through it while answering emails and learned absolutely nothing.

The human element of learning - discussion, practice, feedback, coaching - can't be replicated by a computer program. No matter how many gamification elements you add.

What Actually Works

After twenty years of watching training programs succeed and fail, here's what I've learned actually works:

Small groups. Real problems. Ongoing support. And for the love of all that's holy, make it relevant to what people actually do in their jobs.

The best training I've ever seen involved taking real workplace challenges and working through them with a skilled facilitator and peer group. No role-playing with artificial scenarios. No death by PowerPoint. Just smart people solving actual problems together.

Companies like Woolworths have mastered this approach. Their management development programs focus on real store challenges, with participants working on projects that directly impact their locations. The learning is immediate, relevant, and measurable.

The Budget Reality

Look, I'm not saying scrap your training budget entirely. But maybe, just maybe, it's time to rethink how you're spending it.

Instead of one big expensive program that everyone attends once, what if you invested in ongoing micro-learning opportunities? Instead of external consultants teaching generic skills, what if you developed your internal experts? Instead of measuring attendance, what if you measured actual behaviour change?

Your training budget isn't being wasted because training doesn't work. It's being wasted because you're doing training wrong.

The organisations that crack this code - that figure out how to develop their people effectively - those are the ones that will thrive in the next decade. The rest will keep throwing money at the problem and wondering why nothing changes.

Because here's the thing about workplace development: it's not about the training. It's about the learning. And there's a world of difference between the two.

Time to stop confusing activity with achievement and start building programs that actually develop people. Your budget - and your employees - deserve better than trust falls and personality quizzes.

Based on 20 years of workplace training experience across Australian businesses. Results may vary, but the frustration is universal.