Book a consultation
Menu

Sections

  1. 01HR Policy & Compliance
  2. 02Workplace Investigations
  3. 03Health & Safety
  4. 04Hiring & Talent
  5. 05Training & Development
  6. 06Fractional HR

More

Book a consultation

Section 05

Training & Development

How to develop and keep good people once they’re on the team, including what actually builds skills and managers, why the annual workshop rarely sticks, and the questions employers ask.

Jurisdiction
Ontario
For
SMB owners & managers
Knowledge base
13 sourced notes
Updated
June 2026

What actually develops people and keeps them is mostly everyday management, not a training budget. It means clear expectations, honest feedback, real coaching, and a manager worth working for. A small employer can do all of that without an L&D department. The one-off workshop most companies reach for is the part that sticks least.

The evidence is clearer than the marketing around it. Specific, challenging goals beat “do your best.” Feedback helps when it is about the work, and can backfire when it is about the person. Teams learn fastest when it is safe to admit a mistake. What doesn’t hold up is most of the scare-stat marketing. The viral “94% of employees would stay if you invested in their development” line is uncited vendor survey data, the “70-20-10” split is a practitioner rule of thumb, not a measured ratio, and we use neither.

This page covers developing people once they’re on the team. That means building skills, growing managers, and making performance a continuous conversation instead of an annual form. Three related kinds of training live elsewhere. Getting a new hire up to speed is on our Hiring & Talent page. Mandatory health-and-safety training is on Workplace Health & Safety, and harassment-policy training is on HR Policy & Compliance. Everything below is sourced, with each point linking down to the note behind it and each figure labelled for how strong the evidence really is.

The evidence

What actually develops people

Peer-reviewed findings on what builds skill and performance, and on the parts of “training and development” that hold up as distinct from the marketing around them.

  1. Verified

    Clarity beats “do your best”

    Specific, challenging goals reliably produce higher performance than vague “do your best” instructions, one of the most replicated findings in organizational psychology. The effect shrinks on complex, novel work, where a learning goal like “find three ways to cut the defect rate” beats a rigid target.

    Locke & Latham (2002) American Psychologist — a 35-year research review

    Goal-setting theory ›

  2. Verified

    More feedback isn’t automatically better

    In the classic meta-analysis of feedback, performance rose on average. But in over a third of cases feedback made performance worse. The difference was not whether the feedback was positive or negative. It was whether it kept attention on the task or pushed it onto the person. So more feedback is not automatically better; what matters is keeping it on the work, not the person.

    Kluger & DeNisi (1996) Psychological Bulletin — meta-analysis, 607 effect sizes

    When feedback backfires ›

  3. Verified

    What lets a team learn

    Teams improve fastest when people feel safe to admit a mistake, ask a question, or challenge an idea, a climate researchers call psychological safety. It is not about being nice or lowering the bar. The teams that actually learn pair that safety with high standards. In a small firm the climate is set almost entirely by how the owner reacts to bad news.

    Edmondson (1999) Administrative Science Quarterly

    What psychological safety is ›

These are research findings with real variability, not guarantees. Effect sizes are estimates, and most of this literature is correlational or lab-based. General information, not legal advice.

In practice

How effective development actually works

This is the method that turns the evidence into a habit, and none of it is a legal citation. It is what developing people looks like when it runs as a continuous management practice rather than an annual event. Below are five moves, and where each one tends to go wrong. The cheapest, best-evidenced levers are clarity, feedback, coaching, and the right stretch, all of them everyday management rather than a training budget.

  1. Start from the skills the business needs

    Begin with the gap that matters, not with a catalogue of courses. The gap is the skills the business needs and the growth the person wants. Name what “good” looks like and what they’re working toward. Specific, challenging goals are the cheapest motivational lever there is. This is the Clarity work.

    Setting expectations that land ›

    Where it goes wrong Training chosen because it was on offer, not because it closes a gap that matters. A workshop with no goal behind it is a line of cost, not development, and “do your best” wastes the lever entirely.

  2. Develop in the flow of work, not just in courses

    Most development happens on the job through a stretch assignment, broader scope, or cross-functional exposure. That is cheap for a small employer. The better-evidenced part is that challenging experience develops people, but only up to a point, and only with support and feedback alongside it.

    Stretch assignments & the 70-20-10 myth ›

    Where it goes wrong The one-and-done workshop treated as the development. The opposite trap is a stretch dropped on someone with no support, which burns them out instead of growing them. A third mistake is treating “70-20-10” as though it were measured. It is a rule of thumb, not a measured ratio, and it is never a reason to cut training on the grounds that only 10% of development happens there.

  3. Coach and give feedback as you go

    The everyday engine is a manager who coaches by asking, not only telling, and who gives regular, task-focused feedback. This is the work the firm calls the Coaching C, and its cheapest, best-evidenced form is a recurring one-on-one where the report does most of the talking.

    What makes feedback effective ›

    Where it goes wrong The annual review as the only feedback anyone gets, and feedback aimed at the person rather than the work, which the research shows can make performance worse rather than better, however well-meant.

  4. Develop your managers, because they’re the multiplier

    A team mostly rises or falls on its manager, so the highest-leverage development you can do is developing your managers. Coaching is a learnable skill, not a personality trait. Small studies show that a short mindset-and-skills workshop plus follow-up can shift how managers coach, and managers who believe people can grow are the ones who tend to coach at all.

    Training managers to coach ›

    Where it goes wrong Promoting your best individual contributor into management and assuming they’ll work it out. A great salesperson is not automatically a great sales manager, and new habits take months, not days, to embed.

  5. Make development continuous

    Development is a practice, not an event. Review progress against the goals, drop what isn’t working, and keep the growth conversation alive. People who can’t see a way to grow tend to leave to find one, often for a lateral move you could have offered first.

    Development, commitment & retention ›

    Where it goes wrong No follow-through after the workshop, and no visible development path, so people plateau and then quit to grow elsewhere. The check-in that keeps slipping to “when things calm down” is usually the one that mattered.

How to structure a coaching conversation that helps ›

Verified

The cheapest development tool

A specific, challenging goal reliably beats telling someone to “do their best,” and it is one of the most replicated findings in the field. The cheapest development you can do is making sure people actually know what good looks like, which costs nothing but a clear conversation.

Locke & Latham (2002) American Psychologist

Goal-setting theory ›
Article Solving the Leadership Puzzle – Is there a Perfect Answer? Manager development Turning your best doers into good managers? Book a consultation
Development isn’t a workshop you send people to once a year. It’s the everyday work of a manager who’s clear about what good looks like, honest when it isn’t, and willing to stretch someone before they feel quite ready. Most of it costs nothing but attention.
Frank Newman

Creative leadership

On leading and developing people

Straight answers

Development questions, answered

Is training actually worth the money?

Employees who perceive their employer invests in their development report more commitment and less intent to quit. Read that honestly, because it is a correlation and not a promise. And the famous “94% would stay if you invested in them” figure is uncited vendor survey data, not fact. The driver is perception, not budget. A manager who coaches, hands out stretch work, and talks openly about growth generates that perception for almost nothing, which is exactly the lever a small firm has.

Does developing people improve retention? ›

Why doesn’t the training we pay for seem to stick?

Because a one-off event isn’t how skills transfer. Behaviour change takes months and needs follow-up, practice, and feedback in the actual job, so the workshop is the start, not the development. Most learning happens in the flow of work through stretch and coaching supported by feedback, which is why the course with no follow-through fades. The precise “forgetting curve” percentages and the “70-20-10” ratio were never measured, so be wary of anyone quoting them as though they had been.

Why coaching and follow-up beat one-off training ›

How do we develop our managers?

Treat coaching as a skill you can build, because the evidence says you can. In small studies, a short mindset-and-skills workshop plus follow-up shifted how managers coach. One of the strongest predictors of whether a manager coaches at all is whether they believe people can change. The mistake to avoid is promoting your strongest individual contributor into management on the assumption that the skill comes with the title, because it doesn’t, and the cost of getting it wrong lands on their whole team.

Training managers to coach ›

How should performance management actually work?

As a continuous practice, not an annual form. After a century of research there’s surprisingly little evidence that any particular review system, whether the annual appraisal, numeric ratings or forced ranking, improves how well people do their jobs. What is evidenced is narrower and cheaper: clear expectations, specific goals, and frequent, honest, task-focused feedback. So invest in those, be sceptical of vendors selling a best-practice system, and keep a fair, documented record, which separately has real legal value in Ontario if a dismissal is ever challenged.

Do reviews and ratings improve performance? ›

Does developing people actually keep them?

Somewhat, and honestly. Lack of growth is a genuine but moderate driver of voluntary quitting, and visible development and growth conversations reduce that risk. But development alone won’t retain someone whose pay or manager relationship is the real problem. Those causes operate at the same time. For a small firm with no formal ladder, the realistic lever is often a lateral growth conversation about new scope or a new skill, rather than a promotion you can’t offer.

Does lack of growth drive quitting? ›

Should we build development in-house or bring in outside help?

Build internal capability as the default. The evidence favours it. Internally delivered coaching performs at least as well as external coaching, and session count isn’t the lever. A short manager workshop with follow-up is the cheapest, best-evidenced move there is. Bring in outside help where it genuinely adds something you don’t have, such as senior-leadership or executive development, a specific skill your managers can’t yet teach, or a neutral outside perspective for sensitive work. The two aren’t exclusive: most small firms are best served building the everyday habit in-house and bringing in help for the few things that need it.

Does workplace coaching work? ›

The knowledge base

Go deeper in the knowledge base

  1. What is goal-setting theory, and why do specific, challenging goals beat vague do-your-best ones?

    Read the note ›

  2. Does feedback actually improve performance — or can it backfire?

    Read the note ›

  3. Does investing in people's development actually improve retention, commitment, and performance?

    Read the note ›

  4. Does training managers to coach (and adopting a coaching culture) change behaviour and outcomes?

    Read the note ›

  5. Do performance reviews and ratings actually improve performance?

    Read the note ›

  6. Does workplace coaching actually work — what do the meta-analyses show?

    Read the note ›

Leadership & management development

Want to develop your people without building an L&D department?

Most small companies don’t need a training department; they need clear goals, honest feedback, and managers who coach to become the everyday habit. If your good people are plateauing, your new managers are sinking, or development keeps slipping to “when things calm down,” that’s worth a conversation. We help you build the practice, and we tell you honestly what you can do yourself.

Book a consultation Or call 519-362-8352