Posted By Don Mason In my organisation of 14,000 plus employees, it is compulsory for all managers to attend the IOSH Managing Safely course. I have been delivering the course since 1995. The main complaint to Directors and to myself is, the time managers have to spend away from their work. I have been asked to investigate the possibility of distance learning for the course. e.g. CD rom on manager's own PC. (Still got to spend a lot of time not doing the job methinks). Any thoughts from fellow course presenters etc? Don Mason ~~~~

Posted By Don Mason Thanks Paul. Your thoughts and argument for them to attend are the same as mine. I firmly believe the tutor/delegate contact is essential not only to discuss related cases but to deal with some of the delegate's problems that they seem reluctant to raise in other arenas. Plus, I enjoy it and, I think most of the delegates do. Don ~~~~

Posted By Nick Higginson Don, Is part of the assessment for this course a practical workplace inspection? How would this work if the training was done interactively? A virtual workshop? I have done the course a couple of years ago, and one of the major plus points was getting together with other staff who faced similar problems. I suppose there is also the fact that your organisation is saying that all managers have to have this qualification (similar to my own) so like it or not, some will be pressed men. I would imagine it is much harder to motivate people to work on their own, than in a group. Hope my experience helps, Nick

Posted By George Wedgwood Don, I think we are all under pressures like you mention but once they have done the 5 days - it quickly shows the difference and not a single one of our Project Managers (around 30 went) ever regretted going. The course fundamentally changed their culture and methods and made our Projects Division the safest around. All of them griped before they went! I think the most significant point to be made to Directors is demonstration of senior level commitment to H&S. If it costs and demonstrates performance improvement, it has to be good! If it is free and casual, it produces less than average results. How about selling them the idea that commitment to H&S standards improvement can be crudely measured by evidence of a committed Plan for H&S as well as a committed budget. If it is in the budget to start with, nothing will normally stop it becoming a reality. Planning should be integral to other business activities and can be audited for performance measurement. However, despite all this, performance maintenance is still difficult and demands continual refresher training, commitment reinforcement, and better planning and competencies. I wish you well with your campaign. George

Posted By Hazel Harvey Don, I have looked at quite a few electronic versions of Managing Safely or similar but my overall impression is 'Why both using this medium'. In many cases the presentations are text based only in which case why not use a paper based course? As yet I don't think many organisations have the resources to produce good interactive training products as the development costs are very high. The only one I have seen that approaches a product which is exciting to use was produced by the BBC for their internal use and I understood it to have cost in the region of £250,000 for development IOSH do have an arrangement with BBC for a Working Safely CD-Rom. I think we also have other providers with products that may be of interest to you. If you are still interested contact Alan MacDonald or Linda Stanley who may be able to assist. I agree entirely that a good trainer is still the most effective way of addressing the issues.

Posted By Jay Joshi We are just at the beginning of the threshold for truly interactive based i.e. virtual reality training. It is very much at its infancy—The US Army is investing billions of dollars in research and application of virtual reality training—ultimately, the concept is to apply it to civilian areas and replace brick & mortar colleges, universities etc. I had this snippet of information last year from a contact who is involved with CDC/NIOSH in USA. I choose not to comment or go into the pros & cons including impact on society etc. We have to consider the global view and although there are huge developmental costs, there are the advantages also. In the long term we have to be forward looking as far as delivery of training is concerned—and any method—whether it is face to face with “real” persons or interactive is good enough as long as it delivers the end result and is effective. One safety organisation that has actually implemented virtual reality training in Occupational Health and Safety is Japan Advanced Information Center of Safety and Health (JAISH) –there is information on its website http://www.jaish.gr.jp

Posted By Don Mason Thanks Nick. Another bit of evidence there to convince them. I am all for e Government, e Training, e etc,,, but not for this particular course. Thanks again Don ~~~~