Training isn’t the issue - Forgetting is
By Manasi Bharati, Senior Psychology Consultant
Most organisations design training with the best intentions: structured workshops, e-learning modules, away-days, leadership courses. For a moment, people feel energised. They understand new ideas. They commit to new behaviours.
And then, life happens. Emails, deadlines, urgent tasks, team pressures. Two weeks later, clarity blurs. A month later, the details slip away entirely. This isn’t a failure of the learner. It’s a predictable feature of human memory, and one that organisations often overlook. Understanding why we forget, and what we can do about it, is now one of the most important challenges in organisational development.
The psychology of forgetting
More than a century ago, Hermann Ebbinghaus conducted the first scientific experiments on memory. His discovery (now known as the forgetting curve) shows that memory declines rapidly after initial learning. Retention falls steeply in the first hours and days, then gradually stabilises. Unless the brain revisits information, it quietly let’s go of what it doesn’t view as necessary. Ebbinghaus also showed that relearning happens faster each time. Every revisit strengthens the memory trace – a principle that underpins modern methods such as spaced repetition, retrieval practice, and behaviour-based learning.
Why is so much corporate training easy to forget?
Organisational training often unintentionally amplifies the forgetting curve. Several psychological theories help explain why.
Cognitive overload is one culprit. Many workshops try to cover everything, overwhelming working memory and leaving little room for retention. With so much content delivered so quickly, the brain simply can’t encode it all.
A second issue is the absence of spaced learning. Most training is delivered in isolated bursts – a single event, then silence. The brain, however, learns best through intervals, by revisiting ideas gradually over time.
Related to this is the lack of retrieval practice. People remember what they actively recall, not what they passively hear. Without opportunities to test, discuss, apply, or reflect, knowledge remains fragile.
Training also falters when contextual encoding is weak. When content feels theoretical or distant from real work, the brain tends to deprioritise it. Relevance isn’t a nice-to-have; it is a memory mechanism.
And finally, there is the challenge of habit formation. New behaviours require repetition. If people don’t practise the behaviour in their day-to-day environment, the brain categorises it as temporary – something to forget.
But cognitive barriers are only part of the story. From our experience, even when individuals are motivated and capable, learning often fails to stick because of systemic and environmental barriers. Where line managers don’t reinforce new behaviours, employees fall back on familiar patterns. When training is delivered in isolation from real work, people may understand the ideas but struggle to apply them. Time pressure, competing priorities, and lack of resources turn good intentions into postponed actions. And when training ends with the event itself (with no follow-up structures or accountability) the forgetting curve accelerates.
Forgetting isn’t just cognitive – it’s environmental. Memory fails when both the brain’s natural processes and the workplace context work against retention.
The real cost: Lack of “retention”
Organisations often assume that when learning doesn’t stick, the workshop wasn’t good enough or employees weren’t motivated. In reality, the gap lies elsewhere.
People forget because the world around them is too fast-paced.
They forget because the brain is designed to prune unused information.
They forget because our systems of workplace learning rarely mirror how memory actually works.
Knowledge decays quietly, behaviours revert gradually, and performance stagnates subtly – not because people don’t want to improve, but because their environment doesn’t help them remember. This is not a learning motivation issue. It is a learning design issue.
What actually works: Evidence-based ways to make learning stick
The good news: forgetting is predictable and therefore preventable. Organisations can design training that aligns with known memory principles.
1) Individual learning design
First, use spaced learning. Breaking large content into smaller moments across several weeks helps embed concepts more deeply than a single long session ever could.
Second, integrate retrieval practice. Quizzes, scenario work, coaching questions, and reflection prompts strengthen recall more effectively than re-reading slides or listening passively.
Third, anchor learning in real work. When employees apply ideas immediately in discussions, decisions, or tasks, the brain treats the knowledge as worth keeping.
Fourth, reduce cognitive overload. Focused modules with fewer concepts and clearer micro-commitments help learners retain what matters most.
And, crucially, support habit formation. Behaviour change requires small, repeated actions – nudges, reminders, prompts, peer reinforcement – woven into daily routines.
2) Organisational enablers
But individual learning design alone isn’t enough. Organisations must also create the conditions for learning to transfer:
Equip and engage managers. Line managers should be prepared to discuss new concepts with their teams, provide feedback on application attempts, and remove barriers to practice. Manager involvement signals importance and creates accountability.
Ensure job relevance. Training content must connect explicitly to real work challenges. When learners can see immediate application opportunities in their roles, transfer happens naturally.
Provide time and resources. Protect time for practice. Ensure people have the tools, authority, and support structures needed to apply new skills. Learning fails when it competes with “real work” rather than being integrated into it.
Build follow-up mechanisms. Create structured opportunities for continued practice – peer learning groups, coaching check-ins, progress reviews, or digital reinforcement tools. These touchpoints prevent the post-training silence that accelerates forgetting.
When these principles are combined – addressing both cognitive design and organisational context – learning transitions from something attended to something applied to something lived.
How FabricShift helps organisations solve this problem
At FabricShift, we design learning journeys that work with human psychology, not against it. Our programmes build spaced learning, behavioural reinforcement, contextual practice and habit formation directly into the learner’s flow of work.
Our HabiTrack™ platform helps individuals revisit, practise, and embed micro-behaviours over time, turning insights into sustainable habits and reducing the natural decay of learning.
If you want to shift from training that fades to learning that endures, we would be happy to talk.
