A few years ago, BLR and the National Environmental, Safety and Health Training Association (NESHTA) surveyed 828 professionals involved in EHS training to profile their responsibilities and current training practices, and the challenges they must overcome to effectively train employees.
Many of these issues still ring true and are more pressing, especially things like budgeting constraints. However, some, such as security from terrorism, while still an important issue, may not rank as high as it did a few years ago.
We’ve outlined what they found. Are these still the top EHS training challenges? Let us know what you think E-mail Kelly Lagana at klagana@blr.com.
Most Challenging EHS Topics to Prepare and Present
The 6 most challenging topics, from a list of 18, in order of difficulty (most difficult first) are:
- Good management practices
- Security from terrorism and workplace violence
- Chemicals management
- Hazard communication
- Hazardous waste
- Emergency planning and response
The emergency planning and response topic was connected by many survey respondents to terrorism/security, HAZWOPER, fire safety, and other topics, and therefore, in some cases, it may be equally or more challenging to train than topics listed as more difficult.
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The 12 other topics were (in order of difficulty): corporate policies, air issues, state-specific programs, fire safety, personal protective equipment, HAZWOPER, bloodborne pathogens, fall protection, pollution prevention, transportation, water issues, and asbestos.
Factors that Make It Hard to Achieve Training Objectives
Survey respondents identified the five most challenging social/economic factors to overcome for effective training:
- Budgeting
- Scheduling
- Time
- Employee acceptance
- Management support
Almost half of all survey respondents reported that time constraints, inadequate budget allocations, and getting employees to the training sessions (scheduling) are extremely or very challenging factors to conducting effective training. Many respondents commented that these problems are linked to the level of management support.
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Other challenging factors were (in order of difficulty): production requirements, rule/policy changes, employee turnover, quality of training products and services, recordkeeping/documentation, facility-specific obstacles, corporate policies, state/local requirements, customizing training tools, and insurance companies.
Challenges by Occupation
The survey yielded the degree of challenge of certain topics by the following primary occupation of the trainer:
- Consultants were more challenged by corporate policies and air and water quality issues than the average for all respondents, and far less challenged by chemicals management and hazard communication than all other responders.
- Engineers considered emergency planning and response the top subject matter challenge, and the good management practices subject was significantly less challenging than many other subjects.
- EHS personnel considered hazardous waste management and air issues the most difficult subjects to train.
- Executives or CEOs considered emergency planning and response the most difficult subject to train, and corporate policies and fire safety/evacuation the least difficult.
Are these still the most pressing EHS training issues? If not, what are? E-mail Kelly Lagana at klagana@blr.com. In tomorrow’s Advisor, how to make the most of your online training program, plus an introduction to a training tool that will let your employees train on demand.