The time constraint is not just the problem. It is also the opportunity: Because scarcity is doing what budgets couldn’t. It is forcing better design.
We have had a version of this conversation more times than we can count.
A senior L&D leader. A well-designed programme. A business that genuinely believes in development.
And then: “We support this. We just cannot pull people out for that long.”
The question is always the same. What do we do?
This is not resistance to development. It is a real constraint and it deserves a real answer, not a scaled-back version of what was originally proposed.
"You cannot pull people out of work for days for L&D, so you are forced to design learning the way it should have been designed all along, inside the work, not away from it. Scarcity is producing better outcomes than abundance. And most L&D functions with generous budgets and willing sponsors are not realising this opportunity"
What we have learned through over 20 years of this work is this:
The organisations with the most time and the most budget are not always producing the best learning. The ones forced to design differently often produce the strongest results.
When time disappears, something useful happens. The comfortable options disappear with it.
The question stops being “what shall we deliver?” and starts being “what actually needs to change and how do we make that happen inside the work itself?”
That is the right question.
01 The Assumption
The Model Most L&D Design Is Still Built On
Traditional programmes assume that learning happens in a dedicated window. Two days in a room. A module completed. A workshop attended.
That assumption is increasingly disconnected from how organisations actually operate. It produces a structural problem that no amount of good facilitation can solve: the learning and the work are kept separate.
The well-designed workshop produces insight in the room. The world outside quietly reclaims it.
02 The Principle
Where Development Actually Happens
In over 2 decades of designing and delivering capability development, one pattern has become clear: the most durable learning happens through experience, supported by relationships with people who help the learner make sense of what they are going through.
And it is the principle the Simitri learning journey is built on:
70%
EXPERIENCE
On-the-job challenges, real decisions, real consequences.
20%
OTHERS
Coaching, mentoring, peer challenge and feedback.
10%
FORMAL
Workshops, programmes, structured learning events.
There are still organisations that invest the vast majority of their L&D budget in the 10%. The 70% is left to chance. The 20% remains accessible mainly to senior leaders through coaching and mentoring
This is not a criticism of workshops and programmes, they are essential. Formal learning creates the foundation: the frameworks, the concepts, the shared language. But a foundation without what comes after it is just a room with no building on top.
03 The Design
What a Well-Designed Learning Journey Looks Like in Practice
An extended learning journey, typically 8 to 12 months, distributes development across time through formal and experiential touchpoints that fit inside the work rather than competing with it.
Programme overview
Before The Journey Begins
Pre-programmeManager conversation is not about logistics, but about the person. Growth goals, performance expectations, and what success should look like 12 months later.
Before the programme begins, the manager becomes part of the development process itself.
Senior leadership message is a specific signal connecting the programme to where the business is going, not a corporate briefing.
Pre-work assignments. Participant thinking is framed before the first session. By the time the journey begins, the room can do what only the room can do.
Burst Learning Sessions
4–6 hours eachFocused facilitated sessions distributed across the programme. Each connected directly to a programme topic and designed to minimise time away from the business. Not a compressed version of a longer programme. It is a different design philosophy.
Research consistently shows that people forget approximately 70% of what they learn within 24 hours of a single training event without reinforcement.
Manager Follow-up & Embed
15 min conversationThe regular catch-up that already exists - given a deliberate purpose. Four questions: what were the key learnings, what are the next steps, where does the participant need help, what opportunities must the manager create for application?
Cohort Action Project
Real challengeA real business challenge worked on by the cohort together not a simulation, not a case study. The cohort structure matters because people develop differently when they navigate real pressure, disagreement, responsibility, and progress together over time.
No workshop produces that in isolation.
The project culminates in participants presenting findings to senior leaders - making the learning visible as performance, and giving participants the experience of standing in front of leadership with something worth saying.
Business Mentoring & Coaching
Group or 1:1Group sessions or 1:1s with internal mentors and external coaches. These conversations do not cover content, they cover application. What did the participant try? What happened? Where are they stuck?
The mentor brings something neither a facilitator nor a coach can replicate: they have navigated the same organisation and can show not just tell what the capabilities being developed look like at a more senior level.
The participants who develop most profoundly through these journeys are not those who attend every session or complete every assignment. They are those who develop a genuine relationship with someone who helps them see themselves more clearly. We have watched this happen across cultures and industries and seniority levels. It is the most consistent finding we have.
Senior Leadership as a Resource
Not a presentationA senior executive joins the cohort not to present, but to share. How the topics show up in their real experience. What they got wrong before they got it right. What they wish they had understood earlier.
These sessions demonstrate visible commitment from the organisation's leadership and begin to close the distance between where participants are and where they are heading.
Mobile & Micro-Learning
Spaced repetitionShort, focused nudges that keep programme topics alive in the weeks between formal touchpoints. A reflection prompt. A real scenario. A question to bring to the next manager conversation.
This is the spaced repetition mechanism that prevents the forgetting curve from winning. The learning travels with the participant into their week, arriving when they need it, not when the timetable says they should.
04 The Outcome
What Changes
When It Works
The shift that emerges most consistently is not primarily about skills. It is about identity:
THE MANAGER
Stops seeing themselves as someone who gets things done. Starts seeing themselves as someone who develops others, who creates conditions for a team to find its own direction.
THE INDIVIDUAL
Finds their voice not because a workshop told them to, but because coaching, a real project, and a mentor helped them understand what was in the way and what to do about it.
THE COHORT
Builds a shared language, a shared experience, and the beginning of a culture they have shaped themselves. Those relationships outlast the programme and support stronger and support stronger decision long after.
These outcomes cannot be compressed without being lost. But they can be built inside the time constraints that real organisations face when the design starts with the work rather than away from it.
Research consistently shows returns of £3 to £11 for every £1 invested in leadership development. Highly reinforced, well-sustained programmes, the ones designed for behaviour change rather than delivery, deliver ROI above 300%. HiBob’s 2026 analysis found that every £1 spent on leadership training generates up to £4.15 in return.
These are not projections. They are documented outcomes from organisations that chose to treat development as a strategic investment rather than a line-item expense.
The difference is not budget. It is design.
Designing development around the flow of work rather than away from it is five times more effective than adding more skills content
"The question is not whether your organisation has time to develop its people. It is whether your current design is built for the time your organisation actually has or for an idealised version of it that no longer exists."
Simitri Group International has been designing learning journeys across Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East for over twenty years.
Take the Next Step
Continue the Conversation
If these ideas resonate with the challenges your organisation is facing, these resources can help you take the next step:
Capability Transfer Diagnostic
A practical diagnostic tool to identify where learning is breaking down between training and real-world application. Helps uncover the barriers preventing capability transfer inside the flow of work.
Download the Capability Transfer DiagnosticThe Capability Prioritisation Toolkit
A structured framework for identifying which capabilities matter most to business performance, so development efforts focus on what will create the greatest impact.
Download The Capability Prioritisation ToolkitThe Learning Transfer Readiness Guide
A guide for assessing whether your organisation's learning environment is actually set up to support behaviour change, reinforcement, and sustained application.
Download The Learning Transfer Readiness Guide
