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Why it works: Our workplace behaviour-change framework

Forget and fail, or learn and lead: The secret to lasting workplace change

Most workplace training is a bit like a chocolate teapot: delightful in theory, but once the heat is on, it melts into irrelevance. People leave a session buoyant, inspired, ready to take on the world. And then – poof! – a month later, it’s gone, like a dream after breakfast. 

Why? Because most workplace learning clings to the hope that knowledge alone will spark change. Alas, if only the human brain worked like a USB stick. But it doesn’t. We’re far messier and marvellously complex than that. 

Enter MindGym’s EPA model: a three-part, science-backed strategy that takes learning beyond the page and into the bloodstream of work life. 

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A green, blue and black infographic showing MindGym's EPA methodology for workplace behavioural change

What is the EPA model?

Engage. Participate. Activate. 

EPA is MindGym’s signature framework for workplace behaviour change. Built on the elegant bones of the COM-B model (Capability, Opportunity, Motivation), EPA takes learning off the shelf and sets it pirouetting through your organisation. 

  • Engage – Step one: make people care. Spark motivation with stories that matter, campaigns that charm and ideas that hit close to home. 
  • Participate – Let them do something. Swap the soporific for the spectacular: workshops that involve, coaching that resonates, experiences that stick. 
  • Activate – Here’s where it sticks: nudges, coaching, clever reinforcement. We turn learning into something that shows up after the session.  

No more learning that disappears faster than your weekend. 

How EPA works in action

Two men facing each other - one with an excited hand gesture and facial expression

Engage: Capture attention and create motivation.

People need a reason to care before they dare to change. EPA uses storytelling, humour, and just the right amount of theatrical flair to ignite emotional buy-in. 

Example: Before a leadership programme, participants receive a medley of vivid narratives, playful provocations and interactive primers – delivered with panache.  

Two women and a man stood in front of a glass wall with post-it notes stuck to it and one woman writing something on one of them

Participate: Make learning active and immersive.

Learning through doing? Oh yes. This is where theory rolls up its sleeves. EPA delivers simulations, peer dialogue and coaching that gets under the skin – in the best possible way. 

Example: Out go the slides, in come scenarios straight from their day jobs, tweaked just enough to be tantalising.  

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Activate: Reinforce learning so it sticks.

Most training ends where it ought to begin. EPA ensures that learning lingers. It turns new thinking into new doing, with elegant reinforcements – nudges, peer coaching, booster sessions. 

Example: A week after the session, a nudge. Two weeks later, a coaching moment. One month in, a quiet revolution. 

Why EPA works: The science of behaviour change

Most training fails for three predictable reasons: 

  • 40% of failure happens before training – poor set-up. 
  • 20% fails during – weak experience design. 
  • 40% fails after – no reinforcement. 

EPA addresses each of these failure points. And it works: 87% of participants apply their learning at work, improving engagement, productivity and performance.

A green and blue illustration showing a woman in the foreground pondering a maze that appears behind her in the background
A green illustration showing a person in motion running forward

How EPA outperforms other models

Many behaviour models stop at knowledge or motivation. EPA goes further. It ensures: 

  • Learning is applied, not just understood 
  • Behaviour change is continuous and measurable 
  • Results show up in how people actually work 

Instead of a one-and-done event, EPA is a repeatable cycle. Through eWorkouts, coaching, World Cafés and Dialogue Groups, employees are always engaging, participating and activating.