Training programs often fall short not because they lack content, but because they overlook how people actually learn, perform, and stay engaged. In a recent episode of the Training Impact Podcast, Jeff Walter sits down with Matthew Reyes to explore what happens when training is designed around human motivation rather than checklists, courses, or compliance requirements.
Matthew Reyes has more than twenty years of experience, leading customer experience and support teams across technology driven organizations. His background spans IT, customer service, global operations, and rapid team scaling under real world pressure. Across all of those environments, one insight consistently shaped his approach. Training works best when it helps people feel capable, connected, and valued in the work they are doing.
Matthew did not start his career in learning and development. He started by managing people in environments where authority was limited but results still mattered. Early roles required him to develop individuals he could not easily replace or remove. Performance depended less on hierarchy and more on clarity, motivation, and trust.
That experience mirrors what many organizations face today. In ecosystems built around partners, resellers, franchisees, and customers, the people delivering brand experience often do not work directly for corporate teams. This is the defining reality of extended enterprise training, where organizations rely on structured learning systems to align behavior and expectations across audiences they do not directly employ.
In these environments, training becomes the primary mechanism for consistency. It shapes judgment, reinforces standards, and builds confidence across distributed audiences. When training fails, inconsistency shows up quickly in customer interactions. When it works, it becomes invisible infrastructure that supports scale.
A central theme of the episode is Matthew’s framework of six core human needs that drive behavior. These include safety and familiarity, variety, significance, connection, growth, and contribution. Rather than treating these as abstract psychology concepts, Matthew applies them directly to training design.
Effective training programs create safety by making expectations clear and workflows predictable. They introduce variety through challenge and progression. They reinforce significance by recognizing quality work. They foster connection through peer learning and shared problem solving. They support growth by helping people see measurable improvement over time. They emphasize contribution by showing how individual effort supports something larger.
This approach is especially effective in customer training, where learning directly influences product adoption, confidence, and long-term engagement. When customers understand not just how to use a product, but why their actions matter and how they are improving over time, training becomes part of the experience rather than an obligation.
What Matthew emphasizes next is that these human needs do not exist in isolation from the work itself. They show up most clearly in how training is structured day to day. When learning is treated as a one time event or a content dump, safety and familiarity never fully form. Learners are left guessing how expectations translate into real decisions. In contrast, training that is designed as a progression allows people to move from understanding to application to ownership. Familiarity builds first. Confidence follows. Only then does performance become consistent.
This distinction becomes critical in environments where training must support judgment rather than rote execution. Matthew explains that in distributed systems, whether customer facing teams, franchise locations, or partner networks, people are constantly making decisions without direct oversight. Training has to prepare them for those moments. That means exposing learners to realistic scenarios, encouraging reflection, and giving them opportunities to explain their thinking. Teaching others becomes part of the learning process, not a separate step. This reinforces significance and contribution while surfacing gaps early.
Rather than optimizing training for speed or completion, Matthew argues for designing it to reinforce identity. Who does this person need to become in their role. When training answers that question clearly, engagement increases naturally. Learners stop viewing training as something to get through and start seeing it as something that helps them succeed. Over time, this shifts behavior across the organization. Decisions become more aligned. Customer experiences become more consistent. Training fades into the background, not because it is forgotten, but because it has been fully integrated into how work gets done.
One of the most practical takeaways from the conversation is Matthew’s focus on understanding learner types. When training large audiences quickly, it is not possible to personalize everything at an individual level. Instead, Matthew looks for shared experience patterns, motivations, and starting points.
In one example, he describes rapidly building a customer support organization by hiring individuals with retail and face to face experience. That insight shaped how training was structured. Early learning emphasized communication, decision making, and empathy before diving into deeper technical knowledge. As performance emerged, future leaders were identified and developed through train the trainer models.
This same principle applies directly to franchise training, where brands must support frontline employees, managers, and owners simultaneously. Training systems must accommodate different roles and responsibilities while still reinforcing consistent brand standards and customer expectations across locations.
Throughout the episode, Matthew reinforces that training is not an engineering exercise. Content quality matters, but content alone does not change behavior. What matters more is how training fits into daily work.
Best practices discussed include shadowing top performers, reinforcing progress visually, encouraging peer teaching, and designing workflows that reduce friction. These practices align closely with early stages of the LatitudeLearning Training Program Roadmap, where clarity and knowledge acquisition lay the groundwork for sustainable performance.
One story highlights this clearly. Matthew describes working with an underperforming staff member who disclosed ADHD and dyslexia. Rather than forcing the individual into a rigid process, the workflow was redesigned using voice tools, time boxed tasks, and structured variety. Within days, performance exceeded team averages. The lesson is simple. Many performance challenges are design challenges.
Many training leaders struggle with engagement, consistency, and adoption, particularly across distributed audiences. Matthew’s framework addresses these challenges by focusing on the root causes of disengagement rather than surface level symptoms.
When learners understand why their work matters, how they are growing, and how they contribute to something meaningful, resistance drops. This holds true whether the audience is internal staff, customers, franchisees, or partners. Training designed around human needs scales more effectively because it aligns learning with how people actually work.
Training works when it is designed for humans, not just roles. By aligning training structure, learner types, and best practices with real human needs, organizations can build programs that scale without losing impact. Matthew Reyes’ perspective reinforces that motivation is not a soft concept. It is the engine behind performance, consistency, and growth.
Want to go deeper?
🎧 To explore the full conversation, listen to the Training Impact Podcast episode featuring Matthew Reyes
https://www.latitudelearning.com/insights/portfolio/36-matthew-reyes/
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