Insights for HR and Training Managers

Training is about transferring knowledge. Building capabilities is about turning that knowledge into real, usable capacity. Most organisations invest heavily in one-off training, but far less in continuous development—and that is where the maturity gap between teams becomes clear.

Traditional training provides theoretical understanding. But when an incident, an audit or a regulatory change happens, what sets a prepared team apart is the ability to apply what it learned. That requires practice, follow-up and exposure to day-to-day scenarios.

For this reason, Behaviour courses are practice-oriented and designed for immediate application of the knowledge being acquired. This approach aligns with the perspective of José Pacheco, a Portuguese educator recognised for advocating transformative learning: “Knowledge that does not transform reality does not produce development.”

In professional training, this means the value is not in the theory delivered, but in the participant’s ability to use what they learn to improve processes, decisions and results in their working context.

Building capabilities implies creating a year-round pathway across layers: essential and foundational → professional → specialist → excellence and leadership. It also means choosing training aligned with roles and responsibilities, instead of distributing generic courses for everyone.

Teams that build capabilities become more autonomous, respond better to audits, make better decisions and reduce external dependency. For HR, this approach avoids unnecessary repetition and accelerates internal maturity.

Training is the first step. Building capabilities is what truly transforms.

Adult learning does not depend on exposure to content, but on how knowledge is integrated into the real work context. Experienced professionals know that retention is not in the training itself, but in the relationship between what is learned and what is done. This principle—widely recognised in education sciences and reflected in Behaviour’s training guiding principles—is central to any effective pathway.

Retention increases when there is intentionality: the participant knows why they are there, what problem they want to solve and how new knowledge connects with the processes and responsibilities they already hold. Without that link, any training—short or long—becomes information without impact.

Another key factor is activation during learning. Adults retain more when they analyse, discuss, apply and decide. That is why purely lecture-based approaches have limited impact. What truly consolidates knowledge is confronting the trainee with credible situations: case analysis, decision-making exercises, audit simulations or identification of real risks—aligned with lifelong learning principles.

However, the strongest determinant of retention is not the training moment itself, but what happens in the following 72 hours. Small reinforcements, practical application or structured reviews significantly reduce the forgetting curve and increase transfer to the workplace.

Retention does not result from the amount of training, but from relevance, participation and application. Consistent pathways have impact not because they teach more, but because they enable better use of what is learned, at the right time and in the right context.

Intensive training can be useful in very specific contexts: when the goal is to quickly build a high-level view, align essential concepts, or prepare teams for a certification with fixed dates. However, it does not replace continuous learning processes, nor does it guarantee, on its own, effective transfer to the workplace.

Teams learn better when there is time for absorption, practice, reflection and application. Therefore, before enrolling employees in intensive formats, it is essential to clarify the purpose: is the aim rapid literacy or operational capability? The former fits an intensive format; the latter requires a more progressive pathway.

Another relevant point is ensuring participants arrive with adequate foundations. One limitation of intensive courses is the high volume of information over a short period. Without prior framing, retention may decrease and the training impact is reduced.

It is also important to set realistic expectations: intensive training can prepare someone to understand the main concepts, but execution capability is built through practice, follow-up and reinforcement over time.

When there is clarity about the goal, the context and team needs, intensive training can be integrated appropriately within a broader professional development pathway.

The impact of training does not end on the last day of the course. In many cases, it is precisely after the training that the most important part begins: understanding whether the knowledge acquired is being used in the real work context.

In Best Practice areas, this connection is essential. Information security, privacy, business continuity, compliance, auditing, quality, artificial intelligence and operational resilience are not topics that exist only during the training moment. They need to be applied in decisions, processes, controls, evidence and behaviours.

For this reason, for Human Resources and training managers, the question should not only be whether the training went well, whether participants enjoyed it or whether they received a certificate. The main question is: what has changed in the person’s or team’s ability to act better?

The transfer of learning to the workplace depends on several factors: the relevance of the content, management involvement, the opportunity to apply knowledge, the existence of clear processes and time to consolidate new practices. When these elements are not in place, training may be well evaluated but have limited operational impact.

A simple way to reinforce application is to involve the line manager before and after the training. Before, to clarify expectations. Afterwards, to identify where the knowledge can be applied, which tasks can be improved and which responsibilities can be taken on with greater autonomy.

It is also useful to define small application indicators. They do not need to be complex. They may include checking whether the person took part in a process review, applied a checklist, prepared evidence, supported an audit, contributed to an action plan or helped improve an internal practice.

To make this follow-up more effective, HR teams can ask a few simple questions after the training:

• What knowledge acquired can already be applied in the workplace?
• Which task, process or responsibility could benefit from this training?
• Does the line manager know how to make use of the new competence?
• Is there a real opportunity for the participant to practise what they have learned?
• What simple evidence can demonstrate the application of learning?

These questions help bring training closer to operations. They also allow HR teams to move beyond assessing only participation and satisfaction, and start observing concrete signs of competence development.

Training creates value when it does not remain only in the certificate. It creates value when it improves decisions, strengthens autonomy, increases consistency and helps the organisation better apply what it needs to comply with, demonstrate and improve.

Implementing DORA may feel heavy, but it does not need to create anxiety within teams. The key is to align training with real priorities—not with long checklists of requirements. The first step is to identify critical roles: risk, business continuity, IT operations, cybersecurity and third-party/supplier management. Training “everyone at once” is not effective; training the people who execute is.

Then, it is essential to separate strategic training from technical training. Strategy comes first: the regulatory context, responsibilities, reporting flows and impact awareness. Only then does it make sense to go deeper into technical topics such as metrics, testing, scenarios and audits.

The third key point is pace. Teams absorb better when training is distributed across quarters instead of being concentrated into a single month. Small reinforcements produce better outcomes than overly long courses. Behaviour courses are short and intensive, from 1 to 5 days, enabling teams to progress in stages without interrupting operations and to consolidate knowledge progressively.

Preparing for DORA is about aligning clarity with focus. It is not about the quantity of training, but the right training for the right roles, at the right pace—ensuring teams are confident, informed and prepared to meet the regulation’s demands.

For many Human Resources teams and training managers, requests related to DORA, NIS 2, privacy, artificial intelligence, business continuity, cybersecurity or compliance may appear to be separate topics. They usually come from different areas, with different levels of urgency and highly technical language.

However, within the organisation, these topics are increasingly connected. A regulatory requirement may require training in risk management. An audit may reveal the need to improve evidence. An incident may expose a weakness in business continuity. A new artificial intelligence system may involve security, privacy, governance, suppliers and internal responsibilities.

For this reason, looking at each topic as an isolated training course may create dispersion. The organisation trains people at different times, with different messages, without ensuring that there is a common language between technical teams, support areas, decision-makers and operational roles.

The logic of Best Practices helps precisely to organise this complexity. Instead of treating each request as a separate topic, it makes it possible to understand that many of these subjects share common elements: clear responsibilities, risk assessment, controls, documentation, evidence, auditing, incident response, supplier management, continual improvement and decision-making capability.

For HR teams, this is important because it enables better planning. A team may first need fundamentals in information security before moving on to more specific topics. A compliance officer may benefit from training in management systems. A technology team may need to understand continuity, risk or regulatory requirements. A decision-maker may not need technical detail, but should understand impact, responsibility and priorities.

The objective is not to turn all professionals into specialists. The objective is to ensure that each role understands enough to act better, decide better, collaborate better and recognise when other areas should be involved.

Before organising training in these areas, it may be useful to ask a few questions:

• Does this topic affect only one technical area or does it involve several functions within the organisation?
• Is there a common knowledge base that should be developed before specialisation?
• Which teams need to understand responsibilities, even without being specialists?
• Are there related topics that can be organised into a more coherent pathway?
• Which internal capability is intended to be strengthened: awareness, execution, implementation, auditing or decision-making?

When these topics are viewed together, it becomes easier to avoid one-off training, duplication of effort and competence gaps. It also becomes simpler to build pathways adjusted to the different profiles within the organisation.

In regulatory and Best Practice areas, training gains more value when it helps connect topics, teams and responsibilities. It is this connection that makes it possible to transform dispersed knowledge into organisational capability.

When Human Resources teams receive training requests in ISO 27001, ISO 22301, ISO 42001, ISO 9001, ISO 20000, ISO 27701, ISO 37301 or other standards, it may seem that they are dealing with completely different topics. Information security, business continuity, artificial intelligence, quality, services, privacy or compliance do, in fact, have their own specific content. But many of these standards share a common logic: they are management systems.

A management system is not merely a set of documents. It is an organised way of defining responsibilities, planning objectives, controlling processes, monitoring results, managing risks, producing evidence and improving continually.

This logic is important for HR teams because it helps them understand that some training requests are not only about a technical topic. They concern the organisation’s ability to structure, implement, maintain and improve internal practices consistently.

For example, training in information security may not only be about cybersecurity. It may involve risk management, responsibilities, controls, auditing, evidence and continual improvement. Training in business continuity may not only be about contingency plans. It may involve impact analysis, recovery strategies, exercises, tests, responsibilities and learning after incidents.

This is why, in many areas, there are different levels of training: fundamentals, implementation, auditing, leadership or team readiness. Each level responds to a different need within the system.

For HR teams, understanding this logic helps them interpret internal requests more effectively. When a team requests training in a standard, it may be asking for technical knowledge, but it may also be asking for the capability to implement processes, prepare audits, respond to clients, improve evidence or strengthen organisational maturity.

A few questions can help clarify the request:

• Does the organisation only need to know the standard, or does it need to implement associated practices?
• Is there already a management system in place, or is the organisation starting that pathway?
• Is the need linked to certification, auditing, a client, risk, regulation or internal improvement?
• Who will be responsible for maintaining processes, evidence and continual improvement?
• Should the training support general understanding, implementation, auditing or management of the system?

When this distinction is clear, it becomes easier to understand why training on a standard may be relevant for different profiles: technical teams, process owners, internal auditors, managers, compliance, quality, risk, security or continuity.

In Best Practice areas, understanding the concept of a management system helps HR teams look beyond the name of the standard. It helps them understand that training does not only develop technical knowledge; it develops the capability to organise, demonstrate and improve the way the organisation works.

Not all training requests reach Human Resources with the same level of clarity. Often, a technical area requests a specific training course, refers to a standard, a regulation or a particular course, but does not always explain the real need behind that request.

In Best Practice topics, this is particularly important. Information security, privacy, business continuity, DORA, NIS 2, artificial intelligence, compliance, auditing or management systems are areas with their own language, different levels of depth and distinct impacts on the organisation.

For this reason, before choosing the course, it is useful to understand whether the request is intended to respond to a need for awareness, fundamentals, implementation, auditing, leadership or technical specialisation. The decision will be different if the organisation only wants to create awareness of a topic, prepare teams to execute procedures, develop internal owners or train auditors.

A good initial question is: “What does this team need to be able to do after the training?” This question helps transform a generic request into a more informed decision.

It is also important to understand who should participate. Not everyone needs the same level of depth. A decision-maker may need to understand risks, responsibilities and priorities. An operational team may need to know how to act in specific situations. An implementation owner may need to structure processes, controls and evidence. An auditor may need to assess compliance and effectiveness.

For HR teams and training managers, the challenge is not only to respond to the request received. It is to help the organisation choose the right level of training, for the right people, at the right time.

Before moving forward, it may be useful to ask the area that made the request a few questions:

• Is the objective to raise awareness, build capability, implement, audit or lead?
• Which roles have direct responsibility for the topic?
• Does the need result from a legal requirement, audit, client, incident, internal strategy or evolution of roles?
• What evidence or result is expected after the training?
• Is this a one-off need, or should it be part of a broader development pathway?

These questions help avoid one-off training that is misaligned or excessively technical for the intended audience. They also make it possible to transform dispersed requests into a more coherent competence development plan.

In complex areas, choosing training well starts before enrolment. It starts with the ability to interpret the request, clarify the objective and align the training with the real responsibility of each role.

When an organisation identifies a training need in Best Practices, the first decision should not be only to choose the topic. It should be to understand the level of depth required for each audience.

In areas such as information security, privacy, business continuity, compliance, DORA, NIS 2, artificial intelligence, quality or auditing, the same topic may require very different training responses. Not everyone needs to know the same things, and not everyone needs to be able to do the same things after the training.

Awareness is appropriate when the objective is to create awareness, a common language and attention to basic responsibilities. It is useful for broader audiences, when the aim is for people to recognise risks, warning signs or expected behaviours.

Fundamentals make sense when professionals need to better understand the topic, the main concepts, the requirements and how these relate to the organisation. This level is important for those who interact with the area, participate in processes or need to understand technical decisions without being specialists.

Implementation is necessary when the objective is to develop the capability to structure processes, define responsibilities, apply requirements, create controls, organise evidence and monitor execution. This level should be considered for internal owners, project teams and professionals with direct responsibility for the topic.

Auditing requires another type of preparation. Here, the focus is on the ability to assess compliance, effectiveness, objective evidence, audit criteria, deviations and opportunities for improvement. It is not enough to know the topic; it is necessary to know how to assess it with method and independence.

For Human Resources teams and training managers, this distinction is essential. It helps avoid two common mistakes: choosing training that is too generic for those who need to execute, or too technical for those who only need to understand responsibilities and impact.

Before deciding, it may be useful to ask a few questions:

• Does the participant only need to understand the topic, or also apply it?
• Does the role require decision-making, execution, implementation or assessment?
• Should the training create awareness, operational autonomy or specialised capability?
• What evidence, behaviour or result is expected after the training?
• Should the topic be treated as a one-off action or as part of a development pathway?

Choosing the right level of training makes it possible to use the budget better, reduce dispersion and increase the real impact of learning. It also helps technical areas and HR teams speak the same language when defining priorities.

In complex topics, the right training is not necessarily the longest, the most technical or the most advanced. It is the one that corresponds to the person’s real responsibility and to the capability the organisation needs to develop.