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Imagine you’re being onboarded into a new position. Everything looks promising so far. Your manager is even using a very cool virtual training lab to give you hands-on practice.

Soon after logging in, however, you realize there’s something wrong. The problem isn’t with the tools you’ve been given — those are working as they should. No, the issue lies with the fact that the training content you’ve been given was created in 2015.

Suddenly, things seem a whole lot less shiny. And that’s the reality for too many new employees. Even if the material is still factually accurate, failure to keep it fresh suggests that it’s a low business priority. Those vital lessons are less likely to stick. And right from the get-go, that new employee will be disengaged, demotivated, and less inclined to stick around. First impressions count.

As a training manager or head of training and development, curating internal training content for employees is just as important as creating a customer education initiative for a strategic account. You’d never provide decade-old content to a customer without a thorough review and a serious facelift. By the same token, effective employee learning and development materials need to be engaging, compelling, and memorable.

That’s especially true in the fast-moving software sector. Fluid and dynamic are the watchwords here. You simply can’t afford to stand still or rest on your laurels.

So let’s run through a few best practices for keeping your corporate training content fresh and relevant.

Schedule Regular Reviews

Training content development is an ongoing process. You should constantly be on the lookout for potential improvements. Because even if you think your materials are perfect, they’re not. There’s always something you could be doing better.

Formalizing the process is a smart move. If you don’t diarize it, you’ll inevitably allow other tasks to bump it down the priority list. Assessing your training content on a quarterly or biannual basis, alongside your peers in the product and marketing departments will reveal both existing and emerging gaps in your curriculum. How frequently these reviews take place depends on several factors:

• The speed at which your industry tends to change or evolve
• Business growth
• Software development lifecycle

The bottom line is that continual review reduces the pain for everyone involved. Updates will be smaller and quicker. And you’ll be able to get ahead of any major overhauls required by new product or version releases, anticipating the new content you’ll need and the bandwidth that building it will require.

Embrace Microlearning

It’s almost axiomatic that attention spans are getting shorter. Meanwhile multitasking is now the default mode for millions of workers. That explains the rise of microlearning. It’s all about delivering employee training content as short, easily digestible, and hyper-focused segments, rather than as a single course. Microlearning segments should be able to stand alone, allowing you to construct courses for different audiences and even to personalize them for individuals.

There are a ton of benefits to this modular approach. It’s way more compelling than traditional learning, resulting in better engagement and knowledge retention. Microlearning also makes it easier to keep your material up to date. You can simply tweak individual segments rather than entire courses, or slot in modules on new software features or best practices as required.

Collect User Feedback

You’re most likely already tracking key performance indicators associated with your training. But human feedback — whether structured quizzes, surveys, and Q&As or unstructured opinions — can be even more illuminating. In addition to giving you insights into usability bumps and bottlenecks, learners may also clue you into missing, outdated or inaccurate content. A fresh pair of eyes always helps.

Leverage Online Training Content Creation

The right training software can be a game-changer. A learning management system, for example, can streamline training content creation as well as optimization, providing a centralized repository for all your materials along with comprehensive content curation tools. Some platforms also provide integrated AI for both personalized learning and to keep content up-to-date.

Keep Tracking Trends

Remember what the world was like in 2020? Think about how much things have changed since then. Would training material developed early that year still be relevant today?

Probably not.

Now consider the fact that even though the pandemic is over, technology is still evolving at more or less the same pace now as it was back then. Modern generative AI was only developed a little under two years ago. It’s already projected to become a trillion-dollar industry by 2032.

Maintaining a vantage point over the ever-changing landscape of your industry means monitoring both current trends and emerging technologies that may have an impact in the future. That’s how you’ll be ready to adjust your training content smoothly and swiftly as change happens.

Document Your Change Management Process

If your company has introduced a new policy or process that needs to be reflected in employee onboarding materials, consider whether you have a formalized process in place for that. Playing things by ear is par for the course for startups, but as a company matures, you need a clear implementation rubric to avoid last-minute meetings and fraught discussions with multiple stakeholders. After all, software relies on rules, which means your training ecosystem should too.

Leverage Virtual Labs for Hands-on Training

A solid strategy for training content management is central to success. But you also need the best delivery tactics. That’s where virtual training labs come in. Giving your colleagues (and customers) the ability to interact with SW environments “for real” — without running the risk of damaging precious data — is now a core element of effective education. An immersive, hands-on experience should be the centerpiece of your carefully created and always up-to-date curriculum. Practice is what makes theory stick.

Check out Virtual Training Labs vs. Simulations: Key Differences, then read up on the Essential Features for Virtual Training Technology.

Once you’re ready to start weighing your options, find out How to Evaluate and Compare Virtual IT Labs.