Why most training interventions fail

In today's business environment, efficiency is the ultimate goal to save resources and reach effective operational cycle. Training is used among other means to help reach that purpose.

American companies spend as much as 200 billion dollars on training interventions (Carnevale, Gainer, and Villet 1990). Most of that budget is considered a waste and most importantly it does not achieve the desired objectives. As a result, businesses have diverted their focus to measure training effectiveness, and its Return on Investment.
Although researchers have tried continuously to find the magical equation to calculate training effectiveness, yet it is still an area of continuous debate. There are two schools of thought in this regard: For example, Philips (1990) devised a methodology to quantify training results and called it Training ROI. At the other bank of the river, DeSimone, Werner, and Harris (2006) stated that training effectiveness is a "relative" matter. Given both schools of thoughts, the fact remains that the squandered resources on training remain an area of business concern.

Taking a closer look into such matter, it is valid to ask why most training interventions fail? Such question was legitimized by Cromwell & Colbs' (2004) finding that "not more than 15% of learning transfer to the job, after attending any training". Such finding is astonishing!
From my experience in training management, and as a trainer for 10 years now, the reasons for training failure are:

1. Training is not designed for specific purpose. Generic training has no specific objectives to accomplish.
2. Training not related to trainees' daily work. Concepts addressed in training are not paralleled to the trainees' daily work functions and not applicable to what they do and therefore irrelevant to their need.

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