Training materials aren’t fine wine. They don’t necessarily get better with age.
That beautifully designed course your team created three years ago may still look impressive—but if it references software you no longer use, policies you’ve since changed, or a process employees abandoned sometime last Tuesday, it probably isn’t doing anyone much good.
And workplace skills themselves aren’t exactly standing still. According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, employers expect 39% of workers’ existing skill sets to change or become outdated by 2030.
So, how do you know when your training materials are due for a refresh?
Nothing says “this training hasn’t been updated lately” quite like: “Click the green button in the upper-right corner,” followed by a screenshot showing a green button that disappeared two software versions ago.
Outdated screenshots, interfaces, terminology, examples, and branding can quickly undermine otherwise useful training. Even worse, learners may start wondering what *else* is outdated.
Refresh it: Review visual and procedural content whenever a system, tool, or process changes. You may not need to rebuild the entire course; sometimes replacing a few screenshots and instructions is enough.
You created the training. Employees completed the training. And now everyone is asking the same question.
Again.
Before blaming their attention spans, take another look at the material. Recurring questions can reveal content that’s difficult to understand, hard to remember, incomplete, or buried beneath information employees don’t actually need.
Refresh it: Ask managers and employees which questions come up most often. Then make sure your training answers those questions clearly and puts the answers where people can find them.
The official procedure says A → B → C.
Employees actually do A → D → send a Teams message to Chris → B → E → C.
Congratulations. You have discovered tribal knowledge.
When employees routinely rely on undocumented workarounds, your training may no longer reflect how work gets done. Sometimes the workaround is a bad habit that needs correcting. Other times, it’s evidence that the documented process itself needs to change.
Refresh it: Talk to the people doing the work. Compare the documented process with the real one, identify why they differ, and determine which one should be taught.
Technology changes. Regulations evolve. Policies get revised. New products launch. Responsibilities shift. And new AI tools seemingly appear while everyone is at lunch.
Organizations change constantly, and training can fall behind surprisingly quickly.
The World Economic Forum found that 85% of employers plan to prioritize workforce upskilling as they prepare for changing jobs and skill requirements through 2030.
Updating training isn’t simply housekeeping. It’s part of keeping employees prepared for the work they’re being asked to do.
Refresh it: Build training reviews into significant process, technology, policy, and organizational changes rather than waiting for someone to notice that a course is outdated.
A little flexibility can be a good thing. Seven employees performing the same critical process seven completely different ways? Less good.
Inconsistent performance can indicate that training doesn’t provide enough guidance, employees don’t know where to find it, or the content doesn’t match their actual work.
Refresh it: Look at where errors, inconsistencies, and repeated questions occur. Those trouble spots can help you prioritize which training needs attention first.
Here’s the good news: discovering that your training is outdated doesn’t automatically mean throwing everything away and starting from a blank screen.
Sometimes, the foundation is solid, but the screenshots, examples, or procedures need updating. Other times, a long course could become more effective with better organization, stronger visuals, or a few well-placed job aids. And sometimes, yes, the training has reached the “Thank you for your service” stage and needs a more substantial redesign.
The important part is knowing the difference.
That’s where an experienced outside perspective can help. A training review can identify what’s still working, what’s creating confusion, where content gaps exist, and where your resources will have the greatest impact.
At MATC, we develop new training and help organizations modernize and improve the training they already have. Our instructional designers can assess existing materials, work with your subject matter experts, update content, redesign learning experiences, and help ensure training reflects how work actually gets done today.
Effective training doesn’t have to be brand-new. It has to help people perform.
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Reference
“The Future of Jobs Report 2025.” World Economic Forum. 1/7/25. Accessed 9/3/26. https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2025/digest