Hi Chris,

Some of the people in my workplace did the managing safely online. I managed to get a peak at the course and it seemed very basic. Just an information dump slideshow followed by a multiple choice exam, that learners could whizz through, and a risk assessment. To be honest, I think some learners were able to copy already existing risk assessments and just make some adjustments. One person I spoke to said they did it in around 5 hours.

Most of the learners did not have very nice words to say about the course. Most of it boiled down to the course not actually being benificial in the workplace. They saw it as a tick box for the business to show that safety training was being given.

I think the course is probably massively more benficial done face to face where a trainer can expand on the topics.

Mathew

Edited by user 23 April 2024 07:10:08(UTC)  | Reason: Grammar

 I have been delivering the Managing Safety Course  for 6 years now and I cannot see how anybody could do it in 3 hours unless they had done something similar before eg if they had the NEBOSH National Certificate  but if they had done that why would they be bothering with the IOSH. We take 4 whole days to deliver the course including the exam and then as HSSnail says they have to do the risk assessment  assignment based on process/procedure in their workplace. The scripts can be reviewed by IOSH and of course you have to sign a declaration this this is your own work.  

Sorry can’t see how you can do it properly in 3 hours.

somebody should tell IOSH, unless they monitor this forum. Except there does not seem to be much evidence that they pay any attention to us on the forum. 

Hi Chris, the idea that this course could be completed in 3 hours even if that excludes time on a bespoke risk assessment is rather scary (as is what M.cooper.99 has said on this thread) and ultimately liable to detract from the credibility of IOSH's core training product offering, with IOSH claiming on its website >60,000 "certified" in 2023. IOSH Managing Safely awareness course | IOSH

IOSH does seem to be a bit coy about exactly how long the e-learning version should take in terms of minimum hours but at IOSH Managing Sustainably - trainer brochure it says to its training providers (presumably primarily for face to face tuition):

• flexibility in course delivery over three days (with a minimum 22 hours of face-to-face contact)

Originally, as I recall, the minimum was 24 hours usually delivered over 4 or even 5 days, though some providers went for extended days to get the number of days down to three. 

This was similar to the approach taken by e.g. the Institution of Civil Engineers which used to have a rule that every graduate engineer had to attend at least four days of H&S training during their graduate training programme which typically lasted 3 years.

 A day was a defined term - a minimum of 6 hours "contact time" - so you didn't count the time drinking tea or coffee at breaks, nor the lunch break UNLESS genuine learning was continuing during such periods. When I was developing and delivering courses I also discounted the time spent at the beginning and ending of a course, which was the "I'm X, the presenter, please give us a brief summary of who each of you is and why you are here" and then often a "wash up" session. All of which meant that to get 6 hours "contact time" you usually needed at least 7.5 hours. 

In contrast, the latest brochure for delegates says absolutely nowt about how long this should take. managing-safely-fact-sheet.pdf (iosh.com)

I suggest you feedback your concerns about what is happening to IOSH.

The problem with that is that IOSH seem to think that there is no grey area between a "complement" and a "complaint".

However it is possible that the training providers is delivering outside the terms of their approval by IOSH.

On IOSH's Complaints and feedback page Feedback and complaints | IOSH  it comments in relation to potential complaints about what one of its approved Training providers do.....

If a company or individual who is selling IOSH training products fails to meet your expectations, or you have a suspicion that a training provider is operating outside the IOSH terms and conditions of sale.

If the market loses confidence in this product there will be a gaping hole in the business model for IOSH Services Ltd.

You have all confirmed my thoughts that this course should take more time than that to do and that the fact you can get through it (notice I didn’t say trained) in 3 hours plus a test seems wrong, and devalues the training for those n a taught course.

It seems you have two chances for the test and the risk assessment is not actual workplace based as such. It seems he was given a scenario of a pot hole in a pavement used by employees and the public. He had some sort of issue with it so it then gave him a different scenario and he passed.

I will actually be at the same location as him tomorrow so I can discuss a bit more.

I will not name the company, but I would say it was more prominent in the world of H&S 15 to 20 years ago (purely my opinion and could be wrong). It has been around a long long time and I sure you have all heard of it.

Of course I told my employer this was the right course. We wanted to allow the managers to learn at their own pace and around their work which can ebb and flow unique to them. I thought Online learning was ok because everyone was raving about NCRQ so I thought IOSH’s would be comparable. I would assume that IOSH would have vetted and approved this course if they will end up issuing certs.

I think it is too late for the others we have asked to do this as they will all have paid and started, but will think twice in future. IOSH Managing Safely was the go to training course for Managers.

Chris

HSSnail - "And thats the bit thats going to get them to sit up and take notice!"

Not sure that IOSH or IOSH Services Ltd are likely to take notice, until it is far too late.

Chris - "IOSH Managing Safely was the go to training course for Managers."

Emphasis on the past tense, but to be honest I was never convinced that it was suitable for all audiences. 

I think it WAS suitable for fairly simple organisations with people making and/or selling widgets, but without a lot of tailoring to make bespoke to an organisation's specific needs, not so suitable for the more complex organisations......

....though this was to some extent recognised by IOSH when it found variants for particular sectors.

In my last job we did all sorts of slightly less generic activities whether it was designing road bridges, and a multitude of hazardous field work activities (contract administration, rope access, diving, asbestos sampling, nighttime road coring, ecological surveys etc etc) and I didn't think IOSH MS would work for us - and for a while we had a licence to deliver MS so we had plenty of time to think about whether there would be benefit in rolling it out to our own managers.

M. Cooper I hope that the course you mentioned was not the IOSH managing safely course. I have counted the slides on the Hazards module for that course and counted 82 slides. If you spend 2 minutes on each slide  that adds upto to 2 hours 44 minutes!

Hi Chris,

It's surprising that the course was completed in just 3 hours, given that it typically spans 3 days. Online training can be more efficient, allowing learners to move at their own pace, but such a short duration is unusual.

To ensure thorough coverage of the material, it might be worth checking with the course provider. Additionally, you might want to explore other reputable providers for the IOSH Managing Safely course, such as:

• https://www.britsafe.org/p/iosh-managing-safely
• https://hsqe.co.uk/courses/iosh-managing-safely/
• https://humanfocus.co.uk/e-learning/iosh-managing-safely/

These providers offer comprehensive online training options that might better suit your needs.

It looks like a number of people have looked at this thread so I will update you. I spoke to the manager who did the training and he said that the training had lots of parts you could expand to define / provide more info on a term etc.

He said lots of these were obvious to him. He is an experienced manager and for instance although he has not been trained to do a risk assessment, he has seen a good few in his time and understood the principle etc. Over the years he and I have had lots of H&S conversations about various topics. All in all, this allowed him to run through quite quickly.

Another manager has also just completed the same training and it took him about 8.5 hours. Again, he is an experienced manager and again we have had lots of informal H&S conversations over the years (obviously didn’t listen to me as well as the other manager and he could have saved himself 4 hours).

I will be interesting when one of our less experienced managers go through the training.

IOSH must have vetted the content and deemed it worthy.

Did they learn anything / will it make a difference – Who knows, perhaps time will tell

Chris

There is, in my opinon, a massive training issue with online training,

Even though there are benefits (eg travel etc), there are issues such us lack of contact time between delegates, ample, productive Q&A, interraction and discussion for example.

3 days is ample, 3 hours is not. H&S is a practical subject, not a read and understood only only one.

Fewer and fewer courses are online rather than face to face. In years to come we will see that the practical knowlege side of ours and other subjects will wane