For training providers offering high-level coursework within the conformity assessment field, it’s important to keep your eye on what’s coming next. Students are hungry not only for current information but also ongoing developments pointing toward the future. These professionals, and the organizations that employ them, rely on you to help prepare them to manage and audit against the standards of today and tomorrow.
With that in mind, here are three trends in conformity assessment training that you’ll want to keep tabs on as we get deeper into 2026.
Trend 1: Updates to ISO 9001 and ISO 14001
These two standards are the most popular in the ISO management system world, and both are expected to be updated in 2026.
Although the language of ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 are still being finalized, certain general adjustments have already been acknowledged and should help drive your strategic direction and planning:
- Moving beyond the technical. Cultural elements, including practices around climate change and ethical management, will be explicitly incorporated into the language of standards. This will demand broader training for those implementing and auditing against ISO 9001 and ISO 14001.
- Understanding risks AND opportunities. Organizations that successfully use ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 know that thinking about risk is important, but it’s only half the battle—understanding how to manage opportunities is critical as well. The standards will now require such evidence, and your students will want to understand how this looks during implementation and/or auditing.
Trend 2: Best-in-class delivery
Remote work has innumerable processes for organizations large and small, in almost every sector.
Successful training providers will want to ensure that their coursework meets students where they are by keeping in mind these important evolving delivery processes:
- Hybrid and remote. Increasingly, remote work infrastructure is being built into organizational planning. Offering digital simulations and remote auditing tools help students learn how to manage their systems via distributed teams.
- On-demand micro-learning. To combat “training fatigue,” providers are offering flexible, modular online courses that allow employees to learn specific updates without full-day classroom sessions.
- Integrating soft skills. To accommodate the updated language of standards, training should now cover psychological safety and human factors, acknowledging that management systems are only as effective as the people operating them.
Trend 3: Supporting standard transition and ensuring compliance
Knowing the language updates to the new versions of the standards isn’t enough—to maximize benefit to students, trainers need to go a step beyond.
That means understanding how to help auditors and implementers understand how to update management systems as easily as possible to ensure maximum efficiency for registered organizations. Here are some best practices to consider:
- Mind the gap. Rather than generic training on the language of the standards, it’s recommended to focus on gap analysis workshops to help auditors and organizations understand how existing systems can most easily be adapted to fit 2026 requirements.
- Leadership first. Framers of ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 have focused on ensuring the support of top management for quite some time, but the forthcoming versions of the standards will underscore this requirement more strongly than ever. These leaders may require training to fully embrace and be able to demonstrate their commitment to the organizational context and culture.
- The future of compliance. Artificial intelligence is only growing in importance, particularly when it comes to management systems and conformity assessment. Therefore, providing some background information about AI governance via ISO/IEC 42001:2023, “Information technology—Artificial intelligence—Management system” will be necessary to help students fully understand risks and opportunities.
