70 20 10 Learning Model: What It Is, Why It Works, and How to Actually Use It

Quick Answer The 70 20 10 learning model is a workplace learning framework that states: 70% of learning comes from on-the-job experience, 20% from social interactions like mentoring and peer feedback, and 10% from formal training like courses and workshops. Developed in the 1980s by researchers at the Center for Creative Leadership, it helps organizations build learning cultures that go beyond classroom training

When people think about employee training, they picture a classroom. Or maybe an e-learning module with a progress bar at the top. A quiz at the end. A certificate. Done.

But here’s the thing about that kind of training? It accounts for maybe 10% of how people actually learn at work.

That’s not a guess. That’s the core idea behind the 70 20 10 learning model, and it’s been quietly reshaping how smart organizations think about development for over 40 years.

If you’ve never heard of it, you’re about to wonder why no one told you sooner. And if you have heard of it, this guide will probably change the way you’ve been applying it.

Let’s get into it.

What is the 70 20 10 learning model?

The 70 20 10 learning model is a framework that explains where workplace learning actually comes from, dividing development into three sources: 70% from on-the-job experience, 20% from social interactions, and 10% from formal training.

Here’s what each part means in practice:

• 70% comes from doing — real work, real challenges, real mistakes
• 20% comes from other people — mentors, colleagues, feedback, observation
• 10% comes from formal training — courses, workshops, reading, certifications

That’s it. Simple, right?

But the implications are huge. If this model is even roughly accurate, it means most companies are pouring the majority of their L&D budget into the smallest piece of the learning pie. They’re treating the 10% like it’s everything, and barely touching the other 90%.

The 70-20-10 learning model isn’t saying formal training is useless. It’s saying you can’t stop there and call it a learning strategy. The real development happens in the work itself — and in the conversations, relationships, and feedback that surround it.

That’s the shift this model asks you to make: from “we offer training” to “we’ve built an environment where people actually grow.”

Key Takeaway: The 70 20 10 learning model reframes learning from a scheduled event into a continuous environment. Most organizations over-invest in the 10% (formal training) and underinvest in the 70% and 20% that drive the most actual development.

Where did the 70 20 10 learning model come from?

The 70 20 10 learning model was created in the 1980s by researchers Morgan McCall, Michael Lombardo, and Robert Eichinger at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) in North Carolina.

They wanted to understand how successful executives got good at their jobs. So they asked them. Nearly 200 senior leaders reflected on the experiences that shaped their careers most. The pattern was consistent: the big moments weren’t training programs. They were stretch assignments, difficult bosses, failed projects, and mentors who gave them hard feedback.

The researchers published the findings in their 1996 book The Career Architect Development Planner — roughly 70% from on-the-job experiences, 20% from feedback and relationships, 10% from courses and reading.

For a while, the 70-20-10 learning model stayed within L&D circles. Then, learning expert Jay Cross brought it to a much wider audience with his book Informal Learning in the early 2000s. His argument: organizations are systematically underinvesting in the 90% of learning that happens outside a classroom.

That message landed. Today, the CCL and the 70:20:10 Institute still use this framework as a foundation for how they think about development.

Key Takeaway: The 70 20 10 learning model originated from a real study of how executives developed — not theory. It was popularized by Jay Cross in the 2000s and is now used by thousands of organizations worldwide.

The pros and cons of the 70 20 10 learning and development model

No model is perfect. Here’s an honest look at where the 70 20 10 learning and development model genuinely helps — and where it falls short.

What makes it useful

• It forces a mindset shift. Most learning and development(L&D) teams measure success by training hours logged and modules completed. The 70 20 10 learning model forces a different question: are we actually creating conditions where people develop? That question alone is worth the price of admission.

• It reflects how adults actually learn. Think about the last time you got genuinely better at something. Was it because you read a handbook? Or was it because you had to figure something out under pressure, ask someone who’d done it before, and keep doing it until you got it right? That’s 70-20-10 in action.

• It’s practical to start. You don’t need a massive budget or a new platform to begin. The 20% starts the moment you set up mentoring pairs and real development conversations. The 70% kicks in the moment someone is given a challenge that genuinely stretches them.

• It gives L&D a seat at the strategy table. When you can show leadership that development isn’t just about courses — it’s about job design, culture, and how managers interact with their teams — L&D becomes a business conversation, not an HR checkbox.

Where it falls short

• 10% for formal training may be too little in some contexts. In compliance, healthcare, and safety-critical roles, people need to understand the rules before they can safely learn by doing. Applying the 70-20-10 learning model rigidly here can create dangerous gaps.

• It’s hard to measure. Informal learning doesn’t generate completion certificates. Reporting “we did 12,000 hours of experiential learning this quarter” isn’t really possible, which makes it harder to defend the investment even when it’s clearly working.

• Some managers will misuse it. There’s a real risk that “70% happens through work” becomes an excuse to cut training budgets. “Let them learn on the job” is very different from thoughtfully designing on-the-job learning experiences.

It was built on a narrow sample. More on this below.

Key Takeaway: The 70 20 10 learning and development model’s biggest strength is that it reflects how adults genuinely learn. Its biggest weakness is that it can be misapplied — either as a budget-cutting excuse or as a rigid formula that doesn’t fit every context.

The criticisms of the 70-20-10 learning model you should know about

Like any theory, the 70 20 10 learning model has had its fair share of critics. Most of the pushback comes down to one core issue: the original research wasn’t as solid as people assume.

The study was based on self-reporting — researchers simply asked executives to describe where their learning came from. That’s a problem for a few reasons. People don’t always give honest answers. They might not even know the true answer. And memory is unreliable, especially when you’re looking back across an entire career.

There’s also a sampling issue. The only people asked were executives who had already made it to the top. That’s a pretty narrow group. It tells us very little about how a new graduate learns, how a frontline worker develops skills, or how anyone outside that senior executive bubble actually grows.

The numbers themselves raise eyebrows, too. When does real research produce results in exactly 70, 20, and 10? Rarely. Most researchers believe those figures were rough patterns, not measured data.

And then there’s an assumption baked into the whole model that often goes unquestioned: that experience automatically leads to learning. It doesn’t. People can do the same job badly for ten years and never improve. Without honest feedback, a chance to reflect, and psychological safety to try new things, experience just repeats itself.

That’s not a reason to dismiss the 70 20 10 learning model. But it is a reason to treat it as a helpful direction — not a precise formula you enforce across your entire organization

Is the 70 20 10 learning model still relevant in today’s workplace?

Yes, still very relevant. But the world around it has changed.

Skills don’t last as long as they used to. Five years ago, what you learned in a training program could carry you for a while. Now? Some skills are outdated before the program even ends. That makes the 70% — learning through actual work — more important than ever.

The 20% got harder. Social learning used to happen on its own. You’d pick things up from a colleague walking past, or overhear how your manager handled a tough conversation. That doesn’t happen on a video call. Organizations now have to create those moments deliberately.

And the 10%? It’s not shrinking in importance — it’s shifting. As AI takes over routine tasks, the things formal training teaches well — how to think, how to judge, how to lead — are becoming the skills companies actually compete on.

The model wasn’t designed for any of this. But its core logic still holds.

How to implement the 70 20 10 learning and development model

Here’s where a lot of organizations get stuck. The model sounds great in theory, but what do you actually do?

70% from job experience

You’d be forgiven for thinking this part takes care of itself. Employees do their jobs every day — isn’t that experience enough?

Not quite. Experience only becomes learning when it stretches people. The difference between someone who grows in a role and someone who just repeats the same year over and over is usually the quality of the challenges they face.

Here’s how to create those conditions:

• Assign people to new projects that gradually increase the scope of their role
• Bring them into decisions they wouldn’t normally be part of
• Let them lead a project before they feel fully ready
• Give them the chance to manage people or initiatives outside their usual function
• Encourage them to try new approaches — and make it safe when things don’t go perfectly

These aren’t radical changes. But they create the environment where real experiential learning happens and where the 70% of the 70 20 10 learning model actually does its job.

20% from social learning

Some of this happens on its own. People talk, share ideas, and learn from each other without anyone planning it. But you can create a lot more of it with a little structure.

Here’s how:

• Set up mentoring programs that pair junior employees with seniors who can share what they know
• Try reverse mentoring too — where younger employees help senior leaders understand new tools, new ways of working, or how the next generation thinks
• Encourage cross-functional collaboration so people learn from outside their usual team
• Create spaces — meetings, group chats, brainstorming sessions — where people can share what they’re working on and ask real questions
• Build a culture where being honest about what you don’t know is normal, not embarrassing

That last one is harder to design than a mentoring program. But it matters more than all the others combined.

10% from formal training

Only 10% falls to formal training — but that’s no reason to take it less seriously. If anything, it means every bit of it has to count.

Start with your LMS (learning management system) — it’s the foundation for delivering quality online learning at scale. But don’t stop there. There’s a lot more you can do:

• Organize webinars with internal subject matter experts — and always leave room for a Q&A
• Share content from industry leaders and external experts your team actually respects
• Offer a learning stipend so employees can invest in their own professional development
• Host workshops, seminars, and panel discussions where real conversation happens

The goal isn’t more training hours. It’s better ones.

And whatever you build — make sure it connects to the other 90%. Formal training works best when it prepares someone for a real experience, or helps them make sense of one they’ve already had. That’s when the 10% actually earns its place in the employee development strategy.

How to measure whether the 70 20 10 learning model is working

Informal and social learning don’t produce tidy metrics, but you’re not without options.

For the 70%: Look at job performance KPIs, time-to-proficiency in new roles, project success rates, and promotion velocity. These are proxy measures of experiential learning working.

For the 20%: Track mentoring participation, knowledge-sharing channel activity, and 360 feedback quality over time. Most importantly — ask people directly. Survey employees on whether they feel they’re learning from the people around them.

For the 10%: Go beyond completion rates. Test knowledge retention at 30 and 90 days post-training. Ask managers whether they’ve observed behavioral change. If the answer is “not really,” the program isn’t working — regardless of completion numbers.

The North Star: Are people more capable? Is the organization performing better? Those are the questions the 70 20 10 learning model ultimately answers.

Key Takeaway: Measuring the 70 20 10 learning model requires tracking performance outcomes and behavioral change — not just training completions. Connect all three components to business results to build a credible ROI case.

What changes for the 70 20 10 learning model in the AI era

The 70 20 10 learning model was developed before AI entered the workplace. Here’s how the AI era reshapes each component.

• The 70% now includes AI collaboration skills. Learning to work with AI tools — when to trust outputs, when to push back, how to prompt well, how to catch confident-sounding errors is fast becoming as important as any technical skill. Organizations need to create deliberate space for this kind of experiential learning within the 70%.

• The 20% needs engineering, not assumption. In hybrid and remote environments, the informal social learning that once happened organically doesn’t self-assemble. Organizations using the 70 20 10 learning and development model need to invest in virtual mentoring infrastructure, peer learning groups, and digital knowledge-sharing communities.

• The 10% needs to teach thinking, not just content. AI can surface information and generate first drafts. The distinctly human capabilities — ethical reasoning, creative problem-solving, judgment under pressure, building trust — are what formal training should be developing in 2026.

The ratios may need to flex. For a team adopting entirely new AI workflows, the right mix might be 50-30-20 for a period. For experienced professionals refreshing a single skill, it might look different again. The 70 20 10 learning model is a starting point, not a constraint.

Key Takeaway: In the AI era, the 70 20 10 learning model needs updating: the 70% must include AI collaboration, the 20% must be deliberately engineered in hybrid settings, and the 10% must prioritize human judgment over information delivery.

Common mistakes people make with the 70 20 10 learning model

• Using it as a budget-cutting tool. “Only 10% of learning is formal, so we can cut the training budget by 90%.” That’s the opposite of the intent. The 70 20 10 learning model often requires more investment — just invested differently.

• Treating the three parts as separate programs. A mentoring program here, some e-learning there, stretch assignments somewhere else — and calling it a 70 20 10 learning and development model. It only works when the three pieces actively reinforce each other.

• Forgetting that experience needs support. Throwing someone into the deep end isn’t the 70%. Giving someone a genuinely challenging assignment with support, feedback, and structured reflection — that’s the 70%.

• Applying it identically to every role. A first-year analyst and a 15-year senior leader need different mixes. A surgeon learning a new procedure needs a stronger formal foundation than a marketer exploring a new channel.

• Measuring only what’s easy. Completion rates are easy to measure. Behavior change is not. Organizations that only measure the former end up optimizing for things that don’t move the needle.

So, is the 70 20 10 learning model worth your time?

Yes. Not because the numbers are exact, and not because it works identically in every situation. But because the question forces you to ask — are we actually creating conditions where people grow, or are we just offering training and calling it a strategy?. This is one of the most important questions any organization can sit with.

The companies that take the 70 20 10 learning and development model seriously tend to build something most companies don’t have: a genuine learning culture. One where growth isn’t a quarterly checkbox but something that happens continuously — in the work itself, through the people around you, and yes, with well-designed formal programs underneath it all.

That’s what makes it worth applying. Hopefully, worth applying better than you were before you read this.

Want to build a learning environment that actually supports all three layers of the 70 20 10 learning model — in one connected platform? [Talk to us.]Share