Cultural learning starts at the top
If you’ve ever worked in corporate training for even a few months, you’ve probably noticed one big problem. It’s that most people simply don’t want to complete the training.
And it makes sense. Employees are chronically overworked (and often underpaid given the economy). The last thing they want is to push them into even more work, even if it’s just to complete a 10-minute course.
At many companies, training managers and directors see their teams putting in a lot of effort to put out great training content that goes largely ignored or unappreciated.
This is why instructional designers strive to make training fun and lively. That’s why we work so hard to write clear, clean, and concise content. That’s why we spend hours learning skills like Photoshop and After Effects just to add interest to our courses. We will continue to make our training more and more attractive in the hope that it will interest a wider audience.
But what if I told you that this isn’t actually the best way to move the needle on training completion?In fact, it might not have made much of a difference at all in terms of completion?
One of the biggest factors in whether your audience completes your training has less to do with the training itself and more to do with your company’s learning culture.
In this article we will cover:
Current strategy: Drive more content, make it better New strategy: Engage leaders to build a learning culture If it’s this simple, why aren’t all leaders already driving training?
Let’s dive in!
Current strategy: Push more content, make it better
Throughout my 12 years of instructional design experience in retail, pharmaceuticals, communications infrastructure, etc., I’ve experienced much the same situation.
Every team meeting involves discussing new methods and technologies. We share the tools and techniques we’ve learned to improve each other’s skills. Get a report to see your previous training completion status. Learn how formatting your documents and courses in this way can help improve completeness. We’re being told to focus on this kind of module, less content, shorter courses, this kind of delivery, that kind of start schedule to increase completion rates.
And somehow, as the years pass, the conversations remain the same, and the results are the same. We bang our heads against the wall trying to convince our audience to pay attention.
Just to be clear, this is not to say that these things aren’t important. Vibrant, clean and concise training helps learners pay more attention and retain more. It helps them perceive the course as more trustworthy. And it also helps maintain the reputation of training within the company. If a course is consistently too long, rambling, or cluttered, training completion rates will drop over time, and a bad reputation will be difficult to overcome without years of effort.
So these things are important. I make a living by caring about them. But when it comes to completion, the biggest piece of the puzzle isn’t something the team has direct control over.
A new strategy: Use leadership to build a learning culture
One consistency I’ve noticed, regardless of industry or audience, is that organizations with strong learning cultures consistently achieve better training delivery.
And that culture primarily starts with leadership.
Simply put, the companies I’ve worked for that consistently had the highest training completion rates were those whose leaders fully supported their training teams and regularly drove completion.
Corporate leadership drives corporate culture. As just one example, if leaders forced employees to take all of their paid time off each year to take time away from work to recharge, most managers would personally ensure that they did so. It will happen because our leaders say it has to happen. It may not be 100% of the entire company (there will always be naysayers). But that’s just about everyone, and even more so if the message is repeated.
The same applies to learning culture. When leaders consistently emphasize the importance of training, managers begin to treat training as an operational necessity rather than an option. In fact, according to research conducted by the Truist Leadership Institute, one of the top five ingredients of an effective talent culture is organization-wide support for employee growth and development.
More importantly, if there are any consequences for not completing training, your completion rate will skyrocket. This is what I mean by forced training. Don’t just say it needs to be done, show people how important it is through your actions.
Now, to be clear, I’m not saying that companies should start firing employees who can’t complete a 10-minute course on the company’s mission and vision. What I’m saying is that if leaders see the value in training and reinforce that value on a regular basis, their employees will see the value as well. If a director knows that the VP will call them if someone on their team hasn’t completed training, they’re much less likely to end up on the not-completed list in the first place.
Here is an example of what leadership involvement looks like. Let’s say your team supports a large company’s efforts with a structured training program that rolls out one module per month over six months. Leader engagement may include some or all of the following ideas:
A 3-minute speech by the CEO or project executive sponsor about the training program at the most recent company-wide meeting. In the 10-minute video at the beginning of the program, the CEO or executive sponsor talks about the initiative, what it means to the company, and (most importantly) what it means to the audience, the good and the rewarding. Town halls led by executive sponsors and functional directors to discuss programs, encourage training, and encourage audience members to ask questions. A forum where learners can ask questions about the program. Sent live during the meeting or via email, and answered by the executive sponsor.
And remember, these ideas only cover one specific initiative. If leaders want their people to receive training, big or small, training should always be discussed. In general, completing all training on time should be mentioned at city hall. VPs should regularly encourage directors to make training a priority for their teams, and directors should encourage managers to ensure their teams complete training. In organizations with a strong learning culture, training is not seen as separate from operational work, but becomes part of operational excellence.
Without a culture of learning, only managers who see the value in training themselves will force their teams to do so, creating an uneven and inconsistent experience where some teammates are well trained and most are not. Therefore, why is your company’s completion rate low?
If it’s so easy, why aren’t all leaders promoting training?
The two biggest reasons are time and money.
Think about what your company does. The only purpose of its existence is to make money (except for non-profits). Sure, businesses provide valuable products and services that make the world a better place, but ultimately they make a profit. Therefore, a company’s executives are responsible for ensuring that the company runs as efficiently as possible and generates as much revenue as possible.
Given the very purpose of their role, it feels counterintuitive to tell people to focus on tasks that aren’t directly related to the company’s bottom line.
Rather than working in a vacuum in HR, I have worked directly on operational teams at several companies. Whether they care about training depends on whether they understand its value and ROI. Interestingly, in some cases, teams realized that if their employees were highly trained, they could do a better and more efficient job. However, there were times when the focus was solely on achieving KPIs and maximizing work time. The training we developed was significantly shortened and removed much of what made it effective in the first place.
Also remember that most employees have more on their plate than they can realistically manage. Employees are burning out faster than we can refresh them, and as a result, they’re disengaged. This can be discussed on its own in a separate article. So spending even one minute training feels like an unnecessary waste of time compared to the other things you can do with that time. In fact, according to Gallup in 2025, 41% of employees say the time required on the job is the biggest barrier to learning and development. Companies care about profits, output, and efficiency, and the more work a person can do in a 40-hour work week, the better.
So what can you do?
If you’re the training leader for your company, your biggest role in completing training is to help drive interest in training among executives. 94% of employees say they’ll stay longer with a company that invests in their learning and development, and companies with comprehensive training programs are 24% more profitable.We’ll show you the ROI of completing training to help you understand the benefits.
If you are an individual contributor to the training team, the next time you scope a large project, suggest that you involve your leaders in some of the ideas we discussed.
And above all, remember this. Your efforts in building beautiful and clean training modules are of great value to your company. To help your employees understand it, you need to build a learning culture around it.
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