How do you decide what type of internal and external safety training or online WHS training, your team need? It can be a challenge to make sure you are picking the right safety training for each team member, and ensuring your employees get the most benefit from the safety training.One key method to ensure you have detailed the right safety training for your organisation is to complete a training need analysis, and training gap analysis.
The purpose of this is, WHS Training has a specific goal of developing employees’ competence, capacity, efficiency and performance in workplace. It is one of the most effective ways to ensure health and safety is incorporated across organisations by setting a minimum standard expected from all employees and change the attitude towards safety.
Training is the foundation for workplace safety, which is as vital as workplace safety itself. Therefore, it should be provided as per the need for the employees to build the competence. This will be enhancing skills to enable employees to do their job at their level best and at the same time taking care of their health and safety.
WHS Training Need Analysis (WHS Gap Analysis)
It is defined as “the gap between the skills and knowledge which a job demands, and those which are currently possessed by the employee”. It is a process that a business goes through in order to determine all the safety training that needs to be completed by their teams.
Stages of Training Need Analysis (WHS Gap Analysis)
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Identify WHS Skill Sets
The initial stage is to choose on the safety skill sets that you want all your team members to have in order to do their jobs safely. This means looking at all job roles within your business distinctly and bearing in mind things like the diverse sections or levels of seniority.
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Assess the Skills of Employees
The next stage is to identify all your employees and evaluate their current skill levels in relation to health and safety skills you have placed out in the initial stage. This will allow you to understand who is meeting your prospects, and who needs to complete further safety training in order to meet the anticipated expertise.
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Focus on the Safety Skills Gap
Lastly, once you know where you want your employees to be and the level they are at this time, you will without difficulty be able to see the gap that has appeared. Now you identified what the gap is, you need to use safety training to close the gap, and assure your team is at the highest level you expect them to be.
This enables the management to provide a safe and healthy work environment. It also enables workforce to understand best safety practices and expectations.
Benefits of providing safety and health TNA:
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Identify WHS Information Gaps Before They Become Problematic
One huge benefit of this process is the fact it can assist the business to identify any WHS information gaps the employees may have before it becomes an issue. It’s better to identify a potential problem and resolve it directly, rather than becoming aware of the WHS skills gap when a safety issue arises because of it.
This will allow the business to take a proactive approach rather than waiting for something to go wrong or prevent reactive approach.
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Sets Out a WHS Training Plan
Another benefit of this is, it will be easier to plan safety training for the upcoming years. Once the business identifies the skills gaps that exist in the business, and then all the employees who need additional safety training in certain areas, the business can pull together a plan which will cover the WHS skills gaps.
Rather than trying to speculate the type of safety training that will be most useful, or who needs to complete the training, it will be a strategic, organised and structured plan.
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Identify the Safety Training That Was Not Considered
It might be difficult to plan out a safety training schedule for a big organisation without completing an investigation on WHS training compliance requirements. Businesses might think that they know the type of safety and health training their team should be completing, but training needs analysis could identify the areas that the team needs training on that the business did not consider previously.
That’s why safety and health training needs analysis it is so useful because it can highlight training gaps that you may not have considered before and show that business need to start offering training in different areas to ensure your staff are performing their tasks safely.
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Ensures Health and Safety Training Targets the Right Areas
As it was mentioned previously, it’s significant to have definite details for adding training. Carrying out a training needs analysis and will allow the business to understand exactly what they need to focus on, but it will also identify the areas their team do not need any further training.
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Supports Employee Specific Training Sessions
Additional significant stage in planning training is to ensure the right people are in the right training courses. There is no point in making everyone in the business go to every single training session that is run. This is a major time and money cost for any business, and employees won’t be engaged with safety and health training programs if they are frequently attending training which is not suitable for them.
A TNA will enable business to conduct the right training for the right people. This will be confirming everyone has an individualised training plan, so employees get the most benefit possible.
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Supports the Business to Prioritise Training Needs
When it comes to planning out training, it can be a difficult task to decide which training programs are important. However, training needs analysis and can assist to identify the training which needs to be completed urgently, and which training can be conducted later.
Want an easy way to implement your WHS training program in your workplace? Contact WHS and Training Compliance Solutions. We will assist you to customise WHS learning for every employee, and monitor progress. Without doubt, we believe an emphasis on learning and development is more than worth it for the success of your employees and your organisation.
Acronyms / abbreviations:
- WHS – Work Health and Safety
- TNA- Training Need Analysis
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