Sustainability & Risk / Health & Safety / Background Data

Defining Training Program Requirements

Depending on the chemicals and equipment used at your site, your employees may be required to take periodic training and refresher training on handling these items. Some training programs may be required by law, while others you institute as a matter of good practice. Training programs can be related to specific equipment, substances, or PPE. Training programs can also be part of an overall safety plan, such as requiring all employees to periodically take first aid and CPR or review evacuation procedures.

While many training programs can be assigned based on job type (work category), some training may required for only specific employees. For example:

An employee has a specific role within the company that requires a training session. For example, an employee who is the liaison to the trade union might be required to yearly take a course on negotiation practices.
A workplace mishap (an incident) may occur which results in further training for a specific employee. For example, since the incident occurred because the employee didn't follow standard procedures, the employee needs to immediately take a refresher course on this subject.

Use this set of tasks to define the training programs at your company. Once you define this basic training information, safety officers can associate employees with the training programs required for their job.

When defining your training, be sure to distinguish between initial and refresher courses. For example, when an employee is hired, they may be required to take initial training in company procedures or equipment use. Then, on a regular basis, they may be subject to refresher training. For these cases, you should complete two separate training requirements: one for the full, initial training and one for the condensed, refresher training, which may want to follow a recurring schedule.

Prerequisite: Validating Tables

First, complete the following tables, which will provide the validating data for your training program.

Table	Purpose	Examples and Notes
Chemicals/Substances	Define chemicals or substances employees work with at your site that require training. For example, if employees at your site could be exposed to asbestos, they may be required to take yearly training courses reviewing handling techniques.	Asbestos, Hydrazine, PCBS, etc. See below note about SDS.
Training Categories	Define general categories within which specific training programs reside.	General Safety, Lab Safety, Paint Shop Safety, OSHA-related, etc.
Training Types	Define types that identify the nature of the training.	Introductory, Incident-Related, Project-Related, Refresher Course, Substance- Related, etc.

Table

Purpose

Examples and Notes

Chemicals/Substances

Define chemicals or substances employees work with at your site that require training. For example, if employees at your site could be exposed to asbestos, they may be required to take yearly training courses reviewing handling techniques.

Asbestos, Hydrazine, PCBS, etc.

See below note about SDS.

Training Categories

Define general categories within which specific training programs reside.

General Safety, Lab Safety, Paint Shop Safety, OSHA-related, etc.

Training Types

Define types that identify the nature of the training.

Introductory, Incident-Related, Project-Related, Refresher Course, Substance- Related, etc.

Note: If you have the Archibus Safety Data Sheet (SDS) application, you can enter the SDS associated with a substance by choosing a value for the SDS Code field. If you don't have the Archibus SDS application, the system will not present this field to you.

Review Training Programs

To see a list of existing training programs and optionally edit their values, follow these steps:

Select the Define Training Programs task.
In the left column, choose the training category that describes this training program.
In the hierarchical tree, the system lists the various training programs for this category.
Click on a program, and the system displays its details in the left pane.
Edit the properties of the training program as necessary.

Create a New Training Program

To define training programs offered at your site, work through this procedure:

Define properties of your training programs by completing the above-listed validating tables. When defining your training programs, you will choose from the values entered in these tables.
Select the Define Training Programs task.
In the left column, choose the training category under which this program will be classified.
Click Add New to create a new training program. Complete the following fields to define a training program.

Training Program Code	Enter a name to uniquely identify this training program.
Training Program Name	Enter a descriptive name.
Training Category Code	The system will automatically fill in this field with the value that chose in step 3. If necessary, you can change the previously-entered value by choosing a new one from the validated list.
Training Type Code	From the list of values, choose a type to identify the nature of the training program.
Requirements Description	Describe the requirements that this training program must cover. For example, if the employee must take a quiz at the end of the course, enter this requirement here.
Training Program Description	Enter a detailed description of the training program.
Training Program Comments	Enter additional comments about the program, such as whether in-house or outside staff typically teach this course.
Related Chemical/Substance	If the training is required for working with a specific chemical or substance, choose the substance from the list of available values.
Scheduled Hours	Enter the number of hours for this course. For example, if this is an all-day course running 8 hours, enter 8. When an employee actually completes a training course, you can enter the number of hours they attended the course and compare this to the course's number of scheduled hours.
Related PPE Type Code	If the training is required for certain PPE items, choose the PPE type code from the list of values. For example, noise-blocking ear equipment may require that an employee take a yearly course covering maintaining this item.
Related Equipment Standard	If the training program is associated with a type of equipment, enter the type of equipment by choosing from the list of values. For example, a boiler may require that a technician attend a yearly review of operation procedures.
Vendor	If the training is being conducted by an outside vendor, such as a company specializing in First Aid, enter the vendor here. The vendor must first exist in the Vendors table; vendors are defined using the Background Data / Define Vendors task. If you run the course yourself through your own training department, enter this entity in the Vendors table so that it is available for selection when completing this field.
Is Refresh Required?	If the Training Program must be repeated, select Yes. Use the Define Recurrence Pattern section to establish the refresh schedule. For information on using the Archibus recurring schedule tool, see Defining a Recurring Schedule and Scheduling Routine (Concept). If this is a one-time event that typically does not need to be scheduled again in the future, set this option to No. For each requirement, you can individually set a date that the PPE event should occur. For example, initial and complete training on how to use an equipment item may be required only once; after that, the employee may be required to take shorter, refresher courses which are documented as their own training category.
Date Recurrence End	If needed, enter the date by which you want the recurring pattern to end. Since the recurring schedule also specifies a time frame, you can leave this field empty.

Click Save at the top of the form to save the training program information to the database.

Note: If the NotifyTraining application parameter is set to Yes, employees will be sent an email when they are scheduled for a training program.

Note: You may want to associate with this training program a training manual, course outline, participant exam, or other related documents. To do so, add the document to the document library and complete the Related Training Program field. For information, see Manage Document Library.

Reschedule Assignments if there are Changes to the Training Schedule

Situations may arise when you have defined a training schedule, assigned employees to the schedule, and then the schedule changes. For example, a federal mandate on asbestos may change and call for semi-annual training instead of yearly training.

In this case, you will find it convenient to reschedule the assigned employees directly from this task. In this example, you can load this task, change the recurring pattern, and then use the Reschedule Assignments button (in the upper right corner) to reschedule the employees scheduled for this training.

Note: The system displays the Reschedule Assignments button only for training programs that have recurring schedules and have employees scheduled to take the training in the future.

To reschedule assignments:

Select a training program with a recurring schedule and which has employees scheduled to take this training at a future date.
Edit the training program's recurring schedule.
Click the Reschedule Assignments button.
The system displays all employees who have future training dates for this training.
Select one or multiple employees and choose Reschedule Training Assignments.
Enter a new start date for these employees' training.
The system cancels all existing training dates for this employee and generates new dates based on the new initial date and new recurring pattern.
If email notification is active, the system sends email notifications to the employees informing them that the training dates were cancelled and listing the new training dates.