Competency-based, web-based EHS training:

To meet the myriad safety training requirements in today’s regulatory environment, EHS managers commit substantial time, effort, and resources to ensure their employees receive all the environmental and safety courses required.  Regardless of whether they choose to rely solely on: conventional platform safety courses; distributive safety training courses; web-based training courses; or blended training - all too often, it is forgotten that training, in itself, is not the objective, but simply a means to achieving that objective.  The real objective is to ensure that employees obtain the knowledge, skills, and abilities (or competencies) necessary to address the EHS risks to which they are exposed.   It is not enough to ensure they attend the safety courses, but the employee must learn and retain the safety information to ensure real personnel safety and environmental performance.   

The EHS training requirements found in most OSHA, EPA, and DOT regulations are performance-based, rather that prescriptive.  That is to say that these requirements specify a required outcome.  In the case of the EHS training requirements the specified outcome is that the employee learns.   As such, a record that the employee attended safety training courses, viewed a web presentation on a safety issue, or even passed a test, is not evidence of compliance.  In fact, OSHA regulators will routinely determine compliance with the Hazard Communication training requirements by interviewing employees to determine if they have received the health and safety competencies to levels appropriate to the hazards to which they are exposed in the workplace. Similarly, DOT defines HAZMAT training as ... a systematic program that ensures a hazmat employee has familiarity with the general provisions of this subchapter is able to recognize and identify hazardous materials, has knowledge of specific requirements of this subchapter applicable to functions performed by the employee, and has knowledge of emergency response information, self-protection methods and procedures.†

All SafetySkills™ web-based EHS training courses are natively-built specifically to verify that the learner has obtained a defined competency. The web-based courses are structured with four primary components: (1) a well-defined competency; (2) those terminal and enabling learning objectives determined to ensure that the competency is achieved; (3) effective learning content to meet those learning objectives; and (4) a validation component that demonstrates that the learner achieved the defined competency.


It is true that most EHS training courses include quizzes, exams, or some other means to provide evidence that the learner received the safety training.   Current instructional systems design approaches require that the test verifies that learning objectives be met.   Successfully, passing the test demonstrates that the learner grasped the safety concepts, or met the learning objectives that the instructional systems designer intended.  The learning objectives, however, are only indirectly linked to the competencies, the ultimate purpose of the training.   Consequently, these tests do not verify that the learner achieved the competency intended, only that they attended the safety courses.  Only if the training is specifically designed to provide a mechanism to demonstrate competencies, is there any real evidence that that individual has achieved the competencies required to meet the organizations EHS challenges.


† 49 CFR Subpart H-Training §172.700