How often should training be updated when the floor changes?

Most courses are not killed by one big change. They drift. A new screen on the register, a supplier who changed a product, a shortcut the team adopted because it works, a price list that moved. Nobody announces any of it as a process change, so nobody opens the course. New hires notice first. What they learned does not match what they see on their first shift, and they quietly decide the training is not worth taking seriously. Experienced staff stop noticing the gap at all, because they learned the new way on the job. The course keeps its completion numbers while it teaches something nobody does.

Run this check on any course that nobody has opened since it launched. Each row is a signal, where to find it, what it usually means and the decision it tends to point to. One signal is a reason to take a careful look. Several signals in the same course usually mean a rebuild.

There is no single interval that fits every course, so use two clocks: events and the calendar. OSHA's standard for powered industrial trucks shows both. OSHA's forklift standard requires refresher training after events such as unsafe operation, a near miss or a change in workplace conditions. The same OSHA standard requires an evaluation of each operator at least once every three years.

OSHA's hazard communication standard requires training at initial assignment and whenever a new chemical hazard enters the work area. Your own courses can follow the same logic. Update on every change that touches a step people are taught, and review everything else on a fixed date. Legal requirements like these stand on their own: Elvina does not replace mandatory compliance training or provide certification.

Decide by how much of the course still matches the work. The question is not how old the course is, but how far it sits from the floor today.

• Patch when a few steps, photos or answers are wrong and the structure still fits the job
• Rebuild when the job has changed so much that patching would leave a lesson nobody can follow
• Retire when the task is gone, and keep the completion records of everyone who took it
• Leave it when it still matches, and write the next review date on it

Every course needs one named owner and one review date, written where people can see them. The owner is usually the manager of the role, not the person who built the course. Their job is to run the staleness check on that date and after any change they hear about. They should also ask the people who train on shift which parts they skip. Without a name and a date, a course ages by default. Put the review dates on the same calendar as other upkeep, such as equipment service, so they come up without anyone having to remember them. When the owner of a course leaves the role, hand the course over with the role.

You do not have to audit everything at once. Start where a stale course costs the most, and work down the list one course at a time.

• Courses for the role you hire most often, because every new hire meets them
• Courses with safety or food handling steps, where a wrong step can hurt someone
• Courses that show screens, prices or products, since those change without notice
• Courses whose source has a newer version than the course itself

Some courses go stale faster than they need to, because the details that change are baked into the parts that are hardest to edit. Keep prices, screen layouts and product names out of videos, and put them in a job aid that is quick to update. Build each lesson from one named source, so a change in the source points straight to the lessons it affects. Date every lesson and every source. And keep lessons short: a short lesson is quick to check against the floor and quick to fix when it drifts.

A fictional bowling center built its front-desk course when it opened. Since then it has replaced its scoring system, changed its party packages and moved shoe rental to a kiosk. Nobody touched the course.

• The newest desk hire mentions that the course shows screens that no longer exist
• The manager runs the staleness check and finds old screens, a party package that was dropped and a quiz question about the old shoe counter
• The lane assignment lessons still match, so they stay, and the party lesson is rebuilt from the current package sheet
• The shoe counter lesson is retired, and each employee's record of completing it stays as it was
• The course gets an owner, the desk manager, and a review date before the next league season starts

Upkeep is easier when the course is built from a source you can update. In Elvina, keeping your sources in Company Knowledge is available now, and you give each one an owner and a date. When a source changes, a person can start a redraft of the affected lessons, job aids and quizzes in Creation Studio, which is available now.

Approval of the new version before your manager assigns it again on the Learning Platform is available now, and so is progress in the Web workspace. Elvina spotting drift on her own and running the review cycle for you is planned, not available today. Our team handles the redrafting with you on the platform today, and Elvina takes on more of the upkeep as each step is confirmed.

Measure how current your training is, not only how complete it is. A course everyone finished can still teach the wrong way.

• Courses with a named owner and a review date, out of all courses
• Days from a known change to an approved, reassigned update
• Times new hires report that the course does not match the work
• Quiz questions most people miss, checked against the current source
• Modules that trainers skip on shift

How often should training be updated? Use two clocks. Update right away when a change touches a step people are taught, and review every course on a fixed date even if nothing seems to have changed. No single interval fits every course, so set the date by how fast the work changes. Regulated training follows its own legal schedule, which your review date does not replace.

• What should I do when a course is out of date? Run a staleness check. Compare the course with the work as it is done today, ask new hires and shift trainers what does not match and check the source dates. Then patch, rebuild or retire it, and give it an owner and a review date.
• Should I delete an outdated course? Retire it rather than delete it. Keep the record of who completed it and when, because you may need to show what people were taught at the time. Point anyone who opens it to the current version, and decide whether the people who took the old course need the new one.

Public sources, checked on the date shown.

• OSHA 1910.178(l)(4): refresher training after unsafe operation, an accident or near miss, or changed conditions; operator evaluation at least every three years. Source: https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1910/1910.178 (checked 2026-10-02).
• OSHA 1910.1200(h)(1): hazard training at initial assignment and whenever a new chemical hazard is introduced into the work area. Source: https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1910/1910.1200 (checked 2026-10-02).