I came accross this poll the other day http://www.imparta.com/index.php/en/ the conclusion so far being that 51% of L&D professionals believe that 'Making Training Stick' is the most pressing issue they face.
Not surprising really! I think that most/all sane HR & L&D professionals realise that 'knowledge fade' is a fact of life and that all employees forget a significant amount of what they are trained and do so very quickly following a training intervention. It is no slur on the competence of the trainer, or the media used to transfer the knowledge; it's just down to how the brain works.
The article below is a summary of Professor of Psychology at Kent State University, USA, John Dunlosky's 2013 paper on effcetive learning strategies and looks at knowledge retention strategies and what works and what doesnt. The conclusion being that repetiton is the key and many of the 'traditional old chustnuts' don't work.
Concluding that repetiton of the training is the practical solution would be wrong; this would bore the pants off the workforce and take up far too much time! The answer apparently lies in finding a way to repeat the essence of the learning in a format that employees find engaging and fun. We all know that if employees enjoy learning then the learning is more effective.
Elephants don't forget has a unique low cost app that assesses individual employee knowledge and then intelligently repeats the content that employees have proven they have not retained (forgotten) and does so in a fun and addictive format, that takes no more than 3 minutes a day.