For quite some time, the SAFETYSYNC safety management system has allowed employees and administrators to print a wallet card or wall certificate that lists all the courses which were covered in each employee's basic safety awareness training.

Our system now allows administrators at our oil and gas industry clients to include the crest which states that they are a member of the Enform IRP 16 Registry.  [Our software helps companies with compliance and preparing the self-declaration - but this is a topic for another blog post.]

After receiving your certificate from Enform, upload it to the "Documentation / Credentials" component choosing type "IRP 16 Registry (Basic Safety Awareness Training)".

This will automatically add the "Proud Member of the IRP 16 Registry" crest to the certificates when they print.  We recommend employees carry these cards when accessing most oil company sites (see list of producers supporting IRP 16).  These certificates are particularly important, now that Enform is no longer issuing hard hat stickers.
 

Administrators can now choose whether a line for the worker's signature is added to the certificates and wallet cards when they print.  In the administrator portal, go to 'Monitoring', then 'Components' in the menu.  Click on 'Safety Awareness Training'; this will bring up the settings for the component.  The last setting at the bottom of the list is new:


The default setting is 'No', meaning that unless the user is printing a TDG certificate, there will only be a spot for the employer's signature.  This is generally more convenient since the worker or an administrator can reproduce the signed certificate at any time from within the system (assuming the employer's signature has been uploaded).  If you choose to add a spot for the worker's signature, reproducing the certificate would mean having to get the certificate in the hands of the worker, then filing away a signed copy (which can be made easier with our certificate tracking module).

Regardless of the setting, a spot for the worker's signature will always be added to Transportation of Dangerous Goods certificates.  This is simply because this requirement is clearly stated in the TDG regulations.

We have been working closely with the folks at Energy Services BC on a number of initiatives to help educate oil and gas contractor employees on some of the local issues in Northeastern BC.  Aboriginal Awareness training is a subject that many in the region feel is an area for possible improvement.  We have developed a short course and will make it available to all companies operating in the area.

For many service companies, Aboriginal Awareness training is simply a requirement of doing business in the North.  Aboriginal Awareness training is one of the pre-qualification questions in ISNetworld for Cenovus (and possibly other ISN owner clients):

 
Rather than answer "No" to the question, instead enable this course in SAFETYSYNC for your employees and supervisors.  The course is 29 minutes, divided into three lessons:

1. Aboriginal Peoples and their Origins
2. Civilizations, Cultures and Beliefs
3. Politics and Economics

Each lesson is followed with a quiz which tests each worker's comprehension of the material (9, 15 and 18 questions respectively).  As with all our courses, administrators have the choice to specify the pass rate, choose quiz questions, etc.

Please review the course if you feel it applies to your operations.  You can either leave feedback after the quiz, or make suggestions in the blog for each lesson in the Company Administration portal.

Just a quick update to let our client safety management system administrators know that we've added the link to WorkSafe Alberta's eLearning module on Ice Roads called Working Safety on Ice.

I realize it's May already and that all of 2010's ice roads have probably already melted!  The link and quiz are now in the system in case you plan on working on ice roads in the future.  The lesson can be found in the 'Safe Driving Practices' course.

It is not enabled by default, so if your employees work on ice roads in the winter, don't forget to turn it on by checking the box next to "Ice Roads".

Proving to an auditor (and a court in the event of an accident) that employees were trained on the hazards present in the workplace has historically been a challenge for safety administrators.  This is because:

  1.  Training records are not always kept, and
  2.  There is no proof the employee understood
       the material

That all changes with the new reporting feature we've made available in the online training module.  Administrators can now print the quiz results for every lesson taken by an employee.  It not only shows the employee's score (as compared to the requirement), but also the answer chosen for each question in the quiz.  The quiz questions shown will always reflect the quiz taken by the employee at the time, regardless of whether you subsequently add or remove questions from the lesson quiz.

If you use SAFETYSYNC to deliver your online training, your recordkeeping will happen automatically, and will always be available to prove due diligence!

We've been asked a few times by customers how they can use SAFETYSYNC to ensure compliance with Ontario's new law on Workplace Violence and Harassment, Bill 168.  There are two elements of the law that require attention: policy and training.

WORKPLACE VIOLENCE POLICY
All companies must have a Workplace Violence Policy "posted prominently" by June 15, 2010.  If you don't already have a Workplace Violence Policy, you might consider developing one or hiring an OH&S consultant to help you with this process.  Once the policy has been approved for distribution, load it into the SAFETYSYNC company administration portal as a new policy (under Documentation / Policies in the menu), by clicking "Add Policy".  

 

We have a template workplace violence policy, however most clients start with a blank policy. Policies can be typed, copied and pasted, or uploaded as pdf documents.  After you've saved your first version, assign the policy to EVERY position in your orgainization by clicking "Select All" in the "Required" column of the Positions tab.

Employees will be sent an email at the reminder interval you've specified, with a link to the outstanding policy.  They will be required to acknowledge the new Workplace Violence Policy to maintain their 100% compliance with your safety program.

WORKPLACE VIOLENCE TRAINING
All companies must now train their employees ANNUALLY on how to recognize signs of violence and harassment, as well as how to respond and deal with those situations.  We have two lessons on Workplace Violence in SAFETYSYNC (under the Violence and Security course):

 Workplace Violence Awareness (10 mins)
 Workplace Violence Prevention and Response (5 mins)

We recommend turning on both lessons, but as with all our courses, the lessons you choose are completely customizable.  The course can be assigned to employees by making it "Required" for all positions.

Alternatively, if a company has another training video which they've licensed or discovered elsewhere online, it can be uploaded or linked accordingly.

By default, a number of quiz questions will be assigned for the two lessons, along with a pass rate of 80%.  Feel free to add or remove questions, and adjust the pass rate.

Last but not least, go into the course settings, and set the expiry for the course to "1 year".  Employees will have to re-take the course annually to remain compliant with Bill 168.

New laws passed in the new year in British Columbia and Saskatchewan are placing some consequences behind a couple of activities that police departments, insurance companies and some devastated families have known for some time.  Using your cell phone and texting can distract drivers and cause horrible accidents.

In order to help convey the importance of these issues, we have made two safety awareness videos available on the topic and developed a quiz to test workers' knowledge of the materials.

The first video, and the version we recommend you make available to your employees is "The Reggie Shaw Story".  It was developed by the Utah State Government, and it reenacts the events of a real accident in which the texting by a college student while driving cost the lives of two scientists who were on their way to work.  The video interviews all the surviving parties involved (including Reggie in prison), police and paramedics who attended the scene, the prosecutor and judge who were involved in the case, as well as the family members of the victims.  The video is highly informative, including a scientific comparison with driving while under the influence of alcohol.

The other video, developed by the Gwent Police in the UK, is of a fictional accident (and aftermath) caused by a young woman who texted while driving.  This video is extremely graphic, showing the accident in slow motion from various people's perspectives, including a young infant.  It even shows a victim's neck snapping.  Although less informative than the Utah State video, it will certainly stay in your memory for a long time!

Please take a few minutes to review each video and decide which version best conveys the anti-texting and cell phone message to your employees that drive on a regular basis.  Both versions are found under Texting, Cell Phones and Other Distractions under the Safe Driving Practices Course.  If you have already assigned the Safe Driving Practices course to the various positions in your company, you only need to check off the new lesson to make it available to your workers.

We get this question A LOT.

If you're a user of online learning, of any kind, you're probably used to the narrator listing the topics to be discussed in the lesson, and then again as a summary at the end of the lesson.  Our lessons are developed this way too, because like any advanced developer, we follow adult learning principles, which says to do just that.

That being said, we appreciate that listing the topics is redundant with the content, and does add to the length of the training.  So with this in mind, we've added some neat functionality that allows administrators to automatically skip the Lesson Topics and Lesson Summary slides, saving 30 seconds or more per lesson.  If time is at a premium in your organization, you may want to look at this feature.

Simply navigate to the course in the Company Administration portal (under TRAINING / COURSES).  Click on the course in question to open the Course Details screen.  On the "Settings" tab, scroll down to the 8th setting ("List the lesson topics..."), and click the radio button next to "No".  Then save your changes.

H1N1 and business continuity in the event of a pandemic are very hot topics at the moment.  Many of our customers have been using the Safety Bulletin feature within SafetySync to remind employees of sick leave policies, hand washing protocols and various other best practices that can help prevent the spread of diseases within your organizations.  You may want to supplement these bulletins and policies with some training.

We've recently produced a lesson within the Emergency Preparedness and Response course called "Pandemics".  This course summarizes a lot of the information being distributed by CDC in the United States and by Health Canada.  Topics include:
                          What is a Pandemic?
                          Preparing for Pandemics
                          Signs of the Flu and H1N1
                          What to Do if You Become Sick
                          Preventing the Spread of Viruses
                          Business Continuity Planning

Offering this 13 minute lesson to your employees might just keep a few people from becoming sick, and missing a significant amount of work.  We also have a great video produced by the Center for Disease Control on "Infections and Hand Washing" in the "Health and Wellness" course.

Stay healthy everyone!

We've recently begun adding OSHA safety training videos to our library.  OSHA have developed over a dozen of these videos over the past few decades and recently made them available for download on their website as a public service.  Some of the topics are highly relevant to safety awareness training, including Bloodborne Pathogens, the first OSHA lesson our software will now track.

The video is long (22 minutes) and is a bit dated; it was produced back in the early 1990's at the height of the AIDS scare.  It is nonetheless useful for any workers that may be expected to perform first aid on an injured employee.

If you would like to check out the video, or if you'd like to add it to your safety awareness training program, administrators can find it under the Health and Wellness course.

Other OSHA videos that are tracked on our system include: Musculoskeletal Disorders and Ergonomics, Cranes Supervision, Fall Protection Equipment, and Ground Fall Protection.