What did you have for dinner last Tuesday?

Let me guess: You’re rummaging through your brain trying to figure out what you did that day. Did you take the kids to that school thing and grab something at the drive-thru afterwards? Or did you get home late from a work trip and just eat whatever was in the fridge?

This simple question is a powerful reminder of how memory works. We can’t remember everything. And even if the information is up there, we often struggle to recall it when needed. But this isn’t a flaw. It’s a feature. People are built to forget. We only retain the most important information — the stuff that helps us live better lives. This is why you can recall your childhood phone number and every line of dialogue from “Back to the Future.”

Our limited memories can be a day-to-day annoyance when we lose our keys or can’t recall a person’s name. At work, they can cause major problems. When people can’t remember, they guess, take shortcuts, make mistakes or fail to act. This puts your employees, customers and business at risk. Thankfully, learning and development (L&D) professionals have the power to help people retain what they learn. You just have to deliver the information in short, easily digested segments using engaging, relevant activities that take place as close to the moment of need as possible in a safe, distraction-free, learning-conducive environment followed by consistent coaching, on-demand performance support and opportunities to practice in low-risk situations. Simple, right?

The unfortunate thing about workplace learning is that it happens at work where people already have a lot going on. Corporate workers are crunched with back-to-back-to-back meetings. Frontline teams are understaffed, overloaded with tasks and challenged by demanding customers. A lot of the workforce is burned out. When L&D is called upon to deliver training, they are required to cram as much information as possible into the limited time available. Then, once the course or session is over, L&D typically has limited access to the employee.

You may know everything there is to know about cognitive psychology and the forgetting curve, but none of it matters if you can’t fit the realities of learning within the realities of day-to-day work. There’s only one way to overcome memory limitations and workplace restrictions: You must design L&D solutions with these factors in mind from the start.

Here’s how:

1. Narrow Your Focus

Many L&D programs are too broad in scope from the start. They attempt to cover way too much information, often because it’s required by the stakeholder. This makes it difficult for employees to remember everything being covered. The box may get checked, but the risk to the business remains.

Consider safety training. Many safety courses attempt to cover a wide range of related topics, from personal protective equipment to fire extinguisher use. This may make sense to a subject matter expert (SME) who is — well — an expert in these topics, but it can quickly become overwhelming for a new employee. Plus, completing this training is just one task on the employee’s daily to-do list. With so much information being presented over a short period, it’s unrealistic to expect a person to retain what they need to know long term.

Narrow the focus of your learning solutions to give your audience a fighting chance. Rather than try to cover every possible topic in a single course, build activities that focus on specific skills. Provide separate resources for personal protective equipment, fire suppression, safe lifting, etc. This approach gives you more flexibility for how to cover each topic, reduces the time required to complete each activity and makes the information easier to retain because the activities can be spaced out. Plus, this design helps you make training more relevant because you can assign only the topics related to an employee’s job rather than wasting their time (and limited cognitive load) on unnecessary content.

2. Clarify Need Vs. Nice to Know

A SME sends you a 300-slide presentation and requires every word be covered in the training. You’re a learning science expert and know people can’t possibly retain that much information. But the SME still needs employees to get all of the information. What do you do?

The answer is not a 25-minute, click-next-to-continue eLearning module accompanied by jazzy background music and a 20-question multiple choice test (100% passing score, 2 attempts). You can still cover all of the required information without firehosing it at your audience. You just need to clarify the difference between “nice to know” and “need to know.”

A deli clerk needs to know how to safely use the meat slicer. They need to know how to use the scale to measure product and print labels. It’s nice if they know the differences between meat brands or that Gorgonzola pairs well with Moscato.

Prioritize the need-to-know information in your required training. Make the nice-to-know stuff available on-demand via articles and job aids. This method is especially useful when trying to fix the firehose that is new-hire training. It reduces the amount of information an employee must retain while still accounting for every slide in that SME source deck.

3. Find Openings for Reinforcement

The two most important words in learning are “repetition” and “retrieval.” These words are the reason why you remember every word of “Cruel Summer” by Taylor Swift. Of course, you listened to the song over and over and over again. But you also belted out the lyrics like no one was watching. Plus, the song is a banger!

Repeated exposure to information helps keep it fresh in your memory. Pair that with opportunities to recall and apply what you’ve learned, and you have a powerful recipe for knowledge retention. But how do you leverage tactics like spaced retention and retrieval practice when L&D only has access to employees for limited training periods? Build it into activities employees already do on the job!

Get to know your audience before designing a learning solution. Assess their workflow — how they do their jobs, where they spend their time, which tools they use, etc. Look for opportunities to layer reinforcement into the workflow after they complete training. You could provide contact center managers with practice scenarios to share during daily huddles. Or you could push a scenario-based question to retail associates’ handheld devices at the start of each shift. These are just a few examples of tactics that apply proven learning science principles without disrupting the operation.

Simply put: Delivering training without a reinforcement plan forces employees to fend for themselves.

4. Include Stories

“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” You already know what’s supposed to happen next, don’t you? That’s because storytelling is a universal form of communication. It’s something we experience every day, whether it’s watching a show on Netflix, reading a book or telling our partner about our day. It’s also one of the most powerful tools in the L&D arsenal.

Stories typically follow a set structure, providing a clear context and logical flow that aids in organizing and recalling information. An emotional story can engage an audience, even in a busy, distracting workplace. Moreover, storytelling is often a social activity with the resulting interactions further reinforcing memory. Stories also make information more real, relatable and relevant to a person’s own experience, all of which supports lasting retention.

Look for opportunities to leverage storytelling to reinforce critical workplace knowledge. You know those times when management knocks on your door to request everyone retake training because they’re not getting the desired results? Instead, look for respected, credible employees who have been successful in this area. Ask them to record short videos with examples of how they applied their knowledge to solve problems. Share these stories as part of a reinforcement campaign before requiring employees to retake training.

Memory Is Complicated

We experience memory’s capabilities, quirks and shortcomings all the time. But these factors clash with the overwhelming experience of work. There’s always a new change, regulation, skill or expectation. To help our people and organizations be successful, we must evolve our L&D strategies to fit within the realities of how work gets done. Stakeholders may understand the importance of a knowledgeable, capable team, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to stop the work to make room for L&D.

By the way, what did you have for dinner last Tuesday?