Online Health and Safety Training

We looked at on-line training, but with over 250 employees on site we went for an interactive CD from CRONER. This is basic induction training only!

All the flavors of computer mediated training (on line, CBT, etc.) have great potential for getting information across consistently and effectively. There are numerous sources for computer mediated safety training, and they can vary dramatically in effectiveness. There is no clear way of knowing, before hand, whether particular titles are effective or not. As a minimum, training should include pretests and post tests – otherwise you have no basis for measuring if people are really learning things. Before buying, you should read through the test questions. Often they are so easy that you could pass the test with simple common sense and good test-taking skills. That is a good sign that the training is ineffective.

Not too long ago, I custom-developed training materials for all the OSHA-required training subjects (and some not required) for a manufacturing plant with about 2000 people. I was able to demonstrate that I could train people in half the time or less, as compared to the existing process, which involved off-the-shelf materials, followed by stand up training to supplement and correct the standard materials. (The standard materials were not necessarily "wrong" for some other plant – they were simply wrong for this plant. For instance, in this plant, tagout alone was never permissible; lockout was always required in addition to tagging. Therefore, the off-the-shelf materials had to be corrected, and that correction was not always effective, because the trainee had seen tagout being used on the videotape, and was more likely to remember what has been seen versus what has been said.)

Although these materials were relatively expensive to produce, the payback was fairly quick (only about 1.5 years, if I remember correctly) because there were so many people to be trained on so many subjects.

For this particular plant, as much as 2/3 of the material presented in some of the off-the-shelf training tapes was simply not applicable. Putting people though training like that, only to have to correct and supplement it can be very costly, not to mention ineffective. For this plant, putting all the people through one hour of training cost about $60,000, so you can see that there are large potential savings, as well as improved effectiveness and improved compliance, it the training fits the plant. OSHA will look favorably, too, on training that is clearly job-specific.

Also remember that certain subjects can not be taught to OSHA's satisfaction via entirely electronic content. A lockout must be demonstrated by the trainee on actual equipment, and certain types of PPE must also be donned and doffed, etc.

This sounds like a sales pitch, but I am no longer in that business. You may be able to develop your own training materials – they don't need to be slick, just concise and specific, with good tests. Better a good, job-specific Powerpoint than a fluffy standardized presentation. Certainly, not all off-the-shelf materials are bad, but you must chose carefully and weight the total cost of training.

I'm not familiar with the website you cite, but since it has CA at the end of the domain name, it is registered in Canada. This might be an issue if you are looking for safety training materials compliant with US OSHA. I used safety training materials from www.TheSafetyDoctor.com (online, Video/DVD/CD Rom and Spanish) and have found them to be very good.

Are you looking for specific health & safety training. There's a lot out there. Is it a price or quality decision. I've been OSHA certified as a hazardous site worker for many years and have seen good, bad & ugly training programs.