Create a Feedback Culture through Personalized, Activity-Based Training

The Story in Stats

Feedback Matters

• 45 percent less likely for well-recognized employees to turn over after 2 years (Gallup)
• Nearly half of highly-engaged workers receive feedback at least once a week (Workleap)

Training Takes Time, Requires Practice

• 10 weeks to turn formal training into an unconscious habit through consistent practice (Gardner, Lally, Wardle)

Personalized, Activity-Based Training Is More Effective

• 76 percent higher completion of on-the-job activity training when activities are personalized (Flint Learning Solutions’ data)
• Measurable improvements in Level 1 metrics (learner reactions) when personalizing training initiatives

It’s no secret that frequent, meaningful feedback directly affects engagement and retention. Everyone in HR knows the 70-20-10 model, with 70 percent of learning happening on the job. But for some reason, training budgets typically spend most on formal training, where just 10 percent of the learning happens, even for soft skills like providing feedback, which take time and practice to develop.

The idea that it takes just 21 days to develop a habit is a myth. It’s closer to 10 weeks (more here). That’s why formal training is a launch point for developing behavioral skills like providing effective feedback. Many companies are beginning to focus on training these skills through activities done on the job, where most learning happens. Some even go a step further: personalizing the activities for each learner to see a 76 percent higher completion rate.

Why does behavior change take so long?

In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman (a Nobel-winning psychologist) explains that our brains have two ways of thinking. Our “fast” thinking is our reactionary thought, which happens quickly because it’s been ingrained into habit by long experience. Our “slow” thinking is deliberate and logical thought, where we consciously stop to think and learn. Behavior change requires moving something newly discovered from our slow thinking into our fast thinking. Turning new strategies (slow) into unconscious habits (fast) takes practice over time.

That’s why formal classroom learning is just a starting point, never the full story. Every manager, teacher, and parent knows you can’t say something once and expect behavior to change. Our brains are hard-wired so that we can’t just hear something new and immediately change our behavior. We have to consistently practice what we learn for it to become a habit. On-the-job activities need to follow formal training, allowing new ideas to become new skills and habits with practice.

On-the-Job Activities: Make New Skills into Habits

The goal of learning is not just acquiring information but behavior change. Knowledge needs to inform action. Kahneman gives us more insight into the 70-20-10 model because of how our brains are wired; just 10 percent of learning happens in formal training. Since formal training typically engages only our slow thinking patterns, we need a way to move that crucial knowledge into daily action. That’s the role of activity-based learning.

On-the-job activity training aims to turn the knowledge of slow thinking into the action of our fast thinking. For example, a manager may learn new feedback strategies in formal training, but it will take continued practice over 10 weeks to turn these strategies into habits. The practice is the key, which is what on-the-job activities provide. No need to stop working to learn – learn by doing.

Using AI to Put the Person in Focus

Focusing on activity-based training is a massive step toward driving more effective behavior change. If that’s all you can do, do it.

However, there is another level: using AI tools to personalize the training activities each learner receives.

Here’s a path some companies are now following to deliver personalized training content:

1. Personality tests: each learner takes a personality test that provides the AI models with the basics: role, skills, preferences, learning style, etc.
2. Activity Library: Develop a library of bite-sized, on-the-job training activities. For example, you might have a library of 50 activities focused on feedback and recognition skills. Activities might include taking 10 minutes to create a feedback log, then tracking the frequency of your feedback to each team member, practicing your feedback out loud before delivery, paying attention to tone of voice, etc.
3. Personalize Training Activities: Use AI models to deliver each learner a personalized stream of activities. Each could receive 20 uniquely selected activities from the 50 available, over 10-12 weeks.
4. Continuous Machine Learning: Collect ongoing feedback from learners for each activity, allowing the AI to continuously learn about each person and provide an increasingly tailored stream of training activities. Then, carry that learning to the following initiatives.
5. Measurement & Insights: Use activity engagement & completion metrics, mapping them directly to business-level metrics. For example, do managers who receive personalized training activities have higher team retention rates? Has engagement improved for those doing activities? Use new data to prove the impact of your L&D initiatives.

This personalized methodology has demonstrated a 76 percent higher completion rate for on-the-job training across industries, and substantial improvements in L1 metrics. Personalizing bite-sized training activities helps transform formal training into workplace habits.

The result of these new habits is a gradual but significant cultural shift—building a feedback-rich environment through consistent practice, with bite-sized activities tailored to each learner. Engagement and retention rates improve as feedback and recognition become the norm. Then you can use the training data to measure the impact of your activity-based initiatives on these key business metrics.