The HR manager expected a great turnout. With a rash of downsizing, salary cuts, hiring freezes, and process changes; the employees in this organization were pretty stressed out. This training topic seemed like a perfect fit.

Besides the HR person, only five signed up for the workshop. Of those, only one other person showed up. The three of us had a fun and meaningful conversation on the topic. I quite enjoyed myself and believe the other two found the workshop to be a valuable use of their time.

Following the session the HR manager and I were scratching our heads, trying to figure out the reason for such low attendance at this workshop and training sessions like it that had been offered the past couple years.

Reasons Employees Don’t Take Advantage of Training

If employees in your organization don’t show up at the sessions you offer, it’s time to understand why. Can’t say which apply within this organization or yours, but I bet many of the following problems do contribute to the low attendance.

1. Poor publicity.
2. Employees are too busy.
3. Employees mistakenly believe they are too busy.
4. Employees want to be perceived by others (especially the boss) as being too busy.
5. No encouragement from managers to attend.
6. Training is considered a perk rather than a necessity.
7. Employees believe they already know everything they need for their jobs.
8. History of boring, poorly delivered workshops.
9. Topic isn’t obviously relevant.
10. Offered on employee’s free time (i.e. lunch hour).
11. Scheduled at bad times of the month or bad times of the day.
12. Employee are afraid that attending will be interpreted as a sign of weakness or deficiency.
13. No incentive for attending.
14. Fire-fighting culture that doesn’t value prevention.
15. Leadership has strong bias for short-term results.
16. The training isn’t required.

It’s easy to sit around thinking the employees who don’t show up simply don’t care. That may be the case, but the question that you need to answer is why they don’t care.

A great employee training program involves much more than booking a room and bringing in a trainer. So roll up your sleeves and get to work. Create a program so good that employees will know that they better sign up early or risk missing out.

That’s all the ideas I can come up with. What would you add to the list? And more importantly, what have you done to overcome some of these?

Photo by Nico Paix