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A Leading People Café session with Gerry Murray

The 5 Reasons Your People Aren’t Learning

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If 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: 80–85% of training is never consistently applied on the job. 

Saks & Belcourt: 62% of learners apply training immediately — only 34% are still applying it 12 months later. 

CEB/Gartner: 45% of all delivered training is scrap learning. 

These numbers are 10 to 20 years old. Nobody has produced new ones 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 every workshop session. 

The answers — anonymous, unprompted, from 496 professionals across 15 sessions — 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 are not 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. 

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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 CET (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.
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About Gerry Murray 

Gerry is a leadership expert, facilitator, and host of the Leading People Podcast (107+ 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 a Brain and Behaviour Change Practitioner, holds an MBA from Alliance Manchester Business School, and was a TEDx speaker in 2022. 

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Thursday 18 June 2026 · 13:00–14:00 CET · Free

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Quick questions 

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. 

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