Reviewing Existing Training Courses Before Renewing Them in Saudi Arabia

Renewal season rarely feels like a decision. A provider sends next year’s quotation, the course has run for three years, the feedback forms are positive, and nobody has complained. In many Saudi organizations, existing training courses are renewed with a signature and a purchase order, because renewing looks like the safe and efficient choice.

Yet the work those training courses were bought for may have moved on. A new system went live, a procedure was rewritten, the people attending are now more experienced than the original target group, or the sessions still spend most of their time on slides while the team needs hands-on practice. None of this appears in a satisfaction score.

This guide is for HR and learning teams that want to review training courses before the renewal decision rather than after it. It covers four checks: whether the syllabus still matches the job, whether the content is current, how much practice the course includes, and whether it is pitched at the level the role requires. Together they give you a clear, defensible basis to renew, renew with changes, replace or stop.

Why Good Feedback Scores Are Not Enough to Renew Training Courses

Most decisions to renew training courses rely on the evidence that is easiest to collect: attendance, completion, and end-of-course ratings. These records are useful, but they answer a narrow question. In the Kirkpatrick Model, Level 1 measures how favorable participants find the experience, while Level 3 measures the degree to which they perform the critical behaviors in their work environment. Training courses can score well on the first and still change very little on the second.

Training research points the same way. In a review of training science summarized by the Association for Psychological Science, Salas and colleagues note that what happens before and after training is just as important for program success, and that employers should make sure transfer has occurred and evaluate their training methods for possible improvements. A renewal review is a natural moment for that kind of training evaluation.

Before you meet the provider, gather four kinds of evidence for each of the training courses on your renewal list:

• The current materials: syllabus, participant workbook, trainer slides, exercises, and the final assessment.

• One live or recorded session, observed by someone who knows the job well.

• A short conversation with three to five recent participants about what they have used since.

• Input from supervisors on the tasks where errors or requests for help still appear.

Keep the effort proportionate. For short training courses, an hour with the materials and one supervisor conversation is usually enough; a training program that runs for many cohorts each year deserves a closer look.

Check 1: Does the Syllabus Still Match the Job?

Place the syllabus next to a short list of the tasks the target role performs today. Mark each module as still needed, needs changing, or no longer relevant. Then look from the other direction: which current tasks, decisions or recurring problems does the syllabus not cover at all? Corporate training courses bought several years ago often miss exactly the part of the job that has changed most.

Read the learning outcomes of your training courses closely. Vague outcomes such as ‘understand the principles of customer service’ make it hard to judge relevance or results. For online learning, the National eLearning Center’s eLearning standards call for precise, clear, and measurable learning outcomes for each course, shared with learners at the start. The same discipline helps with classroom training courses: if you cannot say what participants should be able to do at the end, you cannot tell whether the course still serves the job.

If the review shows that nobody can explain why the course was bought in the first place, step back and build a fresh brief from a specific performance problem before renewing anything.

Check 2: Is the Content Still Current?

The currency of training courses is easy to assume and quick to test. Look for the details that date a course: screenshots of systems you have replaced, references to procedures or internal policies that have changed, forms that no longer exist, examples taken from other markets or sectors, and terms your teams no longer use. Training courses built around a specific system or procedure tend to date fastest.

Ask the provider when each module was last revised, what changed, and who approved the change. A provider who keeps a revision history can answer quickly. The NeLC standards treat this as part of eLearning quality: they call for accurate, comprehensive, and current digital content, and for systematic, periodic reviews of eLearning content and practices according to a clear plan. Even if your training courses are delivered in a classroom, the same expectation is reasonable to bring to a renewal discussion.

Where updates are needed, agree who pays for them, how quickly they will be made, and whether your organization may reuse the revised materials. Our guide to comparing update costs and reuse rights covers those questions in more detail.

Check 3: How Much Practice Is Built In?

Many training courses are strong on explanation and light on doing. Take the session timetable and the exercise list and estimate how much time participants spend practicing the actual task: making decisions on realistic cases, completing real forms, handling a simulated conversation or troubleshooting a scenario, and then receiving feedback on their attempt.

Three questions help you judge the quality of that practice:

• Are exercises built from situations your employees meet at work, or from generic examples that could fit any company?

• Does every participant practice, or do a few volunteers perform while the rest watch?

• Does the final assessment check performance, or only recall of facts and definitions?

Weak answers do not always mean the course should go. Often the better option is to renew on condition that more practice is added. For online modules, the same principle applies, and our article on testing whether Saudi eLearning moves employees from viewing to practice sets out a simple way to compare the two designs.

Check 4: Is the Course Pitched at the Required Level?

A course can be accurate, current and practical, and still sit at the wrong level. The revised version of Bloom’s Taxonomy, summarized by Colorado College, describes six levels of cognitive learning: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate and create. It also notes that certain verbs suit particular levels, which makes the learning outcomes a quick test. Outcomes that ask participants to ‘list’ or ‘describe’ sit lower than outcomes that ask them to ‘apply’, ‘analyze’ or ‘evaluate’.

Compare that level with what the role actually demands. A new customer service agent may need to apply a procedure correctly; a team leader handling escalations needs to analyze a case and judge between options. Then check who really attends. Training courses designed for new joiners often fill up with experienced staff who sit through content they already know, while advanced sessions sometimes reach people who are still missing the basics.

Language is part of the level question in many Saudi workplaces. If training courses are delivered in English while the work, the systems, and the customers operate mainly in Arabic, or the reverse, check whether participants can follow, discuss, and practice comfortably in the delivery language.

A Hypothetical Example: A Saudi Logistics Company Reviews Its Training Courses

The following example is hypothetical and is included only to show how the four checks work together.

A logistics company with warehouses in Riyadh and Dammam has six training courses due for renewal. The learning team starts with the two-day inventory control course for warehouse team leaders, because it reaches the most people. Feedback averages are high, and the provider has offered to renew on the same terms.

The review tells a different story. The syllabus covers receiving, storage, and cycle counting, but has no module on investigating stock discrepancies, the problem supervisors mention most often. The materials still show the paper count sheets the company replaced with handheld scanners. Around two hours of the two days involve exercises, mostly a quiz. And the outcomes are written for new clerks, such as ‘describe the cycle count process’, while team leaders are expected to investigate discrepancies and decide on corrective action.

The team does not cancel the course. It asks the provider to replace the paper-based content with the scanner workflow, add a half-day of discrepancy cases based on anonymized company examples, rewrite the outcomes at the analysis level, and replace the quiz with a case assessment. It renews for one year, with the changes agreed in writing and a supervisor review of discrepancy handling planned three months after the next cohort. The remaining five training courses go through the same review before their own renewal dates.

Turning the Review into a Renewal Decision

Summarize the four checks on a single page for each course, with the evidence behind every judgment. Most training courses then fall into one of four decisions:

• Renew as is: the syllabus matches the job, the content is current, practice is substantial, and the level fits.

• Renew with changes: the core is sound, but specific updates, exercises, or outcomes need to change. List them in the contract or purchase order, with dates.

• Replace: two or more checks fail, and the corporate training provider cannot address them within a reasonable time.

• Pause or stop: the need has disappeared or is now covered another way, for example through on-the-job coaching or an internal module.

Whatever you decide, record what you will look at next time. Agreeing in advance on the evidence for the next renewal, such as a supervisor observation or a sample of completed work, turns renewal from a routine signature into a regular quality check on your training courses.

Summary

Positive feedback and steady attendance show that a course is running, not that it still fits the job. Before renewing existing training courses, check the syllabus against current tasks, test whether the content is current, look at how much real practice the course includes, and confirm that it targets the level the role requires.

The review does not need to be heavy. A few hours of evidence per course, gathered before the renewal conversation, lets you renew with confidence, negotiate specific changes, or move the budget to training courses that serve the work your teams do today.

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