Organizations spend thousands of dollars each year, and sometimes millions, on designing, developing, and implementing training programs. But sometimes they hang onto outdated training programs and training materials to save money, even if those training programs are actually costing them more money than they’re worth.
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Here are four signs your training program is outdated and costing you more money to administer and facilitate than it’s worth.
1. Learner Participation Rates for It Are Steadily Declining
If learners stop participating in your training program or electing to take it, it is most likely not relevant or useful to them anymore. Learners won’t want to participate in training programs that don’t offer useful or relevant information or experiences that they can apply to their everyday work life or long-term career trajectories.
2. Learners Can’t Easily Access It
Deloitte research indicates that speedy access to continuous learning is imperative in our digital age—especially when it comes to workplace learning.
And if your learners can’t easily and quickly access your training programs or training materials via a mobile device, or via cloud-based platforms, they will most likely not be able to participate in your programs, and your programs will not be able to remain relevant for an adequate amount of time.
3. You Can’t Glean Actionable Insight from It
In 2019 and beyond, data will be the world’s most valuable resources. And all learning management systems will be designed to collect and analyze learner data from training programs so that you can glean actionable insight from them.
Moving forward, all your training programs should be designed and implemented via sophisticated systems so that you can understand which learners benefit from them the most, what type of content in them needs to be adjusted, etc. And if you can’t glean actionable insight from your training programs, they will quickly become outdated and impossible to perfect and promote.
4. It’s Not Agile, Customizable, or Easily Updated
If it takes you days to update a training program and its materials, and you aren’t easily able to customize its content for each individual learner, it is probably hosted on an outdated system or implemented via outdated methods and is likely costing you a lot more money than it’s worth.
Your training programs should be designed to be agile so that they can easily be updated and customized alongside the ever-changing workforce and modern workplace.
For more insight about this, read “4 Ways L&D Departments Are Becoming More Agile.”
Remember the four signs listed above as you implement your training programs this year, and be sure to get rid of training programs that are outdated and costing you more money than they’re worth.