13 Best Practices in Training & Development

Your team ships a course, and within weeks the process changes.

You chase completion rates, but you still can’t answer the only question that matters: did behavior change?

I see this every week with L&D teams working under tight timelines, shrinking budgets, and a constant backlog.

Outdated content erodes trust, and measuring impact feels guessy.

This guide turns best practices into practical systems you can run tomorrow. I’ll show you how to prioritize needs, design engaging learning, keep content current, and prove ROI.

In 2018, it was estimated that 85% of the jobs in 2030 didn't exist yet.

A pandemic and a global AI revolution later, it's safe to assume the shift in the workforce has already accelerated. The need for new skills to use new software is only increasing.

So, what's a success-driven L&D manager got to do to adapt to all these breakneck changes?

The answer is simple. Stay ahead with the latest best practices to keep pace with these technological advancements.

Read on to find out how. 👇

Planning your training strategy

1. Get clear on your employees' training needs

Accurately identify your training needs to create spot-on content that fills knowledge gaps efficiently.

But here's what I've learned: organizations struggle to efficiently gather this data at scale.

Start with these concrete needs analysis techniques: conduct skills gap surveys that compare current abilities to required competencies, review performance data to identify patterns in knowledge gaps, and run structured manager interviews to understand team-specific challenges.

I've found quick video surveys from team leads can surface needs faster than lengthy written assessments—plus, they're more likely to actually complete them.

2. Align learning topics with training objectives

Teach only the skills that drive the result you need.

Make 100% certain that your training content will work to get learners closer to their desired learning outcome.

This focus saves you from overinflating course content with "nice to know" info that doesn't bring as much value and overwhelms learners.

You'll want to remember the goal when planning the training content and practice activities. Start with two basic questions:

1. What's our goal here?
2. What do people need to know or be able to do in order to accomplish this?

Designing engaging training content

3. Create experiential training content

The retention rate for experiential knowledge is 75% 🤯.

I've found that engaging learners through interactive experiences transforms passive learning into active skill development.

Research shows that supervisory support is cited by 12% of trainers as the most critical factor for training transfer—and experiential learning naturally builds this support structure.

Mohsin Memon, a gamification expert who created the popular training game Superhero Within (used by HSBC, Dell, and Uber), recommends using a game design principle called scaffolding.

It involves designing training to engage the learner at every step, following these 2 rules:

1. Only give the user the necessary information to immediately take the first actionable step.
2. Get them to seek the information that will take them to the next step.

4. Facilitate personalized learning paths

Personalized learning paths give learners ownership of their development journey.

L&D professionals think personalized learning is so important that 77% say it's vital for engagement, while 91% feel it improves the link between training and actual performance.

Give it a go the next time you are creating an employee training program.

5. Focus on soft skills training

Soft skills determine 85% of someone's career success.

Communication, leadership, teamwork, adaptability, and conflict resolution can make or break any training program.

Employees with advanced soft skills will better fit the work environment, collaborate and communicate, and drive results with minimal conflicts.

For communication training, I use video role-plays where learners watch scenarios and identify what went wrong before seeing the effective approach. This builds pattern recognition faster than lectures.

For leadership development, create simulations where employees practice giving feedback in low-stakes environments.

For conflict resolution, use branching scenarios that show the consequences of different approaches—letting learners experience the impact of their choices safely.

6. Address diversity, equality & inclusion (DEI)

Actively create an inclusive working environment, and you'll shape your organization to be welcoming and make all hires feel valued and respected.

A pretty important outcome when you consider that 67% of job seekers feel that workplace diversity is important to them.

Make DEI training relevant to daily work by using real scenarios from your organization. Generic DEI content feels like checkbox compliance; specific examples drive behavior change.

Focus on two key actions:

1. Offer learning materials in multiple formats to accommodate different learning preferences and accessibility needs.
2. Establish Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) that bring together employees with shared characteristics or experiences, creating safe spaces for learning and growth.

Delivering effective training

7. Implement blended learning

Hybrid courses have a 91% completion rate among students, compared to only 87% for traditional courses.

On top of that, 48% of students think interactive polls and quizzes are the most useful online tools.

But here's the challenge I see teams face: balancing face-to-face training with digital scalability.

Instead of listing every possible format, use this decision framework:

• For compliance training that needs quarterly updates, I recommend short video modules (3-5 minutes) that can be quickly refreshed, paired with monthly live Q&A sessions.
• For skills development, combine self-paced video tutorials with hands-on practice sessions. And rather than creating separate courses, embed videos directly into your existing systems where employees already work.

Follow this guide on microlearning video creation in 5 minutes to get started.

8. Build systems for continuous content updates

One of the biggest challenges I see is keeping training current. When processes change, outdated training becomes worse than no training.

Organizations spend countless hours recreating content from scratch when a simple update would suffice.

9. Offer mentorship and coaching

American journalist and novelist John Crosby once said "Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction."

You can help your employees feel more confident and capable when you provide mentorship and coaching.

Over time, this strategy can create a knowledge-sharing culture that results in excellent skill growth. I like to combine formal mentorship, coaching programs, and peer coaching circles when I can.

Don't forget to include executive coaching for leadership development in this strategy.

As best practices, pair experienced professionals with less-experienced employees for different activities, and use mentorship-matching software to guide your actions.

10. Always facilitate a learning culture

Continuous learning opportunities lead to happy employees who stay longer at your company and perform better.

I've found that just by encouraging employee training and a strong learning culture, I can get retention rates to rise 30-50%.

Develop an ongoing plan for L&D development that includes:

• A detailed continuous assessment plan for your employees' learning needs.
• A robust onboarding process that clearly puts the learning culture at the center of your company values.
• A mix of mentorship and coaching-oriented training methods and self-directed learning.
• Clear processes to recognize, promote, and reward learning achievements.

Evaluating and iterating your training

11. Provide good feedback

When your training program lacks personalized feedback, most learners will tune out and lose interest.

Give employees good feedback, and you'll have a more effective training and learning process, happier and more loyal employees, and a lower employee turnover rate.

In practice, this means building low-stakes practice scenarios into training where failure teaches.

For customer service training, I create branching video scenarios where learners choose responses and see consequences immediately.

I've found that face-to-face feedback within 24 hours of practice is most effective—so schedule debrief sessions accordingly.

I've found that training sessions paired with good feedback allow employees to make the mistakes in the right place, rather than making them on the job.

12. Help your audience learn with spaced repetition

Dr. Kuva Jacobs recommends that managers enhance memory recall and long-term knowledge retention through activities that favor spaced repetition after completing the training process.

Research backs her up, proving that spaced repetition—repetition at longer intervals—gives 67% better results than mass repetition—heavy repetition within a short time.

But it's most effective when combined with competency-based mastery criteria, ensuring learners don't just repeat content but demonstrate progressive skill improvement.

Create a plan for revising content after the training, incorporating flashcards, quizzes, little games, case studies analysis, and group discussion.

Choose what's easier to create, ensuring you bring in slightly different content from the initial training.

That way, you avoid making it dull and build on what you've taught with complementary training materials.

13. Measure training success beyond interviews

"Interview" is a fancy way of saying you should directly talk to your learners.

By accurately gauging the impact of your training initiatives, you can easily refine your training and optimize learning experiences. Most teams I work with track completion rates yet struggle to connect training to business outcomes.

Start by defining 2-3 specific behaviors or metrics that should change post-training.

Track quantitative metrics like completion rates, time-to-proficiency, and performance improvements alongside qualitative feedback.

Scaling with technology

14. Maximize how effective your training is by scaling with technology

The biggest efficiency gain I've seen comes from enabling subject matter experts to create content directly.

When your product team can record a screen share, add it to a template, and have a training video in 30 minutes, you remove the bottleneck of waiting for instructional designers.

Training managers can speed up video production with AI tools and scale content faster than ever using text-to-video technology.

For global teams, translation costs can kill a budget. I've worked with teams spending $3,000+ per module for translations.

One-click translation tools can reduce this to near-zero while maintaining consistency across all your materials.

Take your training and development program to the next level

Best practices are only best used when you put them into practice.

The key is starting with the challenges that matter most to your organization—whether that's keeping content current, proving ROI, or scaling globally. Pick one area, implement these strategies, and build from there.

Want to make the most of the technology you have at hand and create training and development programs that help your organization progress? Learn how you can incorporate AI video into your L&D program.