A Leading People Café session with Gerry Murray
The 5 Reasons Your People Aren’t Learning
Reserve my placeIf you work in HR or L&D, you already know the training transfer numbers. They have been quoted at conferences for the past twenty years.
Brinkerhoff (2006): less than 20% of trainees take what they learn in training back to the job and use it to achieve worthwhile results for their businesses.
Saks & Belcourt (2006): training professionals estimated that application of training fell from 62% immediately to 34% after a year.
CEB (2014): the average organisation had a 45% 'scrap learning' rate — learning delivered but not applied on the job.
These numbers are 10 to 20 years old. It seems that nobody has produced new headline numbers to replace them. The problem hasn't been solved. It has been studied, conferenced, and written about — but not solved.
Why?
Here’s what 496 professionals have been telling me
For nearly three years, I’ve been asking a simple research question at the start of many workshops.
The answers — anonymous, unprompted — are so consistent and so robust that I felt I had to bring them to every serious L&D professional and every manager who takes the development of their people seriously.
The same five challenges come up every single time. Across all seniority levels. Across every group I’ve worked with.
What’s striking isn’t just what the five challenges are. It’s that most organisations do not appear to be addressing them at the design stage.
What the session covers
The 5 challenges, in the order they appear in the data — and what the consistency across 15 sessions tells us about where the real problem sits.
The neuroscience that explains why these 5 keep showing up — and why the standard responses haven’t shifted them.
A clearer way to look at the conditions for learning in your own organisation — something you can take into your next L&D conversation.
This session is for you if…
- You’re an HR Director, L&D leader, or people professional responsible for capability in your organisation.
- You’ve been working on the training transfer problem for a while, and you suspect there’s something the standard literature isn’t naming.
- You’d like 60 minutes with peers who take the development of people seriously.
Leading People Café – Format & Details
Time: 13:00–14:00 CEST (60 minutes)
Date: Thursday 18 June 2026
Format: Live on Zoom. Interactive
Price: Free
Host: Gerry Murray, live and solo
Replay: Yes — registrants who can’t attend live will receive a recording.
Link follows shortly after the session.
About Gerry Murray
Gerry is a leadership expert, facilitator, and host of the Leading People Podcast (100+ episodes). His career spans nine years at the World HQ of DHL and consulting work with large global organisations and the EU.
Since 2023 he has been running workshops on adult learning and skill development for senior professionals — the workshops that generated the research presented in this Café.
He is certified in the 12 Levers of Transfer Effectiveness (Institute for Transfer Effectiveness) and in Brain-Based Design & Facilitation (NeuroLeadership Institute). He is also a Brain and Behaviour Change Practitioner, holds an MBA from Alliance Manchester Business School, and was a TEDx speaker in 2022.
— Get to Know Gerry —
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Thursday 18 June 2026 · 13:00–14:00 CET · Free
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Quick questions
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One last thing
The five challenges in this data have been remarkably stable across nearly three years and 15 sessions. If you’re responsible for developing people, they’re almost certainly showing up in your organisation right now — in ways your standard training metrics aren’t catching.
Sixty minutes. No cost. Bring your curiosity.
Reserve my place