KEY TAKEOUTS
- Training Without Reinforcement is Training Wasted – Without reinforcement, employees forget 80% of training within a day, leading to costly errors and lost productivity.
- Ramp Time is a Hidden Business Cost – The longer employees take to reach full productivity, the more businesses lose. Reducing ramp time can save millions annually.
- Knowledge Gaps Drive Performance Gaps – Employees can’t apply what they can’t remember. Tracking knowledge retention enables proactive skills development.
- Retention-First Training is a Business Advantage – Companies that invest in reinforced, personalised learning see higher engagement and stronger performance.
- Learning Fuels Operational Optimisation – When employees apply training, businesses can identify gaps, streamline processes and drive efficiency.
- Neuroscience-based Learning Creates Real Business ROI – On-demand reinforced microlearning and data-led knowledge management transforms training into measurable performance gains.
Introduction: Training Or Transformation?
Every business knows employee training is essential. But is your workplace training driving business success, or just ticking boxes?
Too often, onboarding and training are treated as a cost rather than an investment. Employees receive one-and-done, long format training that’s forgotten within days. Onboarding takes months, employee turnover remains high, and knowledge gaps create inefficiencies that drain resources and decelerate performance.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Neuroscience-backed training aligned with how the brain actually works reduces ramp time, improves engagement, and ensures long-term retention. Because training isn’t just about delivering information — it’s about growing a thriving workforce that drives business success.
The Forgetting Curve: Why Traditional Training Fails
Would you spend millions on training knowing that 80% of it will be forgotten within 24 hours?
That’s exactly what happens when training isn’t reinforced.
Cognitive science tells us that, without reinforcement, we forget up to 80% of training within a day. That means 80% of your training investment is lost to the forgetting curve before your people even hit the floor. This number increases to up to 90% within a week.
And when employees forget, they reach for a lifeline:
- 50-50: They resort to guesswork, risking costly errors and rework;
- Ask the Audience: They disrupt colleagues, slowing everyone around them down; or
- They avoid tasks they aren’t confident in, delaying productivity.
Until we can solve the problem of forgetting, even the best and most dynamic training interventions remain inefficient.
The solution? Reinforced microlearning backed by neuroscience.
By repeating key concepts over time, training becomes sticky — so employees retain and apply knowledge when it matters most.
The Hidden Cost of Inefficient Workplace Training and Onboarding
How long does it take your new hires to reach full productivity - to become fully confident, competent and capable in their roles?
For most companies, the answer is at least six months. During ramp time, flat line productivity averages 50%. That means, during ramp time, half of a new hire’s salary goes to ‘school fees’ — costing businesses millions in lost productivity.
Consider how many new hires you onboard and ramp each year, what would it mean to your bottom line if you could accelerate time to performance by 50%?
By providing on-demand, reinforced learning in the flow of work, businesses shorten ramp time, increase confidence, and accelerate productivity.
When Training Fails, Talent Falls: The Role of Knowledge Management in Retention & Performance
Talent management starts with knowledge management.
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We all know the story—when employees don’t follow policies and procedures, performance improvement processes or disciplinary action follow. But how much of this is down to negligence, and how much is simply because employees can’t remember what they’re supposed to do?
We can’t apply what we can’t remember. When training isn’t reinforced, employees lose confidence, make mistakes, and become demotivated—and when they feel unsupported, they leave, or quietly quit.
The impact?
- Higher disciplinary cases due to misunderstandings, not malice
- Inconsistent performance and costly errors
- Low morale, leading to disengagement and employee turnover, negatively impacting company culture
What you focus on expands. When it comes to training, most organisations track engagement, completion and accuracy. The problem is that this only gives a point-in-time view of knowledge levels. And given that knowledge and memory decay over time, this isn’t a reliable indicator of training impact. If you’re not tracking knowledge linked to performance, you’re limited to addressing the symptom, not the cause of poor performance.
What if you could track and close knowledge gaps before they become performance gaps?
With real-time access to knowledge retention data, managers link performance to knowledge, and work proactively with employees to close gaps. This makes performance management and skills development more effective, constructive and informed.
With data-led knowledge management plans, companies can:
- Proactively close knowledge gaps before they impact performance
- Ensure employees feel valued and invested in — boosting engagement and retention
- Reduce unnecessary employee turnover, cutting recruitment and training costs
And the financial impact? It’s significant.
Highly effective “learning organisations” have 5% higher levels of talent retention (Mckinsey). Consider your current employee turnover rate, and the cost of hiring (which can be as much as one and a half times an employee’s annual cost to company).
What would your organisation save each year if you could reduce employee turnover by 5% through enhanced training and engagement?
Retention-first training isn’t just good for employees — it’s a strategic business advantage.
Beyond Knowledge Gaps: The Role of Learning in Operational Optimisation
Knowledge gaps aren’t the only issue with traditional training and LMS platforms.
Your workflows, policies and procedures are designed to streamline operations to maximise efficiency. But many organisations struggle to identify the root causes of operational inefficiency - is it the process itself, or failure to apply it?
Given that we can’t apply what we can’t remember, we can’t hold our people accountable to application if we’re not managing knowledge, first.
When we know our people can remember and apply training, we can hold them accountable to application. And when we know policies and procedures are being applied, we can see their true impact and optimise them as needed. When we get this right, training becomes a profit centre with the potential to drive operational efficiency.
Consider your total annual investment in your people. What would your return be on that investment if you could increase productivity and efficiency across your workforce by just 1% through neuroscience-based learning strategies and systems?
The Five Pillars of Neuroscience-Based E-Learning
Developing happy, thriving, well-trained employees isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s the foundation of business success. But traditional training methods don’t align with how the human brain processes and retains knowledge.
When training is designed for retention, application, and accessibility, businesses don’t just save money — they unlock higher efficiency, engagement, and performance.
That’s why training must be structured around how the brain encodes, recalls, and applies information effectively:
- On-Demand Mobile Learning – Employees should have instant access to training, anytime, anywhere, on devices they use daily. Learning in real-world contexts improves retention and application, making training more effective.
- Personalised Reinforcement – The brain remembers information when it’s reviewed at strategic intervals. ML-driven reinforcement ensures employees revisit key concepts over time, strengthening memory for application.
- Microlearning for Retention – Short, focused lessons reduce cognitive overload and align with how the brain naturally absorbs information. Breaking training into digestible modules improves engagement and long-term recall.
- Gamification & Motivation – Learning is more effective when it triggers dopamine release. Gamification techniques — such as points, badges and leaderboards — enhance motivation and engagement, making learning habitual.
- Data-Led Knowledge Management – Tracking knowledge retention, not just completion and point-in-time accuracy rates, allows businesses to proactively close gaps and develop skills.
This neuroscience-backed approach results in higher retention, faster ramp time, and increased business performance - quantifiable metrics that prove Return on Learning Investment.
We believe training isn’t just about transferring knowledge—it’s about making sure that knowledge can be applied in a way that transforms business outcomes. By combining neuroscience-based learning methodologies with cutting-edge technology, we help businesses build high-performing, engaged, and exceptionally well-trained teams.
Ready to move beyond traditional training and create a learning ecosystem that drives retention, performance, and efficiency? Book a demo today and see how Digemy can transform your training strategy.
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