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Start with the behaviors employees need to perform
Begin by asking what employees should recognize, decide, or do in situations that matter to your organization. For phishing, useful outcomes include recognizing a suspicious request, reporting it through the approved route, and knowing what to do after a suspected mistake. NIST’s small-business guidance poses the practical questions: “Do our employees know how to spot a phish?” and “Do our employees know how to report if they think they have fallen victim to a phishing attack?” It also asks whether employees receive regular training. NIST Small Business Cybersecurity: Human Resources and Training
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Translate those needs into observable learning objectives before comparing providers. For example: “Employees can identify an unexpected request for credentials and report it using our approved channel.” This makes it easier to judge whether a course or exercise supports the outcome, rather than selecting content because it is included in a package.
Use an ongoing program, not a one-off course
NIST SP 800-50 Rev. 1, published in September 2024, presents cybersecurity and privacy learning as a lifecycle program that organizations can tailor to their size, needs, and audiences. It supersedes the earlier SP 800-50 and SP 800-16 editions. Its stated aim is to encourage behavior change as part of risk management and help develop a privacy and security culture. NIST SP 800-50 Rev. 1
In practice, that means planning how learning will be delivered, evaluated, and refreshed—not simply recording whether employees completed a lesson. NIST includes suggested metrics and evaluation methods to help organizations assess and improve their programs. Revisit the content and approach as threats, employee needs, and organizational priorities change.
Segment employees by role and responsibility
Not every employee needs identical depth. Identify the audiences in scope and the responsibilities that affect their exposure or response duties. All relevant employees may need a shared baseline, while some groups may need additional instruction tied to their work. NIST’s lifecycle approach is customizable for different organizations and employee audiences; it does not prescribe one universal curriculum.
When assessing a training option, check whether it can serve the audiences you identified and support role-specific learning where needed. Ask how the provider handles your policies, reporting route, work context, and relevant threats. Confirm those capabilities in a demonstration and in the contract rather than assuming they are included.
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Use the same criteria for each option. These are practical buyer questions drawn from NIST’s lifecycle, audience, behavior-change, and evaluation guidance—not a NIST-published scoring rubric.
| What to compare | Questions to ask |
|---|---|
| Audience and role coverage | Can it serve all relevant employees and provide deeper or specialized learning for the roles you identified? |
| Risk and policy relevance | Can lessons reflect your actual threats, internal policies, reporting path, and work context? |
| Learning objectives | Can you connect the content to specific actions employees should know or perform? |
| Delivery and administration | Can you deliver and administer the program to your workforce at an appropriate cadence? Verify platform features directly with the provider. |
| Measurement and improvement | Can you evaluate more than completion, and use the results to adjust the program? |
| Phishing simulation interpretation | If simulations are included, can you account for message difficulty and explain how results will be used constructively? |
| Procurement fit | Have you checked applicable legal and contractual needs, security and privacy review, integrations, accessibility, support, and total cost for your circumstances? |
The available NIST guidance does not rank vendors or establish comparative prices or product capabilities. Validate those details with each provider and your own reviewers.
Follow a selection process before rollout
- Identify the risks and behaviors. Use internal policy and incident context to decide what employees need to recognize, report, or do.
- Define the audiences. Group employees by role and responsibility, and identify where additional depth is justified.
- Write observable objectives. Specify actions such as recognizing a suspicious request or reporting a suspected phish through the approved route.
- Choose program components. Decide which learning methods are appropriate. Awareness lessons and phishing exercises can be complementary; a simulation is not a substitute for teaching employees what to do.
- Evaluate providers. Use the comparison criteria above, review demonstrations, and verify capabilities and contractual details directly.
- Plan evaluation before launch. Choose learning and behavior indicators, not just completion tracking. If using phishing simulations, record message difficulty and context with the results.
- Review and improve. Use results and changing organizational needs to update the program over time.
Interpret phishing simulation results in context
A click rate alone is not a complete measure of employee proficiency or program effectiveness. The difficulty of a simulated message affects how likely a person is to detect it. NIST’s Phish Scale User Guide describes a method for rating the human difficulty of phishing emails used in awareness training. NIST SP 800-50 Rev. 1 NIST’s guidance on applying the Phish Scale explains why organizations should consider message difficulty when interpreting simulation outcomes. Using the Phish Scale to Assess Human Phishing Difficulty
When comparing outcomes across groups or over time, keep the message and audience context alongside the clicks. A raw rate cannot tell you whether a change reflects learning, a difference in message difficulty, or other circumstances. Decide in advance how results will guide supportive program improvements.
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Verify legal, security, and operational fit
Legal and contractual requirements depend on the employer’s jurisdiction and industry; general NIST guidance does not determine which rules apply to a particular organization. Have the appropriate legal, privacy, and security reviewers assess your circumstances. Separately confirm integration needs, accessibility, support, data handling, and total cost with the provider before committing.
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