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SDI insight / Roles & decisionsCorporate Training

When Is It Time to Update Your Training?

Originally published August 20, 2021Guidance reviewed August 26, 20262 min current guide

SDI Clarity Insight. This article is part of our Knowledge Base, drawing on 20+ years of organizational design and talent development expertise. Browse our L&D Glossary for key terminology.

Current practitioner guide

Manage learning assets as governed operating resources.

Use explicit review triggers.

A calendar can support governance, but the strongest triggers come from changed policy, process, technology, role, product, risk, accessibility requirement, learner evidence, or operating performance. Every asset should have a source authority, owner, last verified date, and events that require review. That makes recency visible and reduces the chance that teams continue using polished material after the work has changed.

Choose the smallest effective intervention.

An update does not always mean revising the same course. The right response may be correcting a source, replacing a step with workflow support, modularizing a volatile section, changing the practice, moving content to another medium, or retiring the asset. Reconfirm the performance need and audience before production begins. A visual refresh cannot solve inaccurate content, weak transfer, or a format that no longer fits the work.

Control release and retirement.

Define review authority, versioning, accessibility, localization, distribution, analytics, archival, and how older copies will be removed from circulation. Communicate material changes to managers and affected performers, especially when risk or customer impact is involved. After release, inspect whether the update resolved the signal that triggered it. Governance is complete only when people can find the current resource and obsolete guidance no longer competes with it.

Pressure-test this decision with Clara

Use the article as context, then describe the work, role, capability, or adoption challenge behind your question. Clara can help frame the decision, identify the evidence to gather, and suggest the most relevant SDI next step.

Read the original 2021 articlePreserved as historical context; the reviewed guidance above reflects SDI's current point of view.

Outdated training is a good problem to have, because it means your organization has grown. On top of updating your brand strategy, updating internal structures should be an engrained part of your business. Training can never be checked off as "done." It is an ongoing process of trial and error. Still, how can you tell when it's time for an old training program to cross the rainbow bridge? Take a look at our tips to find out.

Corporations can save anywhere from 50-70% of their money by replacing an instructor with an eLearning course. If you're still working in the paper world, you are officially losing money. To manage virtual teams, it's almost mandatory to have online training that accommodates teams across locations. Even for in-person offices, the security, data, and freedom of online learning is simply too good to pass up.

Nothing lasts forever. The exact time to examine your current training and onboarding process varies by industry, but it should still occur every few years. When taking a look at an older training program, ask yourself: Does this align with our current goals? Does this accommodate our current technology? Have we eliminated any redundancies or outdated facts? Does this training give us the results we projected? If the answer to any of these questions is no, then it's time for an upgrade.

Are employees making mistakes that should have been taken care of on day one? That likely means they weren't paying attention during training, which means that the training itself was not effective enough. Even with good intentions, some training programs are too time consuming or confusing for leadership to properly implement. On one hand, it could be that your leadership team is in need of implementation training, not the employees. On the other hand, if the program is being executed as planned and STILL proving itself ineffective, then the material needs to change.

Even effective programs need to be improved upon once a company's needs change. For example, your business may need diversity training after opening a new location cross state. Or maybe you need technological training after purchasing new software. Preparing for the needs of today and tomorrow should be a part of employee training.

Safety training is essential to protect the wellbeing of workers. But let's face it, when was the last time your team was excited about safety training? In this instance, an engaging course can actually save lives. To up user participation, we recommend animation, videos, quizzes, and other elements so employees can begin to enjoy the learning process.

The solution to outdated training? Digitizing, revamping, and growing with SDI. We offer both customized and ready-to-go programs to meet the needs of all clients regardless of their industry.

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