One of the things I’ve noticed when talking to business owners about their people is that development can become surprisingly frustrating.
You want to invest in someone. You can see what they’re capable of. Maybe you’ve offered them training, suggested a course or started talking about where their career could go next, and instead of being excited, they don’t seem particularly interested.
Sometimes they’ll say it quite directly: “I’m happy doing what I’m doing.”
I can completely understand why that can be difficult for a business owner, particularly if learning and development has been an important part of your own career. It’s very easy to assume that everyone should want to keep progressing in the same way.
But I’ve seen this with clients more than once, and I don’t think reluctance around development always means what we think it means.
Sometimes people aren’t resisting development at all. They’re resisting our version of development.
And sometimes there is something else going on that we need to understand before we decide what to do next.
Before trying to persuade someone to attend another course or complete another development plan, I’d start with a conversation. What does development actually mean to them?
We can very easily bundle lots of different things together when we talk about professional development. Learning new skills, getting promoted, moving into management, attending courses and building a career can all become part of the same conversation.
But the employee may not see those things in the same way.
I’ve worked with plenty of people who are very good at what they do and don’t particularly want the next promotion. That doesn’t necessarily worry me. In fact, businesses need experienced people who enjoy their work and are happy doing it well. If everybody wanted to keep moving upwards, we’d have a different sort of problem.
What I would be more interested in is whether the person is still willing to learn.
You don’t have to want a management role to keep developing. You don’t have to have a five-year career plan. And development doesn’t have to mean completing a qualification or spending a day sitting in a training room.
It might mean becoming better at something you already do, learning a new system, mentoring someone, understanding a new piece of technology or finding a better way to solve a problem that keeps coming up.
So when somebody tells me they aren’t interested in development, I’d be curious about what they think they’re actually saying no to.
We have a tendency to think of careers as something that should keep moving upwards. You become good at one job, move into the next one and eventually perhaps become a manager.
But careers don’t always work like that, and they don’t need to.
Some people reach a point where they genuinely enjoy the work they’re doing. They know the role well, they add value to the business and they don’t particularly want more responsibility. There may also be things happening outside work that are more important to them at that point in their life, and that’s okay.
Where businesses can get caught out is confusing not wanting a promotion with not needing to develop.
You might have an experienced employee who has been doing their job for ten years. They know your customers, your systems and all the little bits of organisational knowledge that nobody thought to write down. They might have absolutely no desire to manage a team.
That doesn’t mean their development has finished.Their next stage might not be upwards at all. It could be sideways or deeper.
Perhaps they could mentor someone less experienced, become the internal expert in a particular area, work on a project, improve a process or develop skills that make them even better at the work they already enjoy.
I think career development becomes much more useful when we stop assuming it always has to lead to another job title.
This is one I’d be particularly careful with. If somebody who used to be curious and engaged suddenly has no interest in learning anything new, I’d want to understand what’s changed.
They may simply be full. When people are stretched, another development opportunity doesn’t necessarily feel like an opportunity. It can feel like another thing they’re expected to fit into an already very full week.
I’ve seen this particularly with managers. They still have their technical work to do, and then we’ve added managing people, meetings, recruitment, performance conversations, planning and all the other things that come with being a manager. We’ve written before about how to support middle managers and build their capability, because sometimes what looks like resistance to development is really a manager who already feels as though their job is 130% full.
Then we tell them we’d also like them to attend leadership training. From the business’s perspective, we’re supporting them. From their perspective, we’ve just added something else.
That doesn’t mean we stop developing them. In fact, they may need that support more than ever. But we might need to think about workload, priorities and how that development is being delivered. Leader wellbeing and managing stress are part of this conversation too, because sometimes we need to create some capacity before we can reasonably expect someone to take on more.
Sometimes the more useful conversation is not, “Why won’t you do the training?”
It might be, “What would need to change for you to have the headspace to learn something new?”
You may get a very different answer.
This is where I think businesses need to find a reasonable middle ground. Employees don’t have to share our personal ambitions for their careers. We can offer opportunities, encourage people and have good career conversations, but ultimately they do have some choice about what they want their working life to look like.
At the same time, the business has to think about the capabilities it needs. And those two things won’t always line up perfectly.
This is also why I don’t think development should sit separately from your business plan. What is changing in your market? What capabilities will you need in another 12 months or three years? Which skills are becoming less important, and which ones are becoming more important?
Once you understand that, the development conversation becomes much easier.
Instead of saying, “We want everybody to complete a development plan,” you can explain why a particular capability matters.
That context can make a big difference. People are more likely to engage when they understand what is changing, why it affects their role and how learning something new will actually help them, rather than feeling like they are simply completing an HR process.
Development doesn’t have to mean formal training. Sometimes it’s helping people build confidence with the tools and skills changing their role.
We can’t really have this conversation now without talking about AI. When I first wrote about employees resisting development, AI wasn’t part of most everyday workplace conversations in the way it is now. That has changed very quickly.
What often happens with new technology is that we talk about it at a very broad level. We say that everyone needs to learn AI, or that jobs are going to change, but for the person sitting in front of us that can feel quite vague and, sometimes, a little threatening.
I think a better place to start is with the actual role.
Which parts of this person’s work are changing? Which tools might genuinely make their job easier? Where do they need to understand the risks? What still relies on their judgement and experience?
For some people, the resistance may not be about learning at all. It may be anxiety about what the learning represents. If someone has been doing a role successfully for a long time and we suddenly start talking about AI, they may hear, “The job you’ve been good at for years is about to disappear.”
That’s quite different from, “There are some new tools that could help you do parts of your job more easily, and we’d like to work through those with you.”
I’ve also seen businesses invest in AI tools and assume that providing access and perhaps some initial training will be enough. But adoption doesn’t really work like that. People need confidence, practical examples, support from their managers and opportunities to learn from each other. And if people aren’t using the tools, it’s worth understanding what’s getting in the way rather than assuming they’re simply resistant to change.
That’s really the thinking behind our AI Adoption Assessment. We look at what is happening across the business — including leadership, employee capability, adoption, learning and the support people are receiving — so you can work out what people actually need rather than jumping straight into more training.
Development in this environment isn’t about turning everybody into an AI expert. It’s about helping people stay capable and confident as the work changes. And that applies well beyond AI. Systems change. Customer expectations change. Regulations change. Industries change.
You can be very good at your job and still need to keep learning how to do that job in a changing environment.
Sometimes people aren’t saying, “I don’t want to learn.” They’re saying, “I’ve learned plenty. I’d quite like the opportunity to use some of it.”
I think businesses can become very focused on the input side of development. How many courses did somebody attend? Did they complete their development plan? How many hours of training did we provide?
But development really needs to change something. Perhaps the person could lead a small project. They might solve an existing business problem, try a different approach with a customer or take responsibility for improving a process.
There is a big difference between knowing something and having the confidence and opportunity to use it. Sometimes the next development opportunity isn’t another course. It is giving someone the chance to have a go.
This is also why I often encourage people to do one small development activity each month. It could be listening to a podcast, reading an article, attending a networking group or learning about something happening in their industry. It doesn’t have to be formal or expensive to be useful.
If the employee is performing well, I’d look for ways to make development feel like part of normal work rather than another HR activity sitting alongside it.
Mentoring or buddying can work well. An experienced employee who helps a newer team member will often develop themselves in the process because teaching somebody else makes you think about why you do things the way you do.
Project work can be useful for the same reason. Give someone a problem to investigate or an improvement to lead. It allows them to use their experience in a different way without suggesting that they need to leave a role they genuinely enjoy.
You can also make learning much smaller. I’ve seen businesses assume development needs to be a course, a workshop or a formal program, and sometimes that creates more resistance than it solves. It might be far more useful for someone to spend an hour with a colleague in another part of the business, attend an industry event or listen to a useful podcast.
The interesting thing is that once people stop seeing development as this big formal activity, they can become much more open to it. And I’d also ask them.
“What would you like to get better at?”
“What makes your job harder than it needs to be?”
“Is there something you’d like to learn that we’re not talking about?”
“What would make your role more interesting over the next year?”
Those conversations usually tell you much more than asking someone to fill in another development-plan template.
For managers, there is another layer to this because developing their people is part of their own development as a leader. If that’s something your management team needs more support with, our Leadership Development Workshops are designed around the practical conversations and skills managers actually need at work.
There is an important qualification to all of this. Everything I’ve talked about so far assumes the employee is performing well and the development is genuinely developmental.
If somebody isn’t performing to the required standard, the conversation is different. There may be knowledge or skill gaps that have to be addressed for them to perform the role properly. Before assuming the person simply needs more training, though, it is worth looking at what is actually holding team performance back, because sometimes the issue sits in expectations, workload, processes or management rather than capability alone.
If there is a genuine capability gap, the business needs to be clear about what is expected, where the gap is and what support or training is being provided.
The employee doesn’t necessarily get to opt out simply because development doesn’t interest them. The same applies where skills are necessary because the job itself has changed, or where training is required for safety, compliance or another legitimate business reason.
I think this is particularly important for managers. If you choose to become a manager, developing your ability to manage people is part of the role. You don’t need to become fascinated by leadership theory, but you do need to be willing to learn how to give feedback, have difficult conversations, set expectations and support your team.
I’ve seen technically excellent people promoted into management who continue to see the people part as something additional to their “real” job. But once you manage people, that is part of the job.
If a manager is struggling and consistently refuses support or development designed to help them become more capable in that part of their role, then eventually you do need to consider whether management is the right role for them.
I think this is the part I’d come back to. When an employee doesn’t want to develop, I wouldn’t immediately start looking for ways to persuade them.
I’d get curious first.
Are they happy in their career and simply uninterested in promotion? Are they exhausted? Have they had too much training and not enough opportunity to apply it? Do they think development means sitting in a classroom? Are they anxious about changes in their role? Or are they avoiding development because they don’t want to address a genuine performance gap?
Those situations can look very similar from the outside, but they need very different responses.
For small and medium sized businesses, you don’t need an enormous learning and development program to create a culture where people keep growing. You need managers who are prepared to have good conversations, a clear understanding of the capabilities the business will need, and enough flexibility to recognise that development won’t look the same for everybody.
Somebody may never want the next promotion, and that may be absolutely fine. What matters is whether they can keep contributing, adapting and learning enough to remain good at what they do as the business changes around them.
And if you’re finding that these conversations are becoming harder as your business grows, this is the sort of thing we work through with businesses as part of our Fractional HR support. Sometimes having somebody outside the day-to-day business helps you work out whether you’re dealing with a development issue, a performance issue or something else entirely.
If you’ve got someone in your team who doesn’t seem interested in developing, it can be difficult to know whether to leave them alone, encourage them a little more, or have a more direct conversation about what the role requires.
Sometimes it helps to talk it through with someone outside the business. We can help you work out what might be sitting behind the resistance and what a sensible next step looks like for both the employee and the business. Book a time to talk with us
Originally posted 15 May 2023. Updated 10 September 2026.
Start by finding out what they’re actually resisting. They may not want a promotion or formal training but still be open to learning through mentoring, projects, new responsibilities or informal learning. If they’re performing well, you usually have more flexibility. If there is a genuine performance or capability gap, you need to be clearer about what development is required.
Start by understanding what is getting in the way. Some employees may need training, but others might need more confidence, clearer guidance about how AI applies to their role, practical examples or more support from their manager. Before putting everyone through another training program, look at what people actually need to use AI effectively and confidently at work. Our AI Adoption Assessment can help you identify where the gaps are and what to focus on next.
It is useful to have development conversations with everyone, but that doesn’t mean every employee needs an ambitious promotion plan. Some people want to deepen their expertise rather than move upwards. The useful part is understanding what they want, what the business will need and where those two things can meet.
That’s different from declining optional professional development. If training is genuinely required to perform the role safely and effectively, explain why it is necessary, what is expected and what support you’re providing. If the employee continues to refuse, you may need to manage it as a performance or conduct issue and get HR advice before taking formal action.
Try connecting the learning to a real problem or opportunity rather than simply offering a course. People are more likely to engage when they understand why the skill matters and can see where they’ll use it. Smaller learning opportunities, mentoring, project work and time to practise new skills can sometimes work better than formal training.
