Professional Development Training: What Actually Works (And What’s Just Expensive Window Dressing)
Here’s the thing about professional development training that’s been bugging me for years.
After twenty plus years of delivering training and sitting through countless workshops on training that does absolutely nothing except tick boxes for HR departments. And before you think I’m just having a whinge, I’m essentially criticising my own bread and butter here. Been a workplace trainer in Brisbane for the better part of two decades, so I’m essentially criticising my own industry here.
The problem isnt that professional development doesnt work. It’s that most of it is designed by people who’ve never actually had to implement what they’re teaching. You know the type. New graduates with their fancy qualifications, armed with PowerPoint presentations full of buzzwords and theoretical frameworks that sound clever but fall apart the moment someone asks “yeah, but how do we actually do this on a Tuesday afternoon when three people are off sick and the system’s crashed?”
Recently attended a workshop run by one of the major training companies and the facilitator spent nearly an hour banging on about “genuine workplace engagement.” Beautiful slides. Fancy graphics. Then during the break, I watched him have a go at the venue staff because they’d messed up some minor detail.
That’s the industry in a nutshell right there.
The stuff that genuinely works isn’t glamorous or groundbreaking. Proper mentoring relationships. Genuine mentoring relationships, not the tick box exercises most companies run. I’m talking about matching people based on actual skills gaps and personality fit, then giving them time actual time, not some rushed coffee catch ups to work through problems together.
My most valuable learning came from working with Maria, a demanding operations manager in Sydney. Spent three months shadowing her, watching how she handled difficult clients, how she organised her day, how she knew which battles to fight and which ones to walk away from. No workbook. No certificate at the end. Just real skills from someone who’d been doing the job for fifteen years and knew every trick in the book.
But you cant scale that, can you? Cant run mass sessions and bill big corporate rates. So instead we get these mass produced training sessions where everyone sits in bland hotel function rooms, checking their phones, and goes back to their desk with resources they’ll forget about by next week.
There are definitely times when classroom training makes sense. Technical training generally delivers results. Show someone how to use a new software system, let them practice it, job done. Health and safety training is literally life or death. Regulatory training protects the business. These are solid things with clear outcomes.
The problem is with all the touchy feely development programs. Management training. People skills. Collaboration workshops. Productivity courses. All the things that actually matter most for career progression, and we’ve turned them into these template driven, universal solutions that ignore the fact that every workplace is different.
I’ve seen middle managers from mining companies sitting through the same emotional intelligence workshop as kindergarten teachers. Makes about as much sense as using the same playbook for brain surgery and baking cupcakes.
The mining manager needs to know how to have difficult conversations with union representatives and handle safety incidents without losing his cool. The community worker needs approaches for crisis intervention and supporting vulnerable clients. Different problems. Separate solutions. Same training program.
Here’s what really gets me we track all the wrong metrics. Participant numbers? Happy sheets? Budget compliance? Meanwhile, nobody checks six months later to see if anyone’s actually applying what they learned.
I track my own participants for a year after training. About a third implement something meaningful from what we covered. That’s not terrible, actually typical results across the sector are closer to 10 15%. But it means two thirds of the time and money spent is essentially pointless. Try explaining that to a CFO.
What actually works tends to share three characteristics. First, it solves an actual workplace issue, not theoretical situations. Second, they get to practice it properly during the session, with feedback from someone who knows what they’re talking about. Third, ongoing support and check ins are built into the process.
Everything else is just overpriced entertainment.
Digital training modules are another level of useless. The e learning programs that let you tick off “Executive Communication” during a coffee break. I’ve seen people finish forty minute courses in twelve minutes by clicking through without reading anything. Their completion certificates look exactly the same as someone who actually engaged with the content.
This might be controversial, but participants need to take some responsibility too. We’ve created this culture where professional development is something that happens to you, rather than something you actively pursue. People rock up expecting to be transformed by sitting passively through a workshop, then moan when it doesnt change their lives.
The successful trainees bring real challenges they want to address, take notes, ask for clarification, and follow up afterwards. They treat it like serious skill building rather than a day off.
Remember this participant from a communication workshop, Michelle who worked for a tech company in Brisbane. Brought real team challenges he was facing, took comprehensive notes on solutions, stayed back afterwards to work through detailed scenarios. Six months later, she’d been promoted to senior project manager. Coincidence? Maybe. But I dont think so.
Organisations that see real returns approach training systematically. They assess actual needs, select targeted solutions, and build follow up processes. They dont just book whatever’s available when budget needs spending.
BHP does this really well. Their management development programs are targeted, applicable, and tied directly to business outcomes. They track career progression of participants and refine the programs based on what actually works. Not revolutionary stuff, just simple common sense applied systematically.
Too many companies see training as optional rather than essential. They’ll spend millions on new equipment or software, then baulk at investing properly in the people who have to use it.
The reality is that people performance drives most business outcomes. You can have cutting edge systems and processes in the world, but if your people dont know how to use them effectively, you’re wasting your time.
Here’s my controversial opinion most professional development should be delivered by internal people, not external trainers. Your best performers, the ones who’ve actually mastered the skills you want to develop, teaching others in your organisation how they do it. Context matters. Industry knowledge matters. Understanding your specific challenges and constraints matters.
External trainers like me should be brought in for specialist knowledge or when you need an outside perspective. But for core skills development? Your team probably understands the reality better than any outsider.
This isnt popular with my fellow trainers, but it’s honest. We’ve convinced organisations they need us for everything, when what they really need is better systems for capturing and sharing internal knowledge.
So where does that leave us? Professional development training will continue because organisations need it and compliance demands it. But maybe we can get serious about separating useful from useless.
End the fiction that brief sessions create lasting change. Begin tracking results that count. Concentrate on applicable knowledge with immediate use. And for the love of all that’s sacred, stop making people sit through training on stuff they already know just because it’s part of the program.
Real development occurs when experts share their knowledge with people ready to learn. Everything else is just paperwork.
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