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Which metrics to use to know if your training catalog is up to date (and which to ignore)
A training catalog is up to date when every course has an owner, matches the current version of its source document and has reached the people affected by the latest change; counting courses, hours or views doesn't answer that question.
The HR director at a company with six sites asks the training team for a simple indicator: is our training up to date? The team pulls what it has at hand. Two hundred published courses, fourteen thousand training hours last year and an 87% completion rate. These are real figures, but none of them answers the question. A course can have very high completion and explain a procedure that changed six months ago.
The problem is common because training metrics were designed to measure activity or learning, not currency. To know whether the catalog is up to date you need different metrics, and they're simpler to calculate than they seem.
In this article we propose six metrics to measure whether the training catalog is up to date, how to calculate each one, four metrics worth dropping for that purpose, and an example one-page dashboard.
The metrics training teams usually have answer other questions. Course counts and hours answer "how much do we do?". Completion answers "do they do it?". Satisfaction answers "do they like it?". Impact metrics, such as time to competence or error reduction, answer "does it work?", and we cover them in our guide on which training metrics to report to leadership.
None answers "is what we teach still correct?". And that's the question an ISO or IFS audit will ask, or a labour inspector after an incident. ISO 9001 requires monitoring the processes of the management system and controlling changes to documented information,¹ and training is one of those processes.
Measuring catalog currency doesn't replace measuring learning: it comes first. An outdated course with great learning results teaches something well that is no longer true.
These six metrics are calculated with data almost every company already has: the course list, the document management system and completion records from the LMS or training tool.
The days between a procedure change being approved and the updated training being published. It's the metric that best sums up catalog health, because it measures the gap during which people work with information different from what they were taught. Calculate it for each change and report the median for the period.
Of the courses with a review date in the period, how many were reviewed before that date. It requires having first assigned each course a review date, based on what makes it expire and any legal deadlines that apply.
How many courses have someone from operations, health and safety or quality assigned who answers for the content being correct. A course without an owner is a course nobody will review, so this metric predicts how the previous two will evolve.
How many courses state which procedure, rule or product sheet they come from, and in which version. Without that link, when a document changes nobody knows which courses are affected.
Of the people affected by a procedure change, what percentage has already completed the updated version of the course. It's the difference between "the course is updated" and "people are updated". Measure it per change, per site and per shift, because that's where the gaps appear.
Published courses that nobody has been assigned or completed in a year. They are usually obsolete training nobody dared to retire. Shrinking the catalog is also maintaining it: every surplus course is one more course to review.
They aren't bad metrics, but they don't tell you whether the catalog is up to date and often give a false sense of control:
The six metrics fit on one page reviewed once a month. This is an example of how it could look for a company with six sites:
| Metric | This month | Internal target | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time from change to training (median) | 21 days | Under 15 days | Two warehouse procedures took over a month |
| Courses reviewed on time | 78% | 95% | Delays concentrated in product courses |
| Courses with a content owner | 64% | 100% | Owners missing for quality courses |
| Courses linked to document and version | 52% | 100% | Legacy catalog still to be linked |
| Coverage of the latest procedure change | 81% | 100% before doing the task | Night shift at site 4 below 60% |
| Courses unused in 12 months | 37 | Review and retire |
The values are illustrative: each company has to set its own targets. What matters is the reading column, because each row points to a concrete action: assign owners, link courses, reinforce a shift or retire surplus training.
Change coverage is the hardest metric to calculate when records are scattered. When training is delivered and recorded from one place, as Vidext does with its person-by-person completion record, that figure can be read directly by site and by shift.
The director in the example had courses, hours and completions, but couldn't tell whether training was up to date. With six metrics calculated from data that already exists, the answer fits on one page and points to where to act.
You don't need to measure everything from the first month. Starting with an owner for each course and the time from change to training already gives a clear picture of the catalog, and the other metrics can be added as courses are linked to their documents.
The time from when a procedure change is approved until the updated training is published. It directly measures the period during which people work with a procedure different from the one they were taught.
Measuring currency checks that the course content is still correct. Measuring learning checks that people have understood it and apply it. They're complementary, but currency comes first: learning outdated content well doesn't help.
Once a month is enough for most companies. Coverage of a specific change is worth tracking week by week until it reaches 100% of the people affected, especially if the change relates to safety.
Review them with their content owner and decide whether to update, merge or retire them. Keep the record of who completed them, as it may be needed for an audit even if the course is no longer delivered.
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Programme to promote permanent employment of qualified young people within the framework of the National Youth Guarantee System. Vidext has received a grant of €25,401 awarded by LABORA (Valencian Employment and Training Service) for the permanent hiring in 2024 of qualified young person(s) registered in the National Youth Guarantee System, an action eligible for co-financing by the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) 2021-2027 or any other European Union fund. Expediente ECOGJU/2024/550/46. This publication is made in compliance with the transparency obligations established by Spanish Law 19/2013 of 9 December.
