The skills your team needed six months ago might already be outdated. While organizations race to keep pace with technological change, many corporate training programs are stuck in the past, delivering one-size-fits-all content that misses the mark. The reality? Your competitors who've cracked the code on tailored learning are already pulling ahead.
Most organizations know they need to invest in employee development. What they don't realize is how much they're losing by approaching it the wrong way.
New tools and systems emerge constantly, but finding training that actually matches your specific tech stack and business processes is nearly impossible on the open market. By the time a generic course is updated, the technology has already evolved.
Your development team completes a cloud architecture course, but it covers AWS when you use Azure. Or your team learns React fundamentals when you're already deep into Next.js. They spend weeks figuring out how to apply generic concepts to your actual infrastructure while your projects wait.
Here's what many organizations miss when calculating training costs: a €500 per person online course seems reasonable until you factor in work time. Twenty employees at €500 each is €10,000. Add 16 hours of work time per person at an average cost of €50/hour, and you're at €26,000.
Now consider typical completion and application rates for generic training. Industry research suggests only 20-40% of participants actually apply what they learned from standard online courses. If you're on the higher end at 40%, you've spent €26,000 to effectively train eight people. That's over €3,200 per person who actually benefits.
Without proper measurement frameworks tied to business outcomes, training becomes an act of faith rather than a strategic investment. You see completion certificates, maybe some satisfaction scores, but can you connect the training to actual performance improvements?
The challenge compounds when you can't demonstrate value. Leadership grows skeptical, budgets shrink, and L&D teams find themselves defending their existence rather than driving organizational capability.
Generic training typically shows 40-60% completion rates. People start with good intentions, then drop off when the content doesn't connect to their daily reality. They show up physically (or click "join" on Zoom) but mentally check out when lesson three uses examples from industries they don't work in or solves problems they don't have.
The result isn't just wasted money. It's growing cynicism about learning initiatives, making it harder to engage employees in future training—even when it's actually relevant.
Your senior developer and your junior developer don't need the same training. Your sales team in Stockholm faces different challenges than your team in Berlin. Yet standardized programs ignore these differences.
Junior team members struggle with advanced concepts and give up. Senior team members sit through basic explanations they already know and tune out. Meanwhile, the specific skill gaps that actually matter to your business—the ones affecting your projects right now—remain unaddressed.
Smart organizations are taking a different approach. Instead of forcing their teams into generic molds, they're building training programs around their actual needs.
Tailored programs start with your specific challenges, your tech stack, your processes. When you need training on a new system, you focus solely on the workflows and integrations your team will actually use. No wasted time on features you'll never implement.
When training uses your actual projects as examples, engagement transforms. Employees aren't learning abstract concepts for someday—they're solving today's problems. Completion rates for well-designed tailored training commonly reach 85-95% because participants see immediate value.
Custom programs can be designed with built-in measurement frameworks. You establish baseline skills, define target outcomes tied to business goals, and track progress against metrics that matter. When training focuses on specific, measurable skills, you can actually demonstrate ROI.
Yes, tailored training often has a higher upfront cost. But higher completion rates, better skill retention, and direct application to business challenges typically deliver significantly better return on investment. You're paying more to train people who actually learn and apply new skills, rather than paying less to train people who don't.
You control the schedule, format, and delivery method. Training can be structured to minimize disruption—delivered in shorter sessions during natural downtime, or intensively when it makes sense for your business rhythm. You adapt the program to your operations, not the other way around.
Beyond skills development, tailored training reinforces company values and strengthens organizational culture. When training reflects how your organization actually works and what you value, it becomes part of building team cohesion and shared identity.
Moving to tailored training doesn't require a complete overhaul overnight. Here's a practical roadmap:
Skip the surveys for now. Have actual conversations with employees at all levels and their managers. What challenges are they facing? Where do they feel stuck? What skills would make their jobs easier or more impactful?
These conversations often reveal that the perceived training need isn't the actual one. What looks like a communication problem might be a process issue. What seems like a technical skills gap might be about unclear expectations. Understanding the real challenge is the first step to solving it effectively.
Vague goals produce vague results. Get specific about what you want to achieve. "Improve Python skills" isn't a goal; "Enable developers to implement automated testing for all new features within three months" is.
Clear, measurable goals let you design focused training and demonstrate impact. They also help you avoid scope creep—training that tries to cover everything but changes nothing.
Whether you work with external training partners or build internal expertise, choose people who take time to understand your business. The best training designers ask more questions than they answer initially. They want to understand your context, your challenges, and your goals before proposing solutions.
Be skeptical of anyone who offers a solution before they've invested time understanding your situation.
The most effective training uses your actual work scenarios, not generic case studies. Real code from your repositories. Actual customer scenarios your team handles. Common challenges from your projects.
When participants practice with familiar contexts, learning transfers immediately to their daily work. They're not wondering "how does this apply to my job?"—they're experiencing direct application as they learn.
Build in assessment from the start: baseline skills before training, progress checks during the program, and follow-up evaluation after implementation. But don't stop at test scores.
Gather qualitative feedback on what's working and what needs adjustment. Track whether people are actually applying new skills in their work. Use this insight to continuously refine your approach. The best training programs evolve based on real results, not assumptions.
The gap between what your organization needs and what generic training provides is costing you more than you think. Lost productivity, missed opportunities, and disengaged employees add up quickly.
Here's a thought experiment: calculate what you've spent on training in the last two years. Don't forget to include the employee time—if 30 people spent 20 hours each on training at an average hourly cost of €50, that's another €30,000 on top of your direct training costs. Now survey your team and ask what they've learned that they actively use in their work. If the percentage is low, you know exactly how much of that investment was wasted.
Tailored training isn't a luxury for companies with unlimited budgets. It's a strategic necessity for organizations serious about staying competitive in a rapidly changing landscape.
The question isn't whether you can afford to customize your training approach. It's whether you can afford not to.
At Brights, we specialize in creating learning solutions that match your specific challenges and goals. Whether you're just exploring possibilities or ready to launch a concrete initiative, let's talk about how we can support your team's growth.
Espen Berthelsen
Commercial Director