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The Benefits of Cross-Training in Your Career
Why Most Professional Development Training is Broken (And the Three Things That Actually Work)
Right, let me tell you something that's going to upset half the training industry. The majority of workplace training programs are total waste of money. There , I said it.
After 17 years of running professional development workshops from Melbourne to Brisbane, and I think about three quarters of corporate training programs these days are nothing more than costly compliance theatre that make HR departments feel good about their budgets.
Last month I walked into a Fortune 500 company in North Sydney. Beautiful harbour views, fancy coffee machine, the works. They'd just spent $180,000 on a leadership program that involved trust falls and personality tests. Trust exercises! In this day and age! I asked the participants what they'd learned that they could use on Monday morning. Blank stares all around.
Here's the awkward truth: most training fails because it treats adults like university students instead of adults juggling multiple priorities. We herd them into meeting spaces, show them presentations full of corporate buzzwords (whatever the hell that means), and expect magic to happen.
But here's the thing that really gets me wound up. The training industry has convinced everyone that professional growth comes from formal sessions. Completely backwards. Genuine skill development happens on the job. It happens when the experienced team member walks someone through the client database. It happens when a manager debriefs a challenging situation with their team member.
I learned this the hard way about eight years ago. Was running these elaborate two-day leadership programs. Lots of team challenges, case study work, action plans that participants would write on poster boards and display around the room. Felt very significant. Very complete.
Then I started following up after half a year. Know what I found? Nobody was doing anything differently. The flipchart paper was probably in some storage cupboard gathering dust.
That's when I realised we'd been approaching this whole thing backwards.
Look, I'm not saying all training is bad. Companies like Atlassian and Canva have shown that when you get professional development right, it changes entire cultures. But they're not doing trust falls. They're doing something completely different.
The first thing that actually works? Short, focused training sessions addressing real workplace issues. No more than half an hour. One specific skill. Applied that day. I've seen teams master sophisticated project management software this way when traditional full-day courses failed completely.
The other method: internal knowledge sharing programs. Not mentoring (that's too formal and often doesn't work). I'm talking about structured ways for experienced people to share what they know with workmates who need those exact skills. Works great when you get rid of the management overhead and just let people teach each other.
Third: what I call "workplace learning circles." Teams working through actual business problems over time. No external consultant running sessions. No predetermined results. Just experienced professionals solving real issues and capturing insights.
Here's the interesting part. The resistance to this approach usually comes from the people running professional development. They've invested so much in established learning systems that admitting it doesn't work feels like career destruction. I get it. Change is scary when your job depends on the old way of doing things.
Let me share something else that's awkward. A portion of workers honestly enjoy traditional classroom settings rather than driving their professional growth. It's more comfortable. Less demanding. You can browse social media, take notes that go nowhere, and still claim youre "investing in your career."
Organisations that succeed recognise that learning isn't a one-off activity. It's an ongoing process. It's woven through everyday activities, not something that happens outside of regular responsibilities.
Take Westpac's approach to upskilling their branch managers. Instead of training courses about customer experience, they paired experienced managers with newer ones for real customer interactions. Skill building took place in real situations, with immediate feedback and correction. Service quality metrics improved 25% over the quarter.
I can hear what you're saying. "But what about compliance training? What about mandatory OH&S sessions?" Good question. Some training has to happen regardless of whether people find it engaging. But even then, you can make it relevant and practical instead of boring presentation marathons.
The real problem with most professional development is that it treats symptoms instead of causes. Staff morale is down? Book them into an inspiration seminar! Conflicts between teams? Interpersonal skills workshops for all staff! But if your management systems are completely broken, no amount of training will fix it.
I've seen this play out dozens of times. Company spends huge money on change management training because their latest restructure isn't going well. But the real issue is that they communicated the restructure poorly, excluded important stakeholders from decision-making, and created anxiety about future roles. Learning programs can't solve leadership failures.
Let me share an awkward truth: certain individuals are fine where they are. Plenty of employees are satisfied performing their present responsibilities effectively and have zero desire for extra duties or capabilities. The whole "everyone must be continuously learning" mentality creates unwarranted anxiety and wastes resources that could be better used on people who actually want to grow.
The best professional development programs I've seen start with honest conversations about what people actually want to achieve. Not what the organisation assumes they need. What they personally want. Then they create routes to support those goals, using a mix of structured training, hands-on experience, and colleague assistance.
But putting this into practice requires managers who can have those honest conversations. And most managers haven't been taught how to do that. So you end up needing to develop the managers before they can effectively support everyone else's development. It's complex and messy and doesn't fit neatly into quarterly training calendars.
Assessment issues compound the difficulties. We measure training satisfaction scores and completion rates because they're simple to record. But none reveal actual skill development. Authentic evaluation needs extended observation, and requires monitoring real job performance improvements.
Companies that take professional development seriously invest in long-term tracking systems. They measure whether people are applying new skills, whether team dynamics improve, whether company performance transforms. It's harder work but it separates the programs that create real value from the ones that just consume budget.
How do we move forward? If you're responsible for professional development in your organisation, start by examining your current approaches. Not the feedback ratings. The real results. Are people applying new skills from their development programs? Are company performance enhancing? Be completely frank about what's working and what isn't.
Then begin modestly. Pick a single domain requiring particular capabilities and design a program that lets them practice those skills in real work situations with support and feedback. Measure the results properly. Expand gradually.
The future of professional development isn't in conference centres and corporate training facilities. It's in building environments where development occurs organically, constantly, and meaningfully. But that requires reconsidering almost all our existing approaches.
That's likely why companies will continue investing in expensive training programs.
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