Life is full of expiration dates including your food, household products, and believe it or not, even your training content. When something needs to be replaced, you don’t wait until it’s completely useless. We’ve all had that feeling when we’re excited about something only to find out that it is expired, sending us down the path of searching for other options. So why would you wait until your training content is outdated? Most of us don’t have the time, or budget, to constantly make sure our training is updated.

Maintaining up-to-date eLearning content keeps your training program relevant and engaging. Forty percent of employees leave their jobs within the first year because of poor training. Employees need the information that is applicable to their jobs, but just like any other task in life, they need some kind of motivation to seek it out. You can increase engagement by making courses an enjoyable user experience.

Three important components for relevant and fresh content include:

1. New script and messaging - New information is constantly available because of the Internet, media, books and magazines, and even our everyday conversations. That’s a lot of information! To stay in-the-know, we have to conduct constant research on course topics and incorporate those themes into our eLearning courses. Your content must reflect what’s happening right now, from compliance to the best practices in all aspects of skill building.

2. Modern graphics - Training should be fun; let’s keep it that way! Humans are born with the innate desire for things to be visually appealing; evidence lies in our need for shiny iPhones and sleek-looking cars. By updating how your eLearning courses look, users will actually use the content.

You can’t fix everything with new graphics, though. You need an instructional design process that allows you to evaluate which images are engaging versus distracting. Graphics should be relatable and clear and incorporates text that is relevant on any device.

3. Updated best practices - Even the way employees consume eLearning content is something we have to take into consideration. Ten years ago, long training courses were the standard, but in recent years eLearning content has become increasingly shorter and segmented. Instead of watching an hour and a half video on one subject, topics are broken up into series of short-form videos that appeal to our short attention spans (now shorter than a goldfish). But be careful not to make the content too short; training isn’t effective if you cut important information just to save time. eLearning courses should be seven to nine minutes long.

Also, training used to be constrained to a classroom or a desktop computer, but with the shift to smartphones and tablets, we must make training available on-the-go. Mobile-friendly learning management systems and video content are key to giving users the training they need exactly when and where they need it. Employees can no longer use the excuse that they “don’t have time” to get the training they need. They can get it anywhere, at any time.

But the question still stands, how will YOU keep your training content fresh when you’re not a training company? That’s where we come in.

HSI is dedicated to providing up-to-date content that users find engaging and compatible with their learning culture.

Our team of writers, graphic designers, and producers find a way to take previously recorded content and give it a new and improved look and sound every month. In addition, we release brand new Off-the-Shelf videos each month and use feedback from our clients to evaluate what we need to add, replace, or just get rid of all together. This benefit is a no-cost added bonus that adds significant value for our clients.

Request a free trial today and see for yourself how fresh content will improve training participation and employee retention.

Additional Resources

• Part of keeping your training library updated is knowing when to retire courses and when to update. Learn more in our blog "4 Best Practices for Keeping an Organized eLearning Video Library."
• If you are looking for an eLearning content provider, one of the questions to ask is how often they update their content. Our blog "How to Buy eLearning Content for Your LMS (And Not Regret It Later)" gives you a checklist of other questions to ask.
• Actively managing your training content is critical. It's important not to overwhelm your administrators and learners. Read more in our white paper "How Many Courses Do You Really Need?"