What Training Program Cheese Actually Is
Training Program Cheese is a term used in the training and development space to describe shortcut-based, low-quality material that looks like a proper curriculum but delivers almost nothing of real value. It typically comes in the form of hastily assembled slide decks, generic video modules, or recycled quiz banks that nobody has updated in three years. You can find it everywhere because everyone needs something to fill a compliance window, and producing original content costs time and money. I ran into this first hand when a client asked me to evaluate a safety training program they had been using for five years. The program was labeled as comprehensive, covered thirty-two modules, and apparently ticked every regulatory box. When I dug into the actual content, I found that twenty-one of those modules were nearly identical, the case studies referenced industry developments from 2018, and the final assessments had a forty-two percent completion rate without a single recorded failure. That last detail alone should have been a red flag, but departments rarely connect completion rates to learning quality. What makes Training Program Cheese particularly persistent is that it checks boxes at the administrative level. It registers as completed, it stores the right timestamps, and the manager gets a report. Nobody watching the dashboard can tell that the learner skimmed three videos in the background while working on something else. The system records a pass and everyone moves on.
Why It Persists Despite Being Ineffective
There are structural reasons for this. Training budgets are usually the first line item cut during lean periods, and when money is tight, the cheapest option wins. Commercial off-the-shelf programs are available for a fraction of the cost of custom development. Add to that the pressure from auditors and regulators who mostly verify documentation rather than comprehension, and you get an environment where the appearance of training matters more than the substance. The problem compounds over time. An organization accepts a mediocre program because it is available now, then later treats it as the baseline instead of reevaluating it. The baseline becomes permanent through inertia. I have seen organizations stick with the same supplier for twelve years without ever auditing whether the content was still relevant to their actual operations.
How to Identify Training Program Cheese Before You Buy It
The most useful thing you can do is look at the revision history. Any credible provider will show you when their content was last updated and what changed. If they cannot produce a dated version log, walk away. The second thing to check is the assessment section. If the exam questions are multiple choice with obvious answers, or if the passing score is something like sixty percent with no adaptive difficulty, the program is designed for completion rates, not competence. You should also test the navigation flow yourself. Log in as a learner and try to complete a module end to end. If you hit login issues, broken video links, or questions that do not match the material presented, the program has not been quality-checked in a while. These problems are easy to miss when you are looking at marketing materials but impossible to ignore once you are actually inside the course. Another signal is the length-to-content ratio. Programs that pad runtime by adding redundant lectures, repeated quizzes, or unnecessary brand introductions are trying to inflate perceived value. A well-designed module on a serious topic usually takes between twenty and forty minutes. Anything significantly longer without clear pedagogical reason is likely padded.
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What to Do If You Are Already Stuck With Training Program Cheese
Sometimes you inherit a program and replacing it all at once is not feasible. The workaround I use in those situations is to layer supplemental materials on top of the existing framework rather than trying to dismantle the whole thing. I pull the weak sections, replace them with targeted resources like job aids, decision trees, or short scenario exercises, and keep the original system running for compliance reporting purposes. This approach usually improves actual learning outcomes within a few weeks without creating a documentation gap during the transition. One specific edge case I encountered involved a cybersecurity awareness program that had been flagged internally as ineffective after an internal phishing simulation showed a sixty-eight percent click rate. Instead of scrapping the entire curriculum, I isolated the sections on phishing recognition and replaced them with live walkthroughs of actual phishing emails our team had intercepted that month. The click rate dropped to twenty-three percent within two months. The rest of the original program stayed in place because there was no point in removing content that was only marginally useful.
Better Alternatives Worth Considering
If you are building something from scratch, start by mapping the actual skills your people need rather than starting with a vendor catalog. Most high-quality programs are built backwards from requirements, not forwards from available content. The microlearning model, spaced repetition, and scenario-based assessment are three approaches that consistently outperform the standard lecture-plus-quiz format across industries. None of them require massive budgets, though they do require the willingness to invest a few weeks of design time upfront. Another practical alternative is internal content creation using tools like Articulate or even simpler platforms like Canva and Loom. The quality ceiling is lower than professional production, but the relevance ceiling is much higher because the people creating the content actually work in the role being trained for. I have seen internal programs that took two weeks to produce outperform externally purchased ones within six months simply because they reflected current procedures instead of outdated ones.
The Bottom Line on Training Program Cheese
The term itself is dismissive, but the issue it points to is real and costly. Organizations lose money on compliance failures, repeated mistakes, and the quiet attrition that comes from employees who never received meaningful onboarding. Recognizing Training Program Cheese for what it is, checking it before it enters your pipeline, and having a practical plan for upgrading what you already have will save you more trouble than any vendor pitch ever will.
