Perhaps the first step towards better Training is not conducting it better. Perhaps it is thinking better before Training begins.

Written by Saurabh Pande "Explorer"

Training is easy to count.

Sessions conducted. Training Hours achieved. Participants covered. Calendars completed. Feedback scores collected.

All of these tell us that Training happened. They do not necessarily tell us that performance changed.

A calendar can be 100% complete while the same complaint continues. A department can exceed its Training Hours target while the same behavior keeps returning. Hundreds of employees can attend programs without hundreds of employees changing the way they work.

So perhaps the first movement from Training Activity to Performance Impact is not more Training. It is a better question: What exactly is the problem we are trying to solve?

"My team needs Training." Is that a diagnosis?

Anyone who has worked in Training has heard it. A manager walks in and says, "My team needs Training." Sometimes even the topic is ready: communication, grooming, upselling, ownership, complaint handling, leadership.

The machinery can start immediately - content, venue, participants, delivery, feedback, closure. But what exactly did the manager give us: a diagnosis, or a symptom accompanied by a suggested prescription?

Yes, textbooks and established L&D models tell us where TNA and TNI sit in the formal process. But let us see what often happens in practice.

Before formal analysis begins, something has already made us look: a guest complaint, a KPI movement, an audit observation, a repeated correction, an operational WhatsApp group carrying another "Any update?", a hesitant employee, a failed handover.

For me, that moment is already Training Need Identification in its earliest practical form not confirmation that Training is required, simply recognition that something deserves investigation.

Signal -> TNI -> TNA -> Diagnosis -> Intervention -> Performance

TNI asks what appears to require attention. TNA asks why it is happening. Diagnosis asks where the actual gap sits. Intervention asks what we should do about it.

The principle is simple: do not improve the prescription before confirming the diagnosis.

The doctor first: what is actually wrong?

I often think of a doctor. A patient arrives with symptoms; a competent doctor does not immediately prescribe medicine. The doctor questions, examines, looks for patterns and tests when necessary. The symptom is visible. The cause may not be.

When a manager says, "My staff needs Training," poor performance may indeed be visible. But the cause could be Knowledge, Skill, Attitude, Habit, Process, Product, Equipment, Manpower, Ownership, Supervision, Leadership - or something else entirely.

A good Training professional must sometimes be confident enough to say:

"This is not a Training problem."

That sentence is not avoidance. Sometimes it is diagnosis.

Before capability, check PPP

A simple operational lens is People - Process - Product.

Suppose a restaurant guest complains that food took too long. "Service team needs Training" is an easy conclusion. But what if there were too few people on duty? People capacity. What if the order moved badly between service and kitchen? Process. What if critical equipment was failing? Product or infrastructure.

The guest experiences one delay; the organization may have several different causes.

A receptionist cannot be trained into producing a room that is physically not ready. A cashier cannot smile a slow billing system into working faster. A salesperson cannot persuade stock into existence. A nurse cannot indefinitely compensate for poor patient flow design. A customer-care executive cannot communicate information the organization itself has failed to provide.

Are we looking at People problem - or merely a problem visible via a person?

If PPP says People, ask KASH

If the problem genuinely sits in human performance, the next question is: what exactly is missing? KASH gives four very different answers.

Gap | Diagnostic question | Response

Knowledge | Does the person know what to do? | Teach
Attitude | Does the person understand, value and own why it matters? | Influence
Skill | Can the person actually perform it? | Practice
Habit | Can the person do it consistently without reminders? | Reinforce

More teaching will not necessarily fix an Attitude problem. More Knowledge does not automatically create Skill. And knowing something - even demonstrating it once - does not automatically make it habitual.

Pippa Lally's habit research is often reduced to "66 days", but the more useful point is variation: the original study averaged 66 days, with cases ranging from 18 to 254 days. Habit formation is not a one-session event. [1]

A meta-analysis on training transfer found peer, supervisor and organizational support were positively related to transfer, with the combined work-environment model accounting for 32% of variance. The classroom may introduce a behavior; the workplace often decides whether it survives. [2]

The lawyer next: what is the right intervention?

Diagnosis still does not automatically mean classroom Training. This is where the lawyer metaphor joins the doctor.

A competent lawyer does not take every dispute directly to court. Depending on the case, the lawyer may advise, negotiate, mediate, settle, caution - or litigate. Professional value lies in selecting the right course, not generating the maximum amount of legal activity.

Doctor = What is wrong?
Lawyer = What is most appropriate intervention?

The Training/L&D professional then delivers an intervention only when it is genuinely the right one. That intervention may be a program, coaching, counselling, observation, manager intervention, role modelling, process correction, a five-minute micro-session - or no formal Training at all.

Professional maturity includes knowing what not to prescribe.

Training and Learning & Development: the twin brothers

There is another distinction managers and Training professionals both need to understand - not academically, but practically. I sometimes think of Training and Learning & Development as twin brothers. They belong to the same family, often work together and can look similar from outside. Their intention, however, is not identical.

Training is the specific, relevant and practical brother

If I want someone to operate something exactly as required, Training may be the answer. What to do. How to do it. In what sequence. To what standard. With what result.

"I want him to operate this exactly as required."

Training says: let us make sure you can perform this correctly. Its strength is specificity.

Learning & Development is the broader, more selfless brother

Suppose I want the employee not merely to follow the present method, but to understand the core deeply enough to judge, connect, adapt and eventually improvise appropriately when the standard situation changes. Now I am asking for more than Training.

"I want him to understand the core so well that eventually he can judge and adapt appropriately."

Development says: let us help you understand enough that one day you may not need somebody to tell you exactly what to do.

Neither brother is better. They are simply buying different depths of change.

The trouble begins when we expect one twin to produce the other twin's outcome

Managers do not need to become L&D experts. But they need enough understanding to know what kind of change they are asking for, because; expectation determines:

Approach -> Degree -> Style -> Category of Intervention.

Ask for a short operational Training session and then expect leadership maturity, independent judgement, strategic thinking and long-term transformation: Training is being asked to behave like Development. Run a developmental journey and judge it only by immediate standardization the next morning: Development is being expected to behave like Training.

The intervention may not have failed. The expectation may have belonged to the wrong brother.

What level of change are we actually trying to buy?

A two-hour operational intervention and a six-month developmental journey cannot sensibly be compared only by cost. They are purchasing different levels of change.

This is also where trust enters. The manager understands the operation. The Training professional understands learning, behavior and intervention. The manager brings the symptoms; Training helps diagnose; together they decide which brother - or combination of brothers - the situation needs.

What did the intervention really cost?

Once we know what intervention is required, another question becomes unavoidable: what organizational resources did we consume to create it?

Training is often treated as inexpensive because everyone involved is already on salary. But salary time is still organizational resource, and participant time has two consequences. The hour is occupied by Training, while Operations simultaneously loses access to that person's productive capacity.

These are not two separate salary payments, so they should not be double-counted as payroll. The second is an opportunity cost. Then there is transition: leaving the station, handover, movement, settling, return, taking back the handover and regaining operational rhythm.

For an illustrative model, allow about 30 minutes of transition per participant per intervention.

A monthly illustration

Assume an average participant salary of Rs. 12,000 per month and trainer salary of Rs. 50,000. At 26 working days’ x 8 hours, that is about 208 working hours per month: roughly Rs. 58 per participant-hour and Rs. 240 per trainer-hour.

Now suppose the MIS shows 100 Training Hours and 250 Participant Training Man-Hours.

Identifiable resource | Illust. calculation | Appx. value

Participant Training time | 250 h x Rs. 58 | Rs. 14,423
Transition time* | 125 h x Rs. 58 | Rs. 7,212
Trainer delivery | 100 h x Rs. 240 | Rs. 24,038
Content + study** | 150 h x Rs. 240 | Rs. 36,058
Total identifiable salary-time / transition | - | Rs. 81,731

*Assumes the 250 participant man-hours arise from roughly 250 one-hour attendances, with 30 minutes’ additional transition per attendance.
**Illustrative scenario: 50 two-hour interventions, each requiring 2 hours’ content development plus 1-hour trainer study/preparation.

That Rs. 81,731 still excludes the business value of the 250 operational hours unavailable during Training, manager/supervisor time, TNI/TNA, coordination, assessment, reinforcement, administration, venue, technology, material, travel, replacement manpower and productivity disruption.

If those same 100 Training Hours represented 100 separate one-hour interventions, preparation and study requirements would rise further. The exact number is not the point; the hidden resource commitment is.

Training Hours are not only activity figures. They are organizational resources committed in expectation of an outcome.

ATD's 2026 State of the Industry reports an average of 16.7 formal learning hours per employee in 2025 and average direct learning expenditure of US$846 per employee. Yet fewer than one-quarter of participating organizations measured whether training programs achieved organizational goals; an even smaller share measured ROI. [3]

We are often very good at counting how much learning activity occurred. We are less consistent at establishing what changed because of it.

The professional efficiency question

Imagine two professionals facing the same performance problem.

One designs four formal sessions. The other correctly diagnoses a Habit issue and uses observation, one short intervention, manager reinforcement and workplace coaching. Both produce the same sustainable improvement. The first professional conducted more Training.

That does not automatically mean more value was created. A useful question is: How much relevant impact did we create for the resources consumed?

Value = Relevant Impact / Resources Consumed

Not as a scientific formula - as a thinking device. Did we create the required and sustainable change with a reasonable amount of organizational resource?

This is not an argument for cheap Training. It is not an argument that shorter is always better. Some capability genuinely requires days, months or years. A two-hour Training intervention and a six-month developmental intervention can both be excellent decisions if each matches the level of change we are actually trying to create.

The principle is simply: no larger intervention than the required change justifies.

From activity to impact

Sessions still matter. Training Hours still matter. Participation, calendar completion and feedback still matter. Activity metrics are useful. They are simply incomplete.

Lens | Question

Activity | What did we conduct?
Effectiveness | What changed in the learner?
Impact | What changed in performance?
Efficiency | What resources were required to create that change?

Activity -> Effectiveness -> Impact -> Efficiency

Perhaps alongside Training Hours we should become comfortable asking: How many employee-hours were consumed per sustainable behavior change? What did a performance improvement cost? What intervention was avoided because diagnosis showed Training was unnecessary?

The mathematics will never be perfectly clean. Human behavior rarely is. But better questions usually produce better Training decisions.

Before the next session...

A doctor prescribing unnecessary medicine would not be called more productive simply because more medicine was prescribed. A lawyer taking every matter through the longest legal route would not automatically be considered better because more legal activity occurred.

So why should more Training Hours, more sessions, more participants or fuller calendars automatically be read as proof of greater Training effectiveness? They are evidence of activity. Impact needs another question.

Diagnose before teaching. Understand the cause before selecting the intervention. Know which twin the situation needs. Match the intervention to the depth of change. Use organizational resources deliberately. Reinforce where behavior needs reinforcement.

And trust the Training professional enough to allow one answer that may occasionally be the most professional of all:

"This does not require Training."

Because sometimes the strongest contribution a Training professional can make is not another session. It is a better decision.

Written by Saurabh Pande "Explorer"
Master Trainer & Facilitator
Certified Learning & Development Manager

Saurabh Pande “Explorer” is a hospitality Learning, Capability and Performance Excellence professional with over two decades of experience across hotel operations, learning, guest experience, operational audits and leadership development.

His career has spanned organisations including Jaypee Group, Moksha Spa Resort, Lords Hotels & Resorts, Fortune Hotels by ITC, Sarovar Hotels & Resorts and The Ananta Hotels & Resorts, among others. Over the years, he has held roles such as F&B Manager, Training Manager, Cluster Training Manager, Corporate Training Manager, General Manager and Property Head, alongside special assignments in Front Office, HR, pre-opening’s, reopening’s and operational transitions.

Working across both Operations and Learning has given him a close view of how people, processes, standards, capability and guest experience come together to influence performance.

Through his professional work and writing, Saurabh explores Training and Learning & Development from a practitioner’s perspective—looking at how better diagnosis, the right intervention and stronger workplace reinforcement can make learning more relevant, practical and effective.

References

[1] University of Surrey (2026). "Does it really take 66 days to form a habit? We asked the expert, Dr. Pippa Lally." Reports the original study average of 66 days and range of 18-254 days. surrey.ac.uk

[2] Hughes, A. M., Zajac, S., Woods, A. L., & Salas, E. (2020). "The Role of Work Environment in Training Sustainment: A Meta-Analysis." Human Factors, 62(1), 166-183. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31136198

[3] Association for Talent Development (2026). "Highlights from ATD's 2026 State of the Industry Report." Based on 2025 data. td.org