Your Chief Virtual Learning Architect

Learning to Performance

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Custom Design & Delivery

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Predictive Evaluation

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Enterprise Learning Strategy

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Dave Basarab Consulting has elevated the training experience, offering an end-to-end comprehensive approach that includes training strategy, instructional design, development, delivery , post program training transfer, and evaluation (via the unique Predictive Evaluation methodology). Virtual Chief Architect Dave Basarab has combined all of these individual training elements with his user-friendly, comprehensive Learning to Performance approach, which significantly increases companies' training ROI.

Why we are different

Innovation: Our primary focus is creating learning programs using a Learning to Performance approach.
Expertise: Dave offers the depth and breadth of his experience, including working internally at prestigious companies (Motorola, Ingersoll Rand and Pitney Bowes) as well as his knowledge and expertise as a highly-respected, sought-after consultant.
Partnership: Basarab collaborates with companies, serving as their own Chief Learning Officer whenever they need to plan, strategize, or implement training initiatives.

Training Services

Enterprise Learning Strategy

Enterprise Learning Strategy

At Dave Basarab Consulting, we're experts in creating Enterprise Learning Plans. We work with you to develop your company's learning strategy and direction.

Custom Design, Development, & Delivery

Custom Design, Development, & Delivery

Custom training is an effective way of developing the capability required to execute your strategy. We are a custom design house that creates programs specific to your business.

Learning Burst Development

Learning Burst Development

We can create and deliver your courses via our unique Learning Burst Method - keeping your employees at their jobs while receiving world-class training.

Predictive Evaluation

Predictive Evaluation

We predict the ROI for your courses and establish success gates. We then evaluate the course against the success gates to show value realized and continually improve results.

Leadership Development

Leadership Development

Turn-key virtual custom leadership development program that combines world-class leadership speakers/educators with post-event personalized coaching to provide you with a cadre of highly skilled leaders.

Predictive Evaluation

Business case for leadership investment during economic downturns

Building a Business Case for Investing in Leadership Development During Economic Downturns is a disciplined exercise in connecting workforce capability to commercial priorities. Soft demand and tighter cash make weak judgement, poor communication and slow execution more expensive, not less.

In Australia, many employers are balancing subdued growth and cost-of-living pressure against persistent capability needs. Boards may pause development budgets, yet frontline managers still need to lead change, coach staff and interpret customer signals while operating with less managerial slack.

The case should therefore avoid defending training as a generic benefit. It should identify the leadership behaviours that reduce rework, improve retention, support customer performance and accelerate change, then show which intervention is most likely to change those behaviours.

A credible proposal combines a conservative cost model with measurable leading indicators and business outcomes. It also distinguishes essential compliance activity from discretionary programmes that can be redesigned, staged or stopped.

Frame the downturn as a capability decision

Leadership development is not an alternative to commercial discipline; it is one route to stronger performance under constraint. The relevant question is not whether every course can continue, but where targeted capability will remove the largest operational bottleneck.

Funding choice	Near-term cost	Likely effect	Main risk
Freeze all development	Lowest	Capability gaps widen	Managers absorb critical work
Retain compliance only	Low	Limits mandatory coverage	Little performance effect
Target priority leaders	Selective	Stronger execution in chosen areas	Poor adoption if priorities are unclear

Targeted funding works best when leaders connect capability to current operating priorities, such as change adoption, decision quality or service recovery. The proposal should state what happens if nothing changes, making the cost of inaction visible without exaggerating it.

Connect capability to enterprise value

Managers influence productivity through decisions, feedback, prioritisation and accountability, not through presentation skills alone. A sound business case traces a chain from learning, to observable manager behaviour, to team performance and, where evidence supports it, to customer or financial outcomes.

Across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, hybrid and distributed teams make this chain more important. Managers must influence without constant supervision, build trust across locations and communicate priorities clearly. Short weekday learning bursts can fit commutes and operational handovers better than lengthy residential programmes.

Model costs using Australian employment realities

When learning happens during paid work, the proposal should check the Fair Work Act, any applicable modern award or enterprise agreement, and state work health and safety obligations. It should not assume a universal entitlement to paid leadership training; relevant conditions and time-off rules vary.

Costs must include programme fees, manager release time, backfill, scheduling, travel and evaluation, rather than only the facilitator’s rate. Currency exposure also matters for organisations buying global content in Australian dollars, while regional delivery may require travel and accommodation.

Forecast adoption before claiming impact

Predictive Evaluation starts with the likelihood that participants will apply and sustain the intended behaviours. A useful output is predictive intention dashboards, which reveal differences between sponsors, managers and learners and flag likely adoption barriers before scale-up decisions are made.

Forecasting intention is not proof of impact. Leaders should validate the assumptions with a pilot, track application after the intervention and compare results with a credible business baseline. This turns a training proposal into an investment thesis that can be tested and adjusted.

Compare delivery options with credible evidence

The Australian market mixes internal learning teams, boutique specialists, large consultancies and local trainers serving SMEs, mid-market firms and multinational employers. That choice should be based on capability and total value, not a generic claim that internal delivery is cheaper or external delivery is more transformative.

A structured vendor evaluation framework can apply consistent evidence, learner experience and commercial criteria. Pilots should also test transfer into Australian workplace settings, including hybrid teams, casual workforces and industries with shift-based operations.

Recommendations for a resilient learning investment

The benefits case should name an owner, baseline and expected mechanism for each outcome. Avoid assigning every organisational metric to learning; choose a few measures where manager behaviour has a credible operational pathway, then work with finance and data teams to validate them.

Five recommendations make the proposal easier to govern:

Prioritise two or three leadership behaviours tied to explicit business priorities.
Baseline relevant productivity, retention, engagement and change indicators before delivery.
Use short, blended learning bursts suited to Australian schedules and hybrid work.
Track intended use, observed behaviour, business effects and return on investment separately.
Release remaining funding in stages against adoption and outcome evidence.

Make governance as disciplined as delivery

The learning sponsor, finance partner and business owners should review the same measures at agreed gates: readiness, adoption, application and impact. If evidence is weak, adjust design or stop the next stage rather than protecting the original budget. This gives leadership development the same rigour as other capital allocation.

The point to remember is that a downturn is not a reason to stop investing in capable leaders. It is a reason to make a smaller, sharper and evidence-led investment, with development selected for its contribution to resilience and sustainable performance.

Learning to Performance

Learning to Performance, a complete training approach, gives companies world-class training to drive significant return. This approach includes upfront work (Impact Mapping, design), training (for staff and company executives), and post-training efforts to ensure training transfer. This unique recipe - the key for successful training and adoption - is changing the way companies implement training. This methodology could work with any content for organizations in any industry.