Off-the-shelf compliance training courses are a good way to keep staff up to speed in general health and safety in the workplace. They’re not quite as useful to those industries that have unique work environments, however, as businesses in such areas will have additional hazards they must train employees on.
Compliance training ensures that your staff engage in the specific industry regulations that apply to their workplace. If you’re using a generic training course in a work environment with unique risks, there’s a good chance you’re failing to comply with industry-specific regulations. If that’s the case, your compliance training will not meet the requirement of your relevant regulatory authority. That’s why you should customise an off-the-shelf course to your needs or, better yet, create a bespoke training course.
Are your training requirements unique?
So what exactly constitutes a “unique work environment”? Let’s use a museum as an example. Museum workers might come across hazardous chemicals, the remains of dead animals, or dangerous fungi in a single afternoon. That very short three-item list in itself presents a whole host of health risks; risks that are unlikely to be relevant for the average office worker. In this sense, it’s only logical that a museum worker and an office worker should have different compliance training.
This is the core of what we mean by “unique workplace environment”. Chances are, you’ll already know whether or not this term applies to you. As a rule of thumb, ask yourself whether the hazards of your place of work go beyond the potential hazards of an office environment. If you answered yes, then you will likely benefit from a bespoke training course, developed by Safetrac in conjunction with subject matter experts such as legal experts from MinterEllison law firm.
Do your compliance requirements change often?
Custom-made, industry-specific training courses are also hugely beneficial to organisations in industries that see frequent changes to regulations. When the measures of compliance change, your organisation needs to change too. A custom-made training program is yours, one which you can brand, edit and update when required. More rigid, off-the-shelf products don’t always allow for the same flexibility to be altered.
What kind of knowledge gaps can custom or bespoke courses fill?
Bespoke or custom made training courses aren’t simply for workplace health and safety. Safetrac can create courses around particular topics relevant to your workplace such as environment, role or occupation. Further, they can customise those courses to accurately reflect things such as your code of conduct, policies and internal procedures. In this sense, you’re able to ensure your entire team is trained in what they need to know to comply with the law.
This can serve to reduce overall training times, and ensure the information is more readily absorbed as the training is completely relevant and useful to the individual. When this is the case, it serves to reduce the potential for errors based on lack of knowledge, poor decisions, or careless behaviour. Whatever information your staff need to do their jobs well, we can build a course that delivers it.
What are the other benefits of custom compliance courses?
In addition to ensuring your staff have sufficient knowledge to mitigate risk in the workplace, custom tailored compliance courses have additional benefits.
1) Elimination of extraneous content
Custom designed courses cut to the chase. You can integrate relevant business cases and examples, and eliminate anything that is superfluous or irrelevant to your business. Design and create an entire course around your specific training goals so employees don’t waste time with content that isn’t necessary. This can significantly reduce training times, and therefore help boost workplace productivity.
2) Better staff engagement and knowledge retention
Implementing business use cases keeps things relatable to your staff. They are far more likely to engage in a training course if they can clearly see how it relates to their daily tasks. This, in turn, helps them contextualise new ideas or methodologies, understanding not just the theory of the training, but how it will be put into practice.
3) Frees up staff resources
For businesses with unique work environments, off-the-shelf compliance training courses won’t work. The alternative would be to build one yourself, however this is fairly costly (in terms of staff resources and funding). A recent paper from HubSpot outlined how building your own training courses can take up to 185 hours. This is a considerable investment of time, regardless of the size of your organisation. Outsourcing your custom training courses to an industry expert can significantly free up your staff resources.
4) They’re accredited
Compliance training courses created by Safetrac can be checked by subject matter experts such as MinterEllison. Engage legal subject matter experts across all manner of industries to ensure courses are compliant with the relevant legislation and include only the best, most relevant content. The bespoke courses can come with the peace of mind that they’re reviewed by experts.
Failure to comply with your industry’s regulations is a problem to best avoid. Safetrac has been providing compliance training solutions to Australian and New Zealand businesses for 20 years. Not once during that 20 year period has a Safetrac client who regularly rolls out its training been found to have an inadequate training program in place. That record is what sets Safetrac apart from the competition. It’s one thing to role out a compliance program and tick-a-box. It is quite another thing to roll out a program that suits your organisation, your staff, and is up to date with the legal requirements for compliance in your industry.
Whether you’re blowing glass in a 1200 degree kiln, hyperbaric welding 100 metres below sea level, or studying rare diseases, Safetrac has the know-how to keep you on top of your compliance training obligations for many years to come.
Get in touch with us today to discuss how we can train your staff and protect your brand and bottom line.
