We’ve written a great article covering the basics of blended learning for safety training. It’s published in the September issue of ISHN magazine, so look for that if you’re a subscriber. It’s also available in digital form on ISHN.com, so go check it out now (free registration required). The post New "Blended Learning for Safety Training" Article at ISHN appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

OSHA just released its list of the top ten most frequently cited workplace safety violations for fiscal year 2014. The 2014 list includes all the same all the same standards as last year’s list, and the four standards at the top of the list appear in the same order that they did last year, too. The biggest "riser" was lockout/tagout (1910.147), which checked in at #8 last year but jumped up to #5 this year. We’ve got the full list for you below. For each common violation, we’ve given a link to the regulation, a link to our related e-learning course(s), and a link to a special page of informational resources and training freebies for you. Check ‘em all out. Need help with your safety training? Check out our library of e-learning courses on safety and other topics, and don’t forget to check out our learning management systems (LMSs) for delivering and tracking those courses. Or, contact us now for a demo. OSHA’s Top Ten Violations for 2014 Here’s the list, from most violated to tenth-most-violated. Fall Protection (1926.501) - 6,143 violations The Standard: Fall Protection Our Course(s): Fall Prevention and Protection Our Information and Training Resources Page: Fall Protection Information and Training Resources from Convergence Training Hazard Communication (1910.1200) - 5,161 violations The Standard: Hazard Communication Our Course(s): Hazard Communication 2012 (GHS), Hazard Communication 1994, Chemical Hazards (for mines) Our Information and Training Resources Page: Hazard Communication Information and Training Resources from Convergence Training Scaffolding (1926.451) - 4,029 violations The Standard: Scaffolding Our Course(s): Supported Scaffolding Safety Our Information and Training Resources Page: Scaffolding Information and Training Resources from Convergence Training Respiratory Protection (1910.134) - 3,223 violations The Standard: Respiratory Protection Our Course(s): Respirators Our Information and Training Resources Page: Respiratory Protection Information and Training Resources from Convergence Training Lockout/Tagout (1910.147) - 2,704 violations The Standard: The Control of Hazardous Energy (Lockout/Tagout) Our Course(s): Lockout/Tagout Our Information and Training Resources Page: Lockout/Tagout Information and Training Resources from Convergence Training Powered Industrial Trucks (1910.178) - 2,662 violations The Standard: Powered Industrial Trucks Our Course(s): Forklift Safety Our Information and Training Resources Page: Powered Industrial Trucks Information and Training Resources from Convergence Training Electrical, Wiring Methods (1910.305) - 2,490 violations The Standard: Electrical, Wiring Methods Our Course(s): Electric Shock, Electrical Safety General Awareness, Arc Flash Safety   Our Information and Training Resources Page: Electrical, Wiring Methods Information and Training Resources from Convergence Training Ladders (1926.1053) - 2,448 violations The Standard: Stairways and Ladders Our Course(s): Ladder Safety Our Information and Training Resources Page: Ladders Information and Training Resources from Convergence Training Machine Guarding (1910.212) - 2,200 violations The Standard: Machinery and Machine Guarding Our Course(s): Machine Guarding Our Information and Training Resources Page: Machine Guarding Information and Training Resources from Convergence Training Electrical, General Requirements (1910.303) - 2,056 violations The Standard: Electrical, General Requirements Our Course(s): Electric Shock, Electrical Safety General Awareness, Arc Flash Safety   Our Information and Training Resources Page: Electrical, General Requirements Information and Training Resources from Convergence Training The post OSHA Top Ten Violations for 2014 appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

OSHA puts out a list of the top ten most cited violations every year. Many of the same standards appear on the list again and again. So we’re pulling together some things to help you train your workers about each. Below, we’ve got a list of scaffolding training resources for you. Need help with scaffolding training or other safety training needs? Contact us and we’ll help out. Scaffolding Training and Informational Resources Here are some training and information resources for you (plus we’ve got some great FAQs below). Supported Scaffolding Safety e-learning course. View a sample and/or contact us to get the full course. Free Scaffolding Interactive Glossary Free Scaffolding Word Game What’s the regulation, again? 1926.451 (Scaffolds) Does OSHA have a Safety & Health Topic webpage for scaffold-related hazards and regulations? Here’s OSHA’s Safety & Health Topic page for Scaffolding. Does OSHA have any eTools for the scaffolding regulation? There are three. Or four, depending on how you count ‘em. There’s one focusing on on scaffolding in general, one on improper scaffold construction (this one is geared to the construction industry), one about staging scaffolds (this one is geared to shipyard work), and a fourth that’s focused on aerial lifts , which can replace traditional shipyard scaffolding. Does OSHA provide any other helpful resources? They have an entire webpage on scaffolding in the construction industry, and here are a bunch of resources to help with your scaffolding training program. What about NIOSH? Do they offer resources too? They have a nice two-part checklist. Here’s the Scaffolding Self-Inspection Checklist Part 1 and the Scaffolding Self-Inspection Checklist Part 2. The post Scaffolding Training Resources (1926.451) appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

OSHA puts out a list of the ten most cited violations every year. Many of the same standards appear on the list again and again. So we’re pulling together some things to help you train your workers about each. Below, we’ve got a list of hazard communication training resources for you. Need help with hazard communication training or other safety training needs? Contact us and we’ll help out. Hazard Communication Training and Informational Resources Hazard Communication 2012 (GHS Aligned) e-learning course. View a sample and/or contact us to get the full course. Hazard Communication 1994 (not GHS-Aligned) e-learning course. View a sample and/or contact us to get the full course. Free Hazard Communication Interactive Glossary Free Hazard Communication Word Game Hazard Communication 2012 FAQ What’s the regulation, again? 1910.1200 (Hazard Communication) Does OSHA have a Safety & Health Topic webpage for chemical hazards and regulations? Here’s OSHA’s Safety & Health Topic page for Hazard Communication. This page is an especially good resource for information related to the Hazard Communication 2012 alignment with the Globally Harmonized System (GHS). In addition, there’s a Safety & Health Topic page for Chemical Reactivity Hazards, another for Chemical Sampling Information, and many, many additional Safety & Health Topics for individual chemicals (follow the previous link and use the search feature in the top right corner). Does OSHA have any eTools for the HazCom regulations? Nothing specifically about Hazard Communication. But they DO have eTools on related topics including Eye and Face Protection, Respiratory Protection, and Safety & Health Management Systems, and plus they also have a downloadable Hazard Awareness Expert Advisor. Does OSHA provide any other helpful resources? Many. Here’s an OSHA HazCom Brief, a HazCom Fact Sheet, some HazCom Quick Cards on Safety Data Sheets, Labeling, and Pictograms, downloadable HazCom/GHS Pictograms, and a Hazard Communication 2012 PowerPoint presentatation (look for the link at the bottom of the "highlights" box on the right). What about NIOSH? Do they offer resources too? Here’s a NIOSH Hazard Communication Self-Inspection Checklist.   The post Hazard Communication Training Resources (1910.1200) appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

OSHA puts out a list of the ten most commonly cited standard violations every year. Many of the same standards appear on the list again and again. So we’re pulling together some things to help you train your workers about each. Below, we’ve got a list of fall protection training resources for you. Need help with fall protection training or other safety training needs? Contact us and we’ll help out. Fall Prevention and Protection Training and Informational Resources Fall Prevention and Protection e-Learning Course. View a sample and/or contact us to get the full course. Free Interactive Fall Prevention and Protection Glossary Free Fall Protection Word Game Fall Prevention and Protection FAQ What’s the regulation, again? 1926.501 (Fall Protection-General Requirements/Duty to Have Fall Protection) 1926.501 is a construction-industry regulation. Does OSHA have other regulations and standards regarding fall prevention and protection for non-construction work? Yep, here’s a list of fall prevention standards and other helpful information for non-construction industries. Does OSHA have a Safety & Health Topic webpage for fall protection hazards and regulations? Here’s OSHA’s Safety & Health Topic page for Fall Protection in the Construction Industry. In addition, they have a page for Standards and Policy for Non-Construction Work, a page that explains How to Protect Workers from Falls, a page that explains Where to Find Training and Additional Information on Fall Protection, and finally a page on Fall Protection in Residential Construction. Does OSHA have any eTools for the Fall Protection regulations? No, but here’s one for the related topic of Steel Erection, and that includes a "topic" on fall protection. In addition, here’s an eTool on Construction Scaffolding, and that includes information on Fall Protection in Supported Scaffolding. Does OSHA provide any other helpful resources? Yes, quite a few. Here’s a Fall Protection in General Industry Quick Card, here’s a tip sheet from the Canadian Center for Occupation Health and Safety (CCOHS) on cleaning and caring for safety belts/harnesses/lanyards, here’s a series of publications from Oregon OSHA on Fall Protection, here’s an OSHA Guidance Document on Fall Protection in Residential Construction, and here’s an OSHA Fact Sheet on Fall Protection Safety for Commercial Fishing. What about NIOSH? Do they offer resources too? Here’s a NIOSH Fall Injuries Prevention in the Workplace website, and here’s a NIOSH-prepared list of publications about Fall Injuries Prevention in the Workplace. What about other agencies and organizations? Do they also offer resources? Near the bottom of this page, OSHA published a long list of resources by ANSI, CSA, and ASTM related to Fall Prevention and Protection. The post Fall Prevention and Protection Training Resources (1926.501) appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

I work with lots of busy safety managers who are trying to improve their safety training programs. They’re typically looking for ways to use their time more efficiently while creating better training programs that have a real effect on their employees’ behaviors. They hope they can reach these goals by using one of our learning management systems (LMSs) , or some of our 3D-animated safety training courses, or both. And it’s true, they can. Using an LMS and e-learning courses can save you time and also let you provide better safety training. But how? Well, some of the way are probably pretty obvious to you, and others may be things you haven’t thought of. Let’s break it down and consider some reasons. How an LMS Can Save You Time and Make You More Efficient A learning management system can save you a ton of time by automating clerical and scheduling chores. This includes: Coordinating and scheduling training assignments Creating records of completed training Storing those records Finding those records later for audit purposes Informing department managers of employees’ training status Changing training assignments when workers change jobs Running reports Notifying workers of their training obligations Having an LMS do all this for you lets you do other things that are more useful with your own time. Wouldn’t you rather be leading instructor-led training on safety topics? Holding safety meetings?  Walking around and observing the work place? Performing job hazard analyses (JHAs)? Talking with employees? Or do you really want to spend hours creating formulas in Excel spreadsheets and searching down paper-based documents in manila envelopes stored in metal file cabinets in the office on the other side of the plant? Want to know more about how an LMS can help you? Read up about the LMSs by Convergence Training or contact us to ask questions and set up a demo. How an LMS Can Help You Deliver Better Safety Training Efficient is nice, but effective is even better.  After all, you want to cut down on safety incidents and near-misses. So how can an LMS make your safety training more effective? With an LMS, you can: Reduce the amount of time you’re performing clerical work, so you can spend more time leading safety training sessions and/or performing other critical safety tasks Use a variety training materials, so you can take advantage of the different features of each-for example, the sophisticated visuals and built-in testing that e-learning safety courses can provide Ensure that all new employees receive their initial safety training Help you manage refresher or annual training requirements so safety topics stay fresh in your employees’ minds If you currently feel like you’re swimming upstream to make your safety training program more efficient and effective, some of the items listed above should really hit home. Now, let’s turn our attention to some of the benefits of using e-learning safety courses in your safety training program. We recommend using e-learning courses, instructor-led training, and other types of training as part of a blended learning solution for safety training. And our LMS will help you do that. Although we’ll focus on e-learning courses below, check this article on OJT and an LMS, and this article on in-the-field skill demonstrations,  for additional thoughts about other types of training. Even better, we’ve included a downloadable guide to blended learning at the bottom of this article. Want to know more about how an LMS can help you? Read up about the LMSs by Convergence Training or contact us to ask questions and set up a demo. How e-Learning Courses Can Save You Time You’ve got a limited number of hours in each day, so you’ll want to use them as wisely as possible. Using e-learning courses as part of your safety training program can help you maximize your time in many ways, including: Explaining basic, foundational training information that is conveyed just as effectively online as it is in person (or maybe even more so). Providing periodic refresher training after a safety topic has been covered initially in an instructor-led format Easing assessment issues to determine if employees understand safety basics through the use of automated online testing (may you never again have to grade a paper-based test) Given the tight budgets and staffing issues that training departments face, why not take advantage of the time-saving features of e-learning courses? Want to know more about how EHS e-learning courses? can help you? Check out the EHS course title from Convergence Training or contact us to ask questions and set up a demo.  How e-Learning Courses Can Make Your Safety Training Better Learning and development professionals will tell you that there is NO single type of training that’s always better than the others. That means that instructor-led classroom training isn’t always better than e-learning or written materials. And likewise, it means that e-learning isn’t always better than instructor-led training. In fact, research backed with studies and evidence shows that training of different types can be equally effective. Once you know that, you’re wise to pick and choose from a variety of training methods for each individual need. This practice is known as "blended learning." When using a blended learning solution, pick and choosing the best type of training to suit each particular training need. Here are some of the ways that e-learning can make your safety training better: Teach concepts and ideas with sophisticated visuals that can’t be explained visually, in simple drawings on a white board, or even viewed out in the field (for example, an "interior" view of a closed machine) Allow employees to advance through training at their own pace instead of the "default" pace chosen by the instructor in a classroom setting Provide feedback to employees who might be too shy to ask specific questions in front of coworkers Provide practice questions so the employee can judge his or her own level of understanding Allow workers to review training on their own days, weeks, or even months after they viewed it initially Allow safety trainers to reserve their face-to-face training time with employees for the opportunities when it provides the most value (as discussed in the section above) Provide the same, standard, consistent training message every time to every employee Why not use e-learning to add these benefits to your existing training? As an analogy, consider your toolbox at home. Sure, maybe your hammer works great for a lot of things. But just imagine what you can do if you add a new tool, such as a screwdriver, to your toolbox. The same is true with training. Sure, instructor-led training is great, but adding e-learning safety courses to your training toolbox will make things that much better. Want to know more about how EHS e-learning courses? can help you? Check out the EHS course title from Convergence Training or contact us to ask questions and set up a demo.  Conclusion Who doesn’t want their safety training programs to be more efficient and more effective? I’m sure you do. And that’s why so many safety trainers I work with are excited when they begin using an LMS and e-learning courses as part of a blended learning solution. If you’d like to know more, you can contact us here or check out our web pages with our EHS course library and our learning management systems. The post Better Safety Training with an LMS and e-Learning Courses appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

Many companies spend a lot of time, effort, and money trying to maintain high standards for the environment, health, and safety (EHS). And this often involves-and should involve-an EHS training component. For example, OSHA, MSHA, and similar regulatory agencies require EHS training at the workplace in many different circumstances. The regulations make it clear enough when training is required. Beyond that, OSHA tells you that EHS training should be effective. They tell that you need to ensure it’s effective (through some form of assessment). And they tell you to provide it in a language the employee understands. And MSHA is pretty explicit about how long the training on various subjects should last. But it’s not always so clear exactly how to create effective EHS training. That’s not spelled out in the regulations. But fortunately, we’ve got ANSI Z490.1 for that. Z 490.1, titled "Criteria for Accepted Practices in Safety, Health and Environmental Training," provides a national standard for creating, maintaining, and evaluating an EHS training program. Handy, huh? So let’s dig into ANSI Z 490.1 and see what’s it’s all about. Need an LMS, EHS training courses, or other help with your safety training program? Contact Convergence Training to learn more. First, let’s deal with some common questions. Common Questions about ANSI and ANSI Standards What is ANSI? ANSI is the American National Standards Institute. Also, they are "a private, non-profit organization that administers and coordinates the U.S. voluntary standards and conformity assessment system." (I snagged that quote from their web page.) Read more about ANSI at their FAQs page or check out this ANSI Overview they created. Do ANSI standards have the power of law? No, not by themselves. But in some cases, a regulatory agency may include an ANSI standard within its own standard, stating that people should follow the ANSI standard in given circumstances. OSHA calls this incorporation by reference. ANSI has created a portal for its standards that have been incorporated by reference. Can compliance (or non-compliance) with an ANSI standard be brought up in court cases? Yes. Complying with an ANSI standard may help you if you wind up in court. Not complying with an ANSI standard may hurt you in court. Common Questions about ANSI Z490.1 So what’s ANSI Z490.1? It’s a national standard created to provide guidelines for safety, health, and environmental training. Basically, its creators took accepted practices in the training industry and put them into an EHS context. Who created ANSI Z490.1? An ANSI/ASSE task force. ASSE, in case you don’t know, is the American Society of Safety Engineers. Pretty credible folks on the topic of EHS. Where can I find and read ANSI Z490.1? Here’s Z490.1. Note that this isn’t free. It will set you back $77 or $92, depending on the packet you buy. How many sections does ANSI Z490.1 include and what are they? It has seven different sections and is fifty-two pages long. Those sections are: Scope, Purpose, and Application Definitions Training Program Administration and Management Training Development Training Delivery Training Evaluation Documentation and Record Keeping There are also three annexes: References Training Course Development Guidelines EHS Trainer’s Checklist What does ANSI Z490.1 say about training development? The standard covers training development in section 4. This section says that training development should be a systematic process including: A needs assessment Learning objectives Course design An evaluation strategy Criteria for completion A plan for continuous improvement What does ANSI Z490.1 say about training delivery? The standard covers training delivery in section 5. This section covers the importance of: Using teaching and instructional methods that are appropriate for your training audience Creating (and using) training materials that are appropriate for your training audience Using adult learning principles What does ANSI Z490.1 say about training evaluation? The standard covers training evaluation in section 6. In this section, the ANSI standard stresses the importance of evaluating your EHS training courses and program, including the use of: Test results (and results of other assessments of training) Trainee feedback, including post-training survey/evaluations Post-training behaviors and observations Continuous evaluation and improvement efforts Can I expect more about ANSI Z490.z and effective EHS training from the Convergence Training blog in the future? Yep. We plan on writing expanded blog posts on the sections we introduced above-training design, training delivery, and training development-as well as covering the sections we only mentioned briefly. So stay tuned for more. Need an LMS, EHS training courses, or other help with your safety training program? Contact Convergence Training to learn more. The post Effective EHS Training: ANSI’s Z490.1 Standard Spells It Out For You appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

OSHA’s been busy making changes to the requirements for injury and illness record keeping and reporting. In this post, we’re going to give you a screen-by-screen overview of a mock-up that OSHA created for their new injury and illness online reporting website. If you’re in a hurry, scroll down until you see the first screen grabs. Otherwise, let’s take a short moment to review the recordkeeping and reporting changes first. Recordkeeping Changes On the recordkeeping front, there are changes that affect: Who is required to keep records Who is exempt from recordkeeping requirements These changes are covered in this recent Convergence Training blog post and at this webpage from OSHA. Reporting Changes On the reporting front, there have been changes that affect: What must be reported How reporting will occur (specifically, there’s now an online component) Again, you can read more about these changes in this recent Convergence Training blog post and at this webpage from OSHA. Need an LMS, EHS training courses, or other help with your safety training program? Contact Convergence Training to learn more. OSHA’s New Online Injury and Illness Reporting Requirements That’s all interesting and important stuff. But in particular, the new requirements for online submission of injury and illness data reporting is especially interesting. And that’s what we’re going to take a closer look at in this blog post. You may remember that OSHA was proposing three changes to 29 CFR 1904.41 involving electronic recordkeeping. Those are: First, OSHA will require establishments that are required to keep injury and illness records under Part 1904, and had 250 or more employees in the previous calendar year, to electronically submit information from these records to OSHA or OSHA’s designee, on a quarterly basis (proposed § 1904.41(a)(1)—Quarterly electronic submission of Part 1904 records by establishments with 250 or more employees). Second, OSHA will require establishments that are required to keep injury and illness records under Part 1904, had 20 or more employees in the previous calendar year, and are in certain designated industries, to electronically submit the information from the OSHA annual summary form (Form 300A) to OSHA or OSHA’s designee, on an annual basis (proposed § 1904.41(a)(2) Annual electronic submission of OSHA annual summary form (Form 300A) by establishments with 20 or more employees in designated industries). The second submission requirement will replace OSHA’s annual illness and injury survey, authorized by the current version of 29 CFR 1904.41. Third, OSHA will require all employers who receive notification from OSHA to electronically submit specified information from their Part 1904 injury and illness records to OSHA or OSHA’s designee (proposed § 1904.41(a)(3)— Electronic submission of Part 1904 records upon notification). (source for the above) That leads to any number of interesting questions. But certainly one of them is: "What will this online reporting interface look like?" OSHA’s Online Reporting Mock-Up: A Screen-By-Screen Overview Conveniently, OSHA’s provided a sneak-peek of their upcoming online reporting interface to us in the form of a mock-up. For more about OSHA’s mock-up, which we’ll summarize below, click here. So let’s take a look at what they mocked up, shall we? Remember, the images and explanations copied below are taken from an OSHA publication titled "Mockup of Proposed Web-Based Mechanism for OSHA’s Injury/Illness Data Collection" that was published 3/21/2012, so things may have changed a bit. For each screen on their website mockup, we’ll provide the following: The name of the screen Some general comments from us about that screen-that hopefully will make it easier to see what the screen does and where it fits into the website as a whole A picture of the screen so you can see it for yourself Some comments from OSHA about the screen, taken from the PDF that includes the mockup OSHA Injury/Illness Online Reporting Interface Schematic Diagram This is a schematic that represents the website as a whole. Each box represents different screens of the website, and the arrows show the general navigation paths. At this bird’s-eye view, you can see: The Home page includes a way to register and to log in There’s a User Dashboard screen that serves as the place from which you begin the various processes From the User Dashboard, you can review and/or update your past submissions, print your submissions, set your submission options (batch submit by Excel or XML), enter your establishment information and then complete Form 300A (that’s the horizontal flow in the middle of the screen), enter your establishment information and then complete Forms 300 and 301 (on the top of the screen), Submit and receive confirmations of your submissions Log out OSHA’s notes about the screen above: Actually, OSHA’s document has no notes for this screen. But I guess it’s straight-forward enough.  The Home Page Here’s the home page. You can see it includes ways to: Register for the online system Login after registering Contact OSHA with question, comments, etc. OSHA’s notes about the screen above: "For the purposes of this mockup, it is presumed that each submission is establishment-specific. Possible accommodations for "multiple" submissions (e.g., from a corporate location)—beyond batch submission—are not included in this mockup." The Registration Screen Here’s the registration screen. Registering looks simple enough, and the information you have to provide is pretty standard. OSHA’s notes about the screen above: "This page will register users and auto-generate a unique user ID and Password. This information will be sent to the email address provided on the Registration page when the user clicks the "submit" button. The user ID and password will be used for multiple submissions by the same user (e.g., quarterly submissions, or from year to year). When registering, the user will also be prompted to answer a hint question that will be used for a "Forgot your password?" mechanism." Sample Registration Confirmation Email After you register successfully, you’d get a confirmation email. That’s handy. The email would include: The URL (web address) you’d type in to access the system Your username Your password Contact information if you have questions Remember that we learned in the previous screen that OSHA’s website would automatically create your username and password. It’s probably a good idea to save this email in a folder within your email system if you can (or do something else that will make it easier for you to find in the future). It’s probably NOT a good idea to print this out and leave it laying around where anyone can find it and use it. As with a lot of these emails, notice that you shouldn’t reply back. But you’re probably used to that already. OSHA’s notes about the screen above: Again, they’ve included no notes here, but this one seems pretty straight-forward too. No harm, no foul. Login Page The login screen’s pretty basic, but I think that’s what you want in a login screen. Remember the system auto-generates your username and password when you register, and then sends that information to you via email. There’s a handy "forgot my password" feature too. You’ll need to answer a security question-something like "what’s your mother’s maiden name?" or "what’s the name of your first pet?" to get a reminder about this. OSHA’s notes about the screen above: ""Registration link will take the user to #2 in this document. "Forgot your password?" link will prompt user to respond to the hint question with the answer provided during user registration. If the correct answer is entered, an email will be sent (to the user email address entered during registration) with a login and url for resetting the user password."" User Dashboard 1 of 2 This is the dashboard screen where you begin making your submissions. The screen provides three links for making submissions depending on the number of employees you have and whether or not you’ve been notified by OSHA to submit reporting data. The screen also mentions that there are two options for submitting-using the online forms or performing "batch submission" in Excel or XML format. The batch submission option would allow a corporation with multiple sites to submit data for all those sites in one "batch." As we’ve seen earlier, there’s a phone number you can call for help. OSHA’s notes about the screen above: "Criteria link above will present the user with an informational pop-up describing the collection criteria: • ANUALLY: All establishments with 20+ employees that operate in one of the industries specified in Appendix A to subpart E of Part 1904 and for whom RK is required under Part 1904. • QUARTERLY: All establishments with 250+ employees and RK is required under Part 1904. Batch submission instructions link above will present the user with an information pop-up that includes instruction for generating and submitting batch data (e.g., multiples from a corporate headquarters) in acceptable formats (MS Excel or XML). Depending on the type of data submission, the user will click one of the 3 bullet links above and go to page 2 of the User Dashboard." User Dashboard 2 of 2-My Establishment Data Submissions This second screen of the User Dashboard lets you: View your previously submitted (and completed) submissions View your incomplete submissions Edit your complete and/or incomplete submissions Create a new submission You just click on the hyperlinked name in the Establishment Name column to edit a submission. Check the notes below this image for the comments about this screen from OSHA, because they mention changing a few things, including adding a new column. They also mention that "corrections" (which I take to mean edits to a submission) will be time-limited (which I take to mean you can only edit a submission for a certain length of time before it you can no longer edit it). OSHA’s notes about the screen above: "The screen-shot above is not necessarily representative of the actual page. For example, an additional column will be added to these tables to indicate the type of submission (e.g., annual, quarterly, special collection). In addition, complete submissions will include previous "quarterly" submissions for those establishments required to submit quarterly (and possibly from previous years). Users will be able to review and update completed submissions by selecting the Establishment Name link. Corrections will be time-limited. The "read-only" statement in the sample above will be deleted." Online Form, Page 1-Establishment Information The Establishment Address Information screen is where you’d enter information about your establishment. If you’re looking at the overall schematic, this is the first screen in the horizontal "flow" that runs through the middle of the schematic. A few things to notice here are: There’s a field for entering an SIC (although they offer an SIC look up feature). Here’s more about SIC numbers. There’s a field for entering an NACIS. Here’s more about NACIS numbers. There’s a field for entering your Establishment DUNS number (if available)   OSHA’s notes about the screen above: "This is the first of multiple data entry screens for all establishments submitting data. Users reach this page by selecting "Submit Data" on the previous Dashboard page. Exact data fields will be determined during system development. Basic validation will be included to ensure that required fields are completed and that data is entered into the appropriate format (e.g., numeric entries only in phone fields.) To minimize the level of effort per submission (e.g., quarterly submissions), data entered on the first form page (above) will be saved in the system and displayed for updating as needed." Online Form, Page 2-Log Summary & Employment Information (Form 300A) This is the form where some establishments will enter the Form 300A information. Check the notes from OSHA below this image. They mention that this form will only be seen by establishments with 20 or more employees: That operate in one of the industries specified in Appendix A to subpart E of Part 1904, and For whom RK is required under Part 1904, and thus Will submit summary data to OSHA annually OSHA’s notes about the screen above: "This form will only be seen by establishments with 20+ employees that (1) operate in one of the industries specified in Appendix A to subpart E of Part 1904 and (2) for whom RK is required under Part 1904; and thus will submit summary data to OSHA annually. Basic validation will be included to ensure that required fields are completed and that data is entered into the appropriate format (e.g., numeric entries only in phone fields.) In addition, ODI-specific validation can be incorporated to check for outlier data when the user clicks "submit." See following page for an example. Following submission of the 300A data, respondents will receive online confirmation and an email confirmation. See items 10 and 11." Example Data Validation Check This pop-up window would appear if you input data incorrectly when you were filling out Form 300A. OSHA’s notes below mention that they’ll make similar pop-ups if you make a similar error with Forms 300 and 301. Interestingly, if your data falls outside the expected parameters and you get one of these messages informing you of that, you’ll have the option to change the data or leave it as is. If you do that, apparently, you may get a phone call from OSHA soon to correct the error. Anyway, I like computer systems that tell me when I’ve made a mistake or may have made a mistake, so I like this pop-up. OSHA’s notes about the screen above: "Upon submission, users will be notified if data entered fall outside of set parameters and will have the option to fix the data before continuing with data submission OR ignore the edit condition(s) presented and continue with data submission. (This is an assumption based on current OSHA Log data collection.) This notification is presented as a pop-up on the data entry page when the user clicks the "submit" button. There are a number of edit condition checks already in use on the current ODI Respondent’s website that can be incorporated into the new data collection site. See example above. These checks, however, are specific to the 300A data. New edit checks will need to be developed and tested for the 300 and 301 data." Online Confirmation This is the message you get online to confirm your submission was accepted. Notice that you cna return to your dashboard to review, update, and even print your submission. OSHA’s notes about the screen above: OSHA’s got no comments on this screen, but then again, there seems no need for it. Email Confirmation Not only do you get an online confirmation when you complete a submission, you also get an email. That’s handy. Be sure to save these email confirmations-they could come in handy one day. You never know. OSHA’s notes about the screen above: Again-no comments. And again-no real need. Logout Confirmation This is the confirmation you’ll see when you log out. It’s a good idea to log out of the system and confirm that the logout succeeded so the next person who uses your computer can’t jump in and start creating problems. OSHA’s notes about the screen above: ""Log back in" link will return the user to the login screen." Online Form, Page 2-Complete Log (Form 300) Here’s the online screen for completing Form 300. Note that: You’ll need the Adobe PDF Reader, which will probably already have, to complete this form online. But if you don’t have it, don’t worry-you can download it here from Adobe for free. There’s a button for adding another form page When you complete this form and then click the Go to Form 301 button, the online system will use some of the information on this form to auto-fill some of the fields in the 301. That’s handy. This screen’s pretty straight-forward, but make sure to check the comments from OSHA below the image. They’ve been quite for the last few screens, but they’ve got quite a bit to say about this screen and the next one too. OSHA’s notes about the screen above: "This form will only be seen by establishments with 250+ employees and RK required under Part 1904 that submit log 300 data to OSHA quarterly. The example above shows the types of data that will be captured on this page. Some aspects of the look and feel may be adjusted during the development stage and will ensure that the data entry is straight forward and intuitive. Users will have the option of adding another 300 log page. If they choose to "Add a Form Page," they will get a blank form page like this one. The "Save Input" button will prompt users to (1) continue entering 300 data or (2) go to a Form 301 data-entry screen. After entering Form 300 data, the respondent will click "Go to Form 301 Page" to input the Form 301 data. Data elements that are redundant between the two forms will auto-fill in the Form 301 (i.e., case number, employee name, date of injury/illness). Following input of the 301 data, users will authorize and submit data (for both 300 and 301s). For quarterly submitters, it is anticipated that the system will give respondents the option to input data over multiple user sessions before the user authorizes the establishment’s quarterly submission." Online Form, Page 3-Incident Reports Form (Form 301) This is the screen where you fill in Form 301. You get here after filling in Form 300. If you hit Submit on this page, you’ll submit both Form 300 and Form 301. The next screen you’d see is the confirmation of submission. OSHA’s notes about the screen above: "This form will only be seen by establishments with 250+ employees and RK required under Part 1904 that submit 301 data to OSHA quarterly. The example above shows the types of data that will be captured on this page. Some aspects of the look and feel may be adjusted during the development stage and will ensure that the data entry is straight forward and intuitive. Users will have the option of adding more incident reports or, when finished, authorizing and submitting data. If they choose to "Add a Form Page" (i.e., another incident report page), they will get a fresh page like this one. By choosing "Authorize and Submit Data", they will go to the next screen. The "Save Input" button will prompt users to (1) continue entering 301 data (i.e., get a blank 301 form) or (2) authorize and submit data. For quarterly submitters, it is anticipated that the system will give respondents the option to input data over multiple user sessions before the user authorizes the establishment’s quarterly submission. As noted on prior page, data elements that are redundant between the Form 300 and the Form 301 will auto-fill in the Form 301 (i.e., case number, employee name, date of injury/illness). Possible Data Validation: When the user selects "Authorize and Submit Data" the system will compare the number of incident reports entered to the number of rows entered on the Log 300 data page and notify the user about any discrepancies." Online Form, Page 3-Authorize and Submit Data (Forms 300 and 301) This is the screen you’ll see after filling in forms 300 and 301 online. OSHA’s notes about the screen above: "Following submission of the Form 300 and 301 incident data, respondents will receive online confirmation and an email confirmation. See items 10 and 11 above for examples. Basic validation will be included to ensure that required fields are completed and that data is entered into the appropriate format (e.g., numeric entries only in phone fields.)" Conclusion Well, that’s it. Pretty interesting, huh? What are your thoughts about the online reporting requirements? What are your concerns? We’d love to read more about them below-leave a comment if you’ve got a few minutes. And speaking of questions and comments, OSHA has had a few public meetings and comment period extension on this one. Here are transcripts for meetings held on January 9 and January 10 in 2014. The comment period was then extended until October 14, 2014. Read more about that extension-which has now ended-here. Need an LMS, EHS training courses, or other help with your safety training program? Contact Convergence Training to learn more. The post OSHA’s New Injury and Illness Online Reporting Requirement: A Sneak Peek appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

By now, you’re no doubt aware that the Ebola epidemic has spread past Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and a small number of other west-African nations and has reached nations in other continents, including the United States. Given that, it’s a good idea to learn more about the Ebola virus and have a plan at your workplace in case the virus continues to spread. OSHA Resources about Ebola In response to recent events, OSHA’s created a Safety and Health Topic website that provides a lot of helpful information about Ebola, including some aspects specifically related to the workplace. We recommend checking it out. There are a large number of helpful resources on that OSHA site, but a few we found especially interesting are: Cleaning and Decontamination of Ebola on Surfaces in non-laboratory Settings Ebola Hazard Recognition OSHA Standards Related to Ebola OSHA’s Protecting Workers During a Pandemic Fact Sheet (this is not specific to Ebola but is still helpful) Additional General Resources about Ebola You may also want to check out some of these resources: General Ebola and/or Ebola and the Workplace Resources CDC Website about Ebola Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)Website on Emerging Infectious Diseases (including Ebola) NIOSH Website on Ebola Virus Disease World Health Organization (WHO) Website about Ebola New York Times article about avoiding "Ebola hysteria" Ebola Resources for Health Care Workers Guidance on Personal Protective Equipment To Be Used by Healthcare Workers During Management of Patients with Ebola Virus Disease in U.S. Hospitals, Including Procedures for Putting On (Donning) and Removing (Doffing) Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee from CDC and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations for Hospitalized Patients with Known or Suspected Ebola Virus Disease in U.S. Hospitals from CDC and HHS Safe Management of Patients with Ebola Virus Disease in U.S. Hospitals from CDC and HHS Ebola Resources for Emergency Responders Interim Guidance for Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Systems and 9-1-1 Public Safety Answering Points for Management Patients with Known or Suspected Ebola Virus Disease in the United States from CDC and HHS Ebola Resources for Airline Employees Interim Guidance about Ebola Infection for Airline Crews, Cleaning Personnel, and Cargo Personnel from CDC and HHS Infection Control Guidelines for Cabin Crew Members on Commercial Aircraft from CDC and HHS Guidance for Airlines on Reporting Onboard Deaths or Illnesses to CDC from CDC and HHS Guidance on Air Medical Transport for Patients with Ebola Virus Disease from CDC and HHS Interim Guidance for Environmental Infection Control in Hospitals for Ebola Virus from CDC and HHS Guidance for Managing Ill Onboard Patients from International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Ebola Resources for Mortuary and Death Care Workers Guidance for Safe Handling of Human Remains of Ebola Patients in U. S. Hospitals and Mortuaries from CDC and HHS Ebola Resources for Lab Workers Interim Guidance for Specimen Collection, Transport, Testing, and Submission for Persons Under Investigation for Ebola Virus Disease in the United States from CDC and HHS Interim Laboratory Guidelines for Handling/Testing Specimens from Cases or Suspected Cases of Hemorrhagic Fever Virus (HFV) from American Society for Microbiology Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories (BMBL) 5th Edition from CDC and HHS Biosafety Laboratory Competency Guidelines from CDC and HHS (appearing in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) The post Ebola at the Workplace: Some Helpful Guidances and Resources from OSHA and Others appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

If it’s fall and/or winter, it’s flu season. Knowing what the flu is, how to avoid it, and what to do when you have it can help you and the people around you stay healthy and limit sick time at work. So, we’ve created this free avoid the flu training course that covers the basics about the flu. The course is based on information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hope this helps. Need more information from Convergence Training about any training need? Drop us a line. We hope you enjoy this free Avoid the Flu training course. Don’t forget you can play the module here now, and you can also bookmark the site and come back to play it again later. The post Free Avoid the Flu Training Course appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

If you want to know how to create more effective training materials, you need to know how to chunk training materials. And YES, chunking is the accepted term in the field, even if it does sound a bit strange. Chunking is the process of breaking down instructional materials into smaller, "bite-sized" pieces and then arranging them in a sequence that makes it easier for your learners to learn the material. In this post, we’ll: Explain the four steps necessary for a person to remember something Explain why limits of the working memory cause us to use chunking Explain what chunking is Give tips for chunk length for novice and expert learners Give tips for organizing the chunks in your training materials Provide some sources and useful resources for chunking But, before we do all that, we’re going to take a step back and explain why you should care about this. Need some help with your training program? Check out the learning management systems (LMSs) and e-learning courses from Convergence Training, or contact us for a demo. Creating Training Based On How People Learn So why should you care about chunking? Because when you’re creating training materials, your goal should be to create training materials based on an informed understanding of how people learn. And as you’ll see below, presenting materials in chunks takes advantage of some unique aspects of how people learn. How People Learn: Four Steps of the Human Information Processing System We’re going to keep this explanation short (you can read a longer version here), but learning involves taking sensory input from the outside world and moving it through three different structures of our memory system. Let’s look at the whole process. Sensory Input from the Outside World: This is everything going on around you while training is occurring. It includes the actual training materials but lots of other things too-the room temperature, the chirping birds outside the window, etc. Sensory Memory: Information from the outside world floods your sensory memory, but it lasts for only a brief period of time and most doesn’t gain your conscious attention. Working Memory: A fraction of the information from your sensory memory advances to your working memory. This is information that you are aware of and that your brain is actively "working on." The hitch is that your working memory can work on only a small number of things at one time (around four) and it can hold information for only a short period of time (about ten seconds). Long-Term Memory: Some, but not all, of the information from your working memory will then be transferred to your long-term memory. This process is called encoding. It seems that the long-term memory is essentially limitless-there are no limits to the number of things it can store or how long it can store them. Information in the long-term memory is "packed away" in structures called schemas. Once information is in the long-term information, it can later be retrieved when needed. At that point, it returns from the long-term memory to the working memory. Working Memory-The Bottleneck In Our Memory System So working memory is the "bottleneck" in our learning process. It can’t hold a lot of information, and it can only hold that information for a short period of time. It’s easy to overwhelm the working memory-give it too much information, and the working memory simply loses some of it. It’s just gone. And if you overwhelm the working memory, that information has no chance to make it into the long-term memory and later be retrieved and used. And that, my friend, is where chunking comes in. We chunk training material because we know how the human brain processes information during training and we don’t want to overload the working memory. Chunking is intended to avoid overwhelming the working memory. It also plays a role in helping to encode the schemas in the long-term memory. The Two Components of Chunking Training Materials A simple definition of chunking is that it’s taking information and breaking it down into small little pieces. But it’s also important to remember that you’ll then arrange those little chunks into some organized training sequence for your learner. So, you can think of chunking as a two-stage process in which the person designing training materials: Breaks the information down into small little bits that can be processed by the working memory Organizes those bits in some form of logical manner that make it easier for the trainee to process and encode the information into long-term memory With that in mind, let’s go over some tips about the size of your chunks and the order you present them in. Chunking for Novices and for Experts on a Topic: The Length of the Chunk As you probably know, before you design and create training, you should learn some things about the specific learners the training is intended for. That will let you design training that’s better suited for their learning needs. And one of the most important things you can learn is their existing knowledge in the topic. In particular, it’s important to know if they’re novices on that topic or if they’re well-informed experts on the topic. Why is that so critical? You might think it’s because experts in a topic can handle more chunks of information about that topic than novices can. But that’s not it. Novices and experts have the same working-memory limits-about four chunks. But what IS different, and what SHOULD influence the design of your training, is the size of those chunks. Novices can work with four small chunks. Experts, on the other hand, can work with four larger chunks. Why is that? Why can experts work with larger chunks? It’s because they have existing schemas in their long-term memory that they can use to "absorb" and make sense of the new information. Those schemas "support" the learning process for the expert in the topic. And, as a training developer, part of your job is to provide what’s called "scaffolding" for novice learners who don’t have that built-in support from existing knowledge stored in the long-term memory. How to Chunk Training Materials 1. Start with the "big picture" and work your way down. There’s a good chance the learning materials you’re creating include more than one activity (or course, or whatever you happen to call it). If so, begin by breaking the entire curriculum into smaller parts. For example, your curriculum might include modules, your modules might include lessons, your lessons might include activities, your activities might include topics, and your topics might include screens (in an e-learning context). The important thing isn’t the terms you use for curriculum/module/lesson/activity/screen. What’s important is that they’re broken down and organized in a logical manner. In some cases, the organizational scheme will be linear because you’re creating a linear learning experience for your learner. In other cases, when you’re creating training that’s non-linear, you may organize in a different way-by concept, for example. 2. Remember to revise your organizational scheme. You may not get this breakdown perfectly the first time. Return and revise it as you learn more. This isn’t a failure, it’s a success of the process. 3. Get rid of the unnecessary stuff. In learning, more is less. While you’re still in the design phase, keep an eye out for materials that are unnecessary. And then cut them. It may be difficult to do, but it will create more effective training materials for your learners. Is it unrelated? Is it a "nice to know" or an "interesting fact?" If so, nix it. 4. Analyze your screens (or pages, slides, etc.) Ultimately, you’ll begin designing training for one "moment"-in the context of e-learning, you’ll be designing your screen. Try to introduce only one idea per screen, and keep it short. Remember what we said earlier about the limits of working memory, and check to make sure you’re not piling on too much. 5. Step back and look at the groups of chunks you’ve created. Are they arranged in a logical order? Are you presenting too many chunks before learners get a chance to practice or take a break? Remember, you’ve only got about four chunks to work with. Additional Thoughts: Consolidate Fragments Into Chunks While developing training, you may discover you’ve got to include some fragments that aren’t truly "chunk-sized." If that’s the case, try to find a way to group them into a chunk so they can be memorized in that way instead of individually. You’ll have to get creative here-maybe you can create a mnemonic device. I know I still lean heavily on ROY G. BIV when I need to remember the colors of the visible spectrum. Organizing The Chunks Of Your Training Materials There are several ways you can organize your chunks. Each can be a good choice depending on the training materials. Here are a few: 1. Inherent structure There may be some logical order that comes somewhat "built-in" with the topic. For example, if the training is about the spread of a terrible disease throughout the globe, the training may be structured by geographic region, such as by continent. Or, you might present training about the history of jazz in chronological order, from its New Orleans roots to big band swing, be-bop, free and "out" jazz, and contemporary jazz. I put inherent structure at the top of this list because one could argue that several of the following items are subsets of inherent structure. 2. Job performance order/sequence If you’re training someone to perform a job task, it may make sense to order the training in the same order as the learner will perform the task at work. A lot of training for job procedures fits the bill here, as does process training (for example, how a complex machine works). 3. Dependent learning In many cases, learning will be a step-by-step process in which you learn a prerequisite then learn material that depends on knowing the prerequisite. Want to teach someone to troubleshoot a complex system? It’s probably best to begin with training that explains how the system works. 4. Cause and effect Training for troubleshooting or problem-solving could be organized into a basic cause-effect pattern. You could also imagine customer service training set up on a cause-effect basis, perhaps also organized into "bad effects" and "good effects." 5. Whole to parts Start with a big-picture/birds-eye view, then "drill down" into the smaller parts. I do this a lot when I work with new customers who are implementing one of the Convergence Training learning management systems. First I give an overview of the system, then we learn how they’ll use the various parts to enter their workers, import and create training materials, make assignments, and so on. 6. Spiral This can be useful during lengthy trainings-it’s probably better for a "curriculum" than a single "activity." The idea is early in the training, you introduce a concept. Then, as the training progresses from module to module, you continue returning to that concept, learning about it in deeper, richer, more intricate ways. 7. Simple to complex If there’s no real dependent learning order (see #3, above), you may choose to present simple materials before you present harder materials. I did this when explaining how football works to my fiancee (who was born and raised in Singapore and knows nothing of American football). We talked about offense, defense, and scoring before we got into the complexities of zone defense. (Note: she still has no interest in American football.) 8. Familiar to unknown Learning theory tells us that learners relate new information to existing information, and one of Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction is to activate prior knowledge. So it makes sense to ground things by talking about the "knowns" before venturing off into the "unknowns." 9. Categorical This can be useful if there’s no real inherent structure of your training materials. For example, the Convergence Training Knowledge Base, where our existing customers can go to learn more about our learning management systems, is organized in a "flat" list of categories-Personnel, Training Materials, Assignments, Crediting Training, Reports, and so on. 10. Alphabetical This is commonly used in glossaries, software helpful files, and similar contexts. It’s easy for your learners to quickly understand this organizational scheme and begin selecting the information they need. 11. Order of importance Depending on your content, putting materials with the most important stuff first, the most important stuff last, or the most important stuff first AND last may suite your needs. This is especially useful if the training topic has no inherent structure. There are other ways to do this, too. For example, at Connie Malamed’s blog post on this topic, one of her readers recommended "spatial" and gave an example of anatomy training. Feel free to list your ideas in the comments section below. Sources, Acknowledgements, Helpful Resources We consulted the following resources-plus learned from others in the more distant past-while researching this article. Thanks and credit to them all. How People Learn I’ve read about this many places, but I especially like the way it’s covered in the first parts of Connie Malamed’s book Visual Language for Designers. Design for How People Learn Again, I’ve read about this in many sources, but a favorite is Julie Dirksen’s book Design for How People Learn. Connie Malamed’s blog article 10 Relevant Facts About the Brain gives 10 quick tips on these lines too-with a bit of a focus on how the brain works. Chunking  The original theory of "chunking’ and the limited capacity of the working memory was created by George Miller in an article titled The Magic Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two. Note that seven has since been reduced to about four. The following blogs have good thoughts on chunking and ordering chunks: Connie Malamed, Chunking Information for Instructional Design Connie Malamed, 10 Ways to Organize Instructional Content Don Clark’s Big Dog & Little Dog’s Performance Juxtapositions website has a good article on Sequencing and Learning Modules in Instructional Design Dr. Joel Gardner’s Reflections on Learning Success blog has a nice article on Tips for "Chunking" Instructional Materials (I especially like the stuff about fomatting written text here and will get back to that at some point) I picked up the bit about different chunk sizes for novice and expert learners within a given topic from Dr. Ruth Clark’s book Building Expertise: Cognitive Methods for Training and Performance Improvement (check out the stuff about the chess players on pages 71-75)     The post How to Chunk Training Materials appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

In the past, we’ve published 10 different blog posts, with each post including a fully interactive, web-based OSHA glossary of terms including the terms and definitions included in an OSHA standard. Those were so popular, we figured we’d put all 10 together into one post for you. Just scroll down and let your eyes travel over all ten. Nice, huh? What OSHA glossary of terms (and standards) are included? From top to bottom, we’ve got the following for your viewing pleasure: Fall Prevention and Protection, 1926.501 Hazard Communication 2012 /GHS, 1910-1200 Scaffolds, 1926.451 Respiratory Protection, 1910.134 Ladders, 1926.1053 Machine Guarding Glossary, 1910.212 Powered Industrial Trucks, 1910.178 Electrical—Wiring Methods, 1910.305 Lockout/Tagout (Control of Hazardous Energy), 1910.147 Electrical-General Requirements, 1910.303 Why did we pick these 10 standards? Because they’re on OSHA’s Top Ten Most Cited Violations list. Need any help with your safety training program at work? Convergence Training makes a line of learning management systems (LMSs), e-learning safety courses, and more. Check ‘em out or contact us for a demo. OK, here are those OSHA glossary of terms:  Fall Prevention and Protection OSHA Glossary of Terms (1926.501) Hazard Communication 2012/GHS Glossary of Terms (1910-1200) Scaffolds Glossary of Terms (1926.451) Respiratory Protection Glossary of Terms (1910.134) Ladders Glossary of Terms (1926.1053) Machine Guarding Glossary of Terms (1910.212) Powered Industrial Trucks Glossary of Terms (1910.178) Electrical—Wiring Methods Glossary of Terms (1910.305) Lockout/Tagout Glossary of Terms (Control of Hazardous Energy 1910.147) Electrical-General Requirements Glossary of Terms (1910.303) The post OSHA Glossary of Terms: 10 Interactive OSHA Glossaries appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

Not that long ago, I read an extended discussion in a LinkedIn group titled "What is a JHA?" The discussion included safety experts from all over the world and lots of interesting thoughts. What it didn’t include was a common understanding of what a JHA is. So, leaning on some materials from our friends at OSHA as our primary source, we thought we’d introduce the concept here and provide an explanation that is acceptable and based on OSHA’s definitions and requirements. Did you know that Convergence Training has a full-length JHA e-learning course? Check it out along with the other titles in our safety training e-learning library and our learning management systems for assigning, tracking, and storing records of completed training. Or contact us for a demo. What is a JHA (Job Hazard Analysis)? According to OSHA’s definition, a JHA is "a technique that focuses on job tasks as a way to identify hazards before they occur." So, the basic idea is that you: break a job down into the various tasks it involves identify hazards associated with each task According to OSHA again, the JHA "focuses on the relationship between the worker, the task, the tools, and the work environment." Note: In the Comments section below, blog reader "Paul" notes that OSHA could have written their description of the JHA a little more smoothly, and we agree. The goal of the JHA isn’t to identify hazards before they occur-it’s to identify (and correct) hazards before they do harm. We’re sure that’s what OSHA meant above. Well Then, What’s a Hazard? A hazard is something that has the potential to cause harm. Typically, this means something that can cause an injury or illness. OSHA’s JHA document has an excellent appendix that lists various categories of hazards. We’ve duplicated that information for you below. Hazards Hazard Descriptions Chemical (toxic) A chemical that exposes a person by absorption through the skin, inhalation, or through the bloodstream that causes illness, disease, or death. The amount of chemical exposure is critical in determining hazardous effects. Check Safety Data Sheets (SDS) and/or OSHA 1910.1000 for chemical hazard information. Chemical (flammable) A chemical that, when exposed to a heat ignition source, results in combustion. Typically, the lower a chemical’s flash point and boiling point, the more flammable the chemical.Check SDS for flammability information. Chemical (corrosive) A chemical that, when it comes into contact with skin, metal, or other materials, damages the materials. Acids and bases are examples of corrosives. Explosion(chemical reaction) Explosions caused by chemical reactions. Explosion (over pressurization) Sudden and violent release of a large amount of gas/energy due to a significant pressure difference, such as rupture in a boiler or compressed gas cylinder. Electrical (shock/short circuit) Contact with exposed conductors or a device that is incorrectly or inadvertently grounded, such as when a metal ladder comes into contact with power lines.60Hz alternating current (common house current) is very dangerous because it can stop the heart. Electrical (fire) Use of electrical power that results in electrical overheating or arcing to the point of combustion or ignition of flammables, or electrical component damage. Electrical [static/electrostatic discharge (ESD)] The moving or rubbing of wool, nylon, other synthetic fibers, and even flowing liquids can generate static electricity. This creates an excess or deficiency of electrons on the surface of material that discharges (spark) to the ground resulting in the ignition of flammables or damage to electronics or the body’s nervous system. Electrical (loss of power) Safety-critical equipment failure as a result of loss of power. Ergonomics (strain) Damage of tissue due to overexertion (strains and sprains) or repetitive motion. Ergonomics (human error) A system design, procedure, or equipment that is tends to lead to human error.(For example, a switch that goes up to turn something off instead of down). Excavation (collapse) Soil collapse in a trench or excavation as a result of improper or inadequate shoring. Soil type is critical in determining the hazard likelihood. Fall (slips and trips) Conditions that result in falls (impacts) from height or traditional walking surfaces (such as slippery floors, poor housekeeping, uneven walking surfaces, exposed ledges, etc.) Fire/heat Temperatures that can cause burns to the skin or damage to other organs.Fires require a heat source, fuel, and oxygen. Mechanical/vibration (chaffing/fatigue) Vibration that can cause damage to nerve endings, or material fatigue that results in a safety-critical failure. (Examples are abraded slings and ropes, weakened hoses and belts.) Mechanical failure Self explanatory; typically occurs when devices exceed designed capacity or are inadequately maintained. Mechanical Skin, muscle, or body part exposed to crushing, caught-between, cutting, tearing, shearing items or equipment. Noise Noise levels (>85 dBA 8 hr TWA) that result in hearing damage or inability to communicate safety-critical information. Radiation (ionizing) Alpha, Beta, Gamma, neutral particles, and X-rays that cause injury (tissue damage) by ionization of cellular components. Radiation (non-ionizing) Ultraviolet, visible light, infrared, and microwaves that cause injury to tissue by thermal or photochemical means. Struck-by (mass acceleration) Accelerated mass that strikes the body causing injury or death. (Examples are falling objects and projectiles.) Struck against Injury to a body part as a result of coming into contact of a surface in which action was initiated by the person. (An example is when a screwdriver slips.) Extreme temperatures (heat/cold) Temperatures that result in heat stress, exhaustion, or metabolic slow down such as hypothermia. Visibility Lack of lighting or obstructed vision that results in an error or other hazard. Weather conditions (snow/rain/wind/ice) Self-explanatory. What are the Benefits of Performing a JHA? Performing JHAs at the workplace should lead to: Safer work procedures Fewer injuries and illnesses Lower injury- and illness-related expenses Increased worker productivity An increased awareness of how to train employees to perform their jobs safely For Which Jobs Should I Perform a JHA? It’s a good idea to perform a JHA for any job. However, it’s also a good idea to prioritize some jobs ahead of others. Considering performing JHAs first for jobs that: Have a high injury and illness rate-at your location or in the industry in general Have the potential to cause severe injuries and illnesses, even if that’s never happened at your location so far Could lead to a severe injury or illness if only one human error occurred Are  new to your location Have recently changed Are complex  How Can I Get Started With a JHA? Do the following to set things in motion before you begin the formal JHA process: Make sure your employees are involved. Pretty much everything related to safety works best when management and employees are both involved. That’s true of the JHA process as well. Remember, it’s their job, and they probably know it better than you do. This will also help you get their buy-in for this process and for safety in general. Plus, two (or more) sets of eyes are always better than one. Review your history of injuries, illnesses, near misses, and machine/tool damage. Go over your written records of injuries, illnesses, near-misses, and damage that have required machine/tool replacement or repair. Then, get feedback from your employees, asking if there are things that have occurred but are not in the records (for whatever reason-make it clear you’re trying to make work conditions safer, not punish anyone because something hasn’t been reported). Ask your employees which hazards exist in their work area. Ask your employees if they’re aware of hazards in their work area. Write them down, you can use this list later when you’re performing the JHA. Note: If a serious hazard comes to light at this point, stop what’s you’re doing and correct the problem before you continue with the JHA process.  Create a list that prioritizes the jobs for which you’ll perform a JHA. As we said earlier, it’s great if you do a JHA for every job, but you should do JHAs for the jobs with the highest risks first. Take the information you’ve already gathered and prioritize the order in which you’ll perform the JHAs. With these steps down, you’re now ready to complete the formal JHA process, described below. Steps of the JHA Process Once you’ve completed the introductory steps above, it’s time to begin the formal JHA process for a given job. Here’s how: Step 1: Begin the JHA for a specific job by breaking the job down into the steps or tasks performed while doing the job. Here are some ways to do this: Watch an employee performing the job. Ask the employee what the various steps are-the employee may have some good insight here, but remember that the employee may leave out some steps because they’re "automatic" to him or her. Ask employees who have performed the job in the to list or review the steps. Film the employee while the employee performs the jobs-this will help you identify the steps. You can write these steps down anyway you want. It’s common to create a JHA form that represents each task of a given job, plus a description of the task, the hazards, and potential hazard controls. There’s a sample form for this in OSHA’s JHA document. Step 2: Identify and list the hazards associated with each task (do one task first, then another, etc.) Consider every possible thing that could go wrong. How could the worker be injured or be made ill? How could machines or equipment be damaged? Ask yourself the following questions: What could go wrong? What could cause that thing/those things to go wrong? What other factors could contribute to that thing/those things going wrong? What would happen if that thing/those things did go wrong? How likely is it that that thing/those things will go wrong? Reviewing the table of hazards listed above in this article may be very helpful when you’re trying to identify hazards. Step 3: Write a hazard description (also called a hazard scenario). Write a description of the hazard in a consistent, orderly manner that will help ensure you will later put in steps to control the hazard and create the best possible controls. A good hazard description should include the following items. Environment: where does this hazard exist? Exposure: who or what might be injured or made ill by this hazard? Trigger: what event might cause the hazard to lead to an injury or illness? Contributing factors: are there other factors that might contribute to cause the hazard to lead to an injury or illness? Outcome/consequence: what would be the result if the hazard were to occur? Here’s a one-screen sample from Convergence Training’s e-learning course on the JHA that explains the hazard description and gives an example. Step 4: Come up with a plan for controlling each hazard associated with each task. Once you’ve written the hazard descriptions, now it’s time to brainstorm some hazard controls so the hazard never really does lead to an injury or illness. And remember what we said earlier-if you’ve identified a severe hazard, and/or one with a great chance of causing illness or injury, address it immediately. When you’re considering a list of controls, think of the following (and in this order): Elimination and/or substitution: If you can remove the hazard entirely, or put some form of substitute in place, do that. That’s the best way to deal with a hazard-make it go away. An example would be removing a sharp edge on the corner of a machine so nobody could get cut. Engineering controls: Engineering controls involve re-designing the work area so that the hazard is eliminated or reduced. An example would be enclosing a noisy motor inside a sound-proof box. Administrative controls: Administrative controls involve modifying the way people work around a hazard to reduce the risk. An example might be limiting the number of hours someone works lifting heavy boxes from the end of a conveyor belt. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): PPE can be used to protect people who are working in the presence of hazards. An example would be giving a respirator to someone working near airborne crystalline silica. PPE should only be used as a last resort, once the other forms of controls listed above have been tried. PPE may be used in combination with the other forms of controls, too. Need more help on controls? Here’s a nice OSHA page on hazard controls and here’s an OSHA website on the Hierarchy of Controls. Watch our blog, too, we’ll be posting an article on the Hierarchy of Controls soon. When Should You Control Your Hazards? Once you’ve completed the JHA, start controlling them hazards, cowboy. Do You Have to Review and Revise Your JHAs? Yes. When Should You Review and Revise Your JHAs Review your JHAs and, if necessary, revise them: On a routine, periodic basis-maybe every year When an injury or illness occurs at a a specific job When there’s a close call or near-miss When the job changes When an employee suggests considering it Is a Job Hazard Analysis (JHA) the Same Thing as a Job Safety Analysis (JSA)? This was the biggest issue of contention in that LinkedIn discussion I mentioned earlier. Some said that the JHA and the JSA were different terms for the same thing. I was in this camp. Others said the JHA and the JSA were different things. But these people didn’t necessarily agree how the JHA and the JSA were different. Some basically believed that the JHA was the process of identifying hazards and the JSA was the process of controlling hazards once they were identified. Others had other various explanations. If I had to make a decision based purely on the way that OSHA defines the JHA in their document, I’d have to say that I (and those who agreed with me that the JHA and the JSA are the same thing) were wrong. And I’d now say that those who said the JHA was the process of identifying hazards and the JSA was the process of controlling hazards were right. Although, even if I was technically wrong, if you backed me into a corner, I’d say I was right in spirit. Because while OSHA says the JHA is "a technique that focuses on job tasks as a way to identify hazards before they occur," they also go on to say "Supervisors can use the findings of a job hazard analysis to eliminate and prevent hazards in their workplaces" and "Ideally, after you identify uncontrolled hazards, you will take steps to eliminate or reduce them to an acceptable risk level." So I’d argue that the JHA concept includes at least an implicit assumption that you’ll work to control hazards after you recognize them. And, although I’m not a lawyer, if I played one on TV, I’d suggest that identifying a hazard and not controlling it may well put you in some legal hot water, not to mention the harm it could lead to. Additional JHA Resources After reading this article on LinkedIn, Samuella Sigmann, a lecturer and chemical hygiene officer at Appalachian State University (go Mountaineers!) told me about this document created by the American Chemical Society: Identifying and Evaluating Hazards in Research Laboratories. Although it’s specific to research labs, it’s got a lot of stuff of general interest as well. Thanks to Samuella for the tip. The post What Is a JHA (the Job Hazard Analysis)? appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

In a recent post, we introduced ANSI Z490.1 and gave a quick overview of it and its seven sections. ANSI Z490.1 is important because it’s the national standard that lists criteria for accepted practices in safety, health, and environmental training. So if EHS training is part of your job responsibilities, it is definitely worth your time to get to know ANSI Z490.1. So we’ve decided to write a series of blog posts that provide more detailed overviews of the various sections of ANSI Z490.1. In this post, we’ll give you an overview of what’s covered in Sections 1, 2, and 3. These are smaller sections so we’re going to handle them in one post. Sections 4-7 will each get their own individual post. And then once we’re done, we’ll create a single blog post that compiles everything we’ve written. And if we get especially productive, we’ll create a downloadable ANSI Z490.1 Compliance Guide for you at that point too. But for now, let’s turn our attention to Sections 1, 2, and 3. Need help with your safety training program at work? We’ve got e-learning safety courses and learning managements systems (LMSs) for various industries, company sizes, and needs. Contact us to learn how we can help you. ANSI Z490.1 Section 1: Scope, Purpose, and Application Section one covers the basics. The scope of the standard is to create criteria for EHS training. This means you can evaluate the EHS training program at your workplace and then see if you measure up. It also means you can use ANSI Z490.1 as a model or template to create your EHS training program or improve your current situation. And by scope, they make it clear that they’re talking about the following aspects of your EHS training program: Development (which will be covered extensively in Section 4 of the standard) Delivery (covered in Section 5) Evaluation (covered in Section 6) Program management (covered in Section 7) Now’s a good time to look inward and give yourself a gut-check. How well do you handle the development, delivery, evaluation, and management of your EHS training program? Are you confident that you’re on top of things? If so, great. Give yourself an ANSI Z490.1 Gold Star. But if you’re not sure that you’re on top of all these aspects—or if you’ve never even thought about EHS training in this way—then it will definitely pay to dig deeper into this standard and learn what’s what. The purpose of the standard is to establish best practices and criteria for EHS training. The standard was written to provide people involved in EHS training a common set of criteria and best practices that they can use as a benchmark to evaluate their own training. It’s a good goal, right? Nobody likes being told or expected to do something "well" when there’s no firm definition of what "well" means. ANSI Z490.1 removes a lot of the mystery about effective EHS training by spelling things out for you. And it even gives you a process to follow. Nice! The standard applies to all providers of EHS training. Just involved in safety training? It applies to you. Just involved in health training? It applies to you. Just involved in environmental training? It applies to you. Involved in safety, health, and environmental training? You guessed it, it applies to you. Just involved in training development but not training delivery, evaluation or management? It applies to you. Just involved in delivery, evaluation, or management, but not the other parts? Again, and as you probably guessed, it applies to you. ANSI Z490.1 Section 2: Definitions The standard includes definitions of terms used within the standard. I like it when standards do this. If you’re reading along and come to some important word and wonder what exactly that means, you can refer back to the definitions section. That said, we’re not going to copy those definitions for you here. Buy a copy of the standard and check ‘em out. ANSI Z490.1 Section 3: Training Program Administration and Management Section 3 focuses on issues related to administration and management of your EHS training program. Integrating You EHS Training Program within Your EHS Program The section begins by explaining that the EHS training program must be part of an overall EHS program, and that the integration of the EHS training program should include: A clear understanding of who’s responsible/accountable for each aspects of the EHS training program (design, development, delivery, evaluation, and management) Adequate resources for trainers and trainees Competent professionals who use appropriate methods and techniques to design and deliver training and to lead trainings Selection of appropriate training delivery strategies that match the learning objectives of the safety training Strategies for determining if the EHS training is effective A process for managing the quality of the EHS training program, including managing the consistency of the program and continually improving the program An EHS Training Program Must Include These Aspects Next, the standard explains that your EHS training should include provisions for: Development of EHS training in an appropriate manner relying on best practices of the training industry, including things like a needs assessment, learning objectives, creating appropriate course content, formatting course content appropriately, creating and providing resource materials, and establishing criteria to determine when a trainee has adequately completed a course. This will all be covered in much more detail in our future post about ANSIZ490.1 Section 4. Training delivery by competent trainers in an appropriate training environment. This will be covered in much more detail in our future post about ANSIZ490.1 Section 5. Evaluation of EHS training to determine if it’s effective and the creation of a system for continuous improvement of the training. This will be covered in much more detail in our future post about ANSIZ490.1 Section 6. Managing and Administering EHS Training Resources The standard then spells out some pretty basic things your EHS training program should ensure, including the following: Budgets and money: You’ll need to having funding for all aspects of your EHS training program. Personnel: You’ll need people to administer and manage your EHS training program, and you’ll also need people with appropriate expertise to design, develop, deliver, and evaluate your EHS training. Knowledge: You’ll need to know the requirements for your EHS training program imposed by any federal, state, and/or local agency, and you’ll need appropriate technical information and resources for developing your training on specific topics. Facilities: You’ll need appropriate facilities where your trainings can occur. Technology: You’ll need appropriate training-related technology to use during your EHS trainings. This includes things like overhead projectors, equipment for your trainees to use during practice, and any necessary PPE. Records of training: You’ll need to create and store accurate records showing which trainees completed which training (and when). Training Program Evaluation Finally, Section 3 wraps up with some notes on evaluating the EHS training program (which, again, is covered more in Section 6 of the standard and will be covered in more detail in our future post on Section 6 as well). Specifically, the standard says here that thee EHS training program must be evaluated periodically, and specific aspects that should be evaluated include: Training program management Training processes Training results Looking Ahead to Z490.1 Section 4 So that wraps up our overview of ANSI Z490.1 Sections 1-3. If you’ve gotten this far and feel like you’re still on solid ground, you’ve got a good start toward at least understanding what the national standard for effective EHS training is all about. When we return to this series of articles, we’ll give you a pretty detailed overview of what the standard covers in Section 4, which is dedicated to developing training materials. The post ANSI Z490.1 Sections 1, 2, and 3: A Brief Overview appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

There have been a number of changes that have to do with OSHA’s injury and illness recordkeeping and reporting forms and requirements. And on top of that, there are some deadlines and new "effective dates" coming up. The injury and illness reporting forms themselves-301, 300, and 300A-were a lot to know about. And keeping track of the new requirements for recordkeeping, reporting, and online reporting just add to that. So in this post, we’ll take a look at: What’s reportable and what’s not Who has to report and who doesn’t OSHA’s recordkeeping and reporting forms for injuries and illnesses (forms 301, 300, and 300A) OSHA’s new online reporting and injury requirements for some employers Effective dates for the new requirements Deadlines for reporting Hopefully this will make everything a little easier to understand for you. Need help with your safety training program at work? We’ve got e-learning safety courses and learning managements systems (LMSs) for various industries, company sizes, and needs. Contact us to learn how we can help you. What Is a Recordable Injury or Illness? It’s a good idea to review what a recordable injury or illness is, including the stuff you have to keep records of and the stuff you have to report to OSHA. Read all about recordable injuries and illnesses here.  Remember that OSHA has changed the rules recently about what has to be reported, who has to report, and who’s exempt. Here’s an article that explains OSHA’s recent reporting and recordkeeping changes. What is OSHA Form 301? OSHA’s Form 301 is a form you should fill out every time there’s an injury or illness at your workplace. That means if you’ve had injuries or illnesses at the workplace, and you are not exempt from recordkeeping requirements, you should have done this by now. Read more about OSHA Form 301 here. OSHA exempts some companies from recordkeeping requirements, and those exemptions change January 1, 2015. According to OSHA: "However, there are two classes of employers that are partially exempt from routinely keeping injury and illness records.  First, employers with ten or fewer employees at all times during the previous calendar year are exempt from routinely keeping OSHA injury and illness records.  OSHA’s revised recordkeeping regulation maintains this exemption. Second, establishments in certain low-hazard industries are also partially exempt from routinely keeping OSHA injury and illness records. Starting on January 1, 2015 there will be a new list of industries that will be partially exempt from keeping OSHA records." Source As part of the upcoming OSHA changes, some companies will be required to submit Form 301 in a new online website. Please check out our recent blog post that gives you a sneak peek of the user interface of OSHA’s online injury and illness reporting website, and remember this change takes place January 1, 2015. Check this page from OSHA about recordkeeping for more information on the upcoming changes. What is OSHA Form 300? Form 300 is a log of all injuries or illnesses that have occurred during a specific year. You update Form 300 every time there’s a new injury or illness during a given year (unlike how you have to create a new Form 301 every time there’s a new injury or illness). And so it follow that you create a new Form 300 every year. You can read more about Form 300 here. As part of the upcoming OSHA changes, some companies will be required to submit Form 300 at that same new online website mentioned earlier. Please check out our recent blog post that gives you a sneak peek of the user interface of OSHA’s online injury and illness reporting website, and remember this change takes place January 1, 2015. Also remember that you must keep your own copy of Form 300 for at least five years. Don’t forget to read this page from OSHA about recordkeeping for more information a What is OSHA Form 300A? Form 300A is a summary of injury and illness data for a given year. You complete Form 300A early in a given year (2015, for example) and it includes data about injuries and illnesses in the previous year (2014, for example). You must complete and post Form 300A at your worksite by February 1 and you must keep it posted until April 30 of that same year. You also must keep Form 300A on file for at least five years following the year that it summarizes. The same is true for Form 300, as we mentioned earlier. Here’s an article about Form 300A. Conclusion: What To Do With Your OSHA Recordkeeping and Reporting Forms and About Recent OSHA Recordkeeping and Reporting Changes Now’s a good time to make sure you’re doing the reporting and recordkeeping you should and to make sure you understand the upcoming OSHA changes for 2015. First, find out if they affect you, and how. Then, whether you’re affected by the changes or not, make sure you’re compliant with all reporting and recordkeeping requirements imposed on your by OSHA. And, if you’re not, start changing that now. The post OSHA Recordkeeping and Reporting Forms appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

You don’t have to read up on learning objectives for too long before you run into the name of Robert Mager and hear about his performance-based learning objectives. There are also sometimes called three-part learning objectives or behavioral learning objectives. Mager outlines his theory about the best way to create learning objectives in his classic book Preparing Instructional Objectives. You can read our review of Preparing Instructional Objectives if you’re interested, and we highly recommend reading the book, which is informative, quick, and fun. Otherwise, here’s the crux of what Mager has to say, below. First, he makes it clear that a learning objective is a statement of "what the learner will be able to perform as a result of some learning experience." If you pay attention to that, you’ll notice two very important things. First, the learning objective states what the learner will be able to do. It’s not a description of the course materials or something the instructor does. And second, it’s something the learner performs—some form of action that can be observed and verified. Those are the truly important aspects of the Mager objective. The rest is all about setting conditions for how the learner can perform the action and how the performance will be evaluated. But let’s step back and look at all three parts of a Mager objective. You’ll notice that although we just learned that the learner is the one who’ll be doing this, there’s no part that directly represents the learner, so you’ll have to keep that in mind. The Three Parts of a Mager Performance-Based Learning Objective According to Mager, a learning objective should ideally include the following three components: A performance (performed by the learner, remember) Conditions (under which the learner shall perform the performance) Criteria (by which the performance is evaluated by another) Mager admits that in some cases, "it is not always necessary to include the second characteristic, and not always practical to include the third," but he goes on to say that the more you say about them, the better your objective will communicate." (That point about communicating effectively is one that Mager comes back to again and again in his book, and we’ll come back to it again later in this article). Let’s look at each of those three components in closer detail. Performance In Mager’s words,the objective must specify "what learners must be able to DO or PERFORM when they demonstrate mastery of an objective." So, as we’ve said before, the key is the learner must do something. But you’ve got to be careful when you’re writing an objective so that you write a performance that you can somehow observe, and you must tell the learner how their performance will be evaluated. Or, as Mager puts it, "the most important and indispensable characteristic of a useful objective is that it describes the kind of performance that will be accepted as evidence that the learner has mastered the objective." Because there’s an emphasis on having the learner do something that someone else can observe as evidence, it’s important to avoid learning objectives like "know" and "understand." How can you tell if someone "knows" or "understands" something? Instead, restate the objective so that the learner has to do something (like "state" or "list" or "explain") to demonstrate that he/she "knows" or "understands." For example, let’s look at the two sample objectives Mager offers as his first quiz of the reader. You’re supposed to pick the correctly written learning objective that includes a performance someone else can witness or evaluate. Which of the two following learning objectives do you think is better? (Remember, these are directly from Mager’s book.) Be able to write a news article. Be able to develop an appreciation of music. If you selected "Be able to write a news article," you picked the right one. That’s an action that someone can later evaluate and clearly tell if it’s been performed or hasn’t been performed. On the other hand, how would you know if someone has developed an appreciation of music? What are the clear signs of that-or is that too abstract? Mager would say there’s no clear way to know if someone has developed an appreciation of music. Conditions The next thing to do is to state the conditions, if any, in which the learner must complete the performance. The conditions will tell the leaner things like the following (look for the italicized parts of the objectives below): What can I use while doing the performance? (For example: Given 100 toothpicks and some glue, construct a suspension bridge.) What will be denied to me? (For example: Perform the multiplication tables up to 20 without the of a calculator.) In which conditions will the performance have to occur? (For example: Run a 100-yard dash on a muddy field.) Remember that Mager said you may not always need to add conditions. As always with Mager, he suggests using them if they make things more clear and remove ambiguity. Mager’s big on being clear and he’s down on ambiguity, and that seems reasonable. Criteria Finally, the third part of a Mager three-part, performance-based learning objective is the criterion or criteria. Or, as Mager puts it: "Having described what you want your students to do, you can increase the communication power of an objective by telling them HOW WELL you want them to be able to do it." Here are some examples (again, look for the italicized parts of the objectives below): Identify four out out five product defects on a moving manufacturing line. Close ten boxes in a minute. Mager notes that it may not always be practical to include criteria in a learning objective. When that’s true, don’t include them. Conclusion: The Learner, the Three Parts, Plus Communication Power (Clarity, Conciseness, and Lack of Ambiguity) And that’s about it in a nutshell. If you keep in mind that the objective states something the learner should do after training, remember to include its three parts (when required)-performance, conditions, and criteria-and maximize your communication power to your learner by keeping things clear, concise, and removing ambiguity, you’ll be headed in the right direction with your learning objectives. Of course, it couldn’t hurt to buy the book. It’s got a lot of helpful practice exercises and it’s a fun read to boot. The post Robert Mager’s Performance-Based Learning Objectives appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

We just finished reading Robert Mager’s Preparing Instructional Objectives, the classic book on learning objectives that’s also part of the six-book collection, The Mager Six Pack. (Yes, we bought the whole six pack, and you’ll be seeing book reviews about all of them over time). Mager’s Learning Objectives The book begins by explaining what a learning objective is ("an objective tells what the learner will be able to perform as a result of some learning experience") and then lists three things a learning objective should include (a performance, conditions, and criteria). This three-part learning objective, including something that the learner should be able to perform, the conditions under which the learner should be able to complete the performance, and the criteria by which the performance is judged, is typically known as Mager’s Performance-Based Learning Objective, Mager’s Behavioral Learning Objective, or Mager’s Three-Part Learning Objective.  For more information about this, check our article on Mager’s learning objectives. Quick Review of Mager’s Preparing Instructional Objectives For the rest of this post, we’ll focus on telling you more about some general features of the book. It’s short: It’s only 136 pages long, and those aren’t text-heavy either. If you’re a fast reader, it may take you only a few hours in a single sitting. I ’m a slow reader, but it still went quickly enough for me. It’s well-written: Mager uses a clear, direct, conversational tone that makes it easy to understand his points. It’s fun: This is not a standard book that you read in a linear, page-after-page fashion. Instead, pages often end with Mager posing a question to the reader, and you’re instructed to bounce ahead to various other pages based on the answer you’ve chosen. It’s almost like those "invent your own novels" brought about by postmodernism. It’s funny: Mager’s a funny guy, and there are plenty of jokes within the book to keep you chuckling. I read a few passages out loud at the house and they got some laughter at the dinner table as well. Reading this book makes you think some kid got lucky when they got Mager as an uncle, grandfather, or school teacher. It includes lots of practice exercises: As all instructional designers should know, adults learn well from active learning exercises. Mager knew this too, and he’s included many exercises for you to test your understanding and your own ability to write learning objectives. It includes checklists: Mager wrote up some checklists so you can use them later to evaluate the learning objectives you write on the job—and make them better. These are handy. It’s recommended: Summing up everything we just said, we give this book a big thumb’s up and recommend it to you. If you do buy it, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Keep your eyes on our blog for more articles about the other titles in the Mager Six Pack, for our more in-depth discussion about Mager’s three-part objectives, and for our lengthy post on learning objectives, which includes a free download. That lengthy post on learning objectives we just mentioned includes a discussion of Bloom’s Taxonomy, something Mager takes a bit of a good-natured pot-shot at in his own book. There are one or two pretty specific and important differences between Mager’s approach to learning objectives and the one outlined in the post that discusses Bloom’s Taxonomy, but all told there are more similarities than differences. Check both methods out and let us know what you think. The post Book Review: Robert Mager’s "Preparing Instructional Objectives" appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

If you’re in safety or EHS, you may have heard of risk management. Maybe you know exactly what that means. If so, great. But maybe you don’t, and maybe you’ve wondered. If so, this post is for you. We’ll explain what risk management is and how risk management and safety are related. Let’s start by defining some terms. ISO 31000, the international standard about risk management, includes the following definitions: Risk-the effect of uncertainty on objectives Risk management-coordinated activities to direct and control an organization with respect to risk Now let’s look at each of those a little more closely in the sections below. Want to improve the risk management and safety training at your work? Convergence Training has a series of learning management systems (LMSs) to help you import, create, assign, deliver, and track safety training of any type. And, as part of a "blended learning" solution for safety training, you might want to consider our e-learning safety training courses. Risk The definition from ISO 31000 says risk is "the effect of uncertainty on objectives." Let’s break that down a bit. The average business has any number of objectives. These include things like creating a new product, making a profit, and ensuring safety (but there are lots more, as you’d imagine). Various things can have an effect on a business’s chances of meeting each of those objectives. Those effects, in which the outcome can depart from expectations, can be either positive or negative. So yes, risk management studies both things that affect objectives in a positive sense AND things that affect objectives in a negative sense. (Still, it’s probably most common to think of risk management and to perform risk management for risks that have negative effects.) Risk Management ISO 31000 not only states that risk management is the set of "coordinated activities to direct and control an organization with respect to risk," it also fleshes that out for us a bit. According to the standard, the risk management process includes the following activities related to risk: Communicating and consulting Establishing a context Identifying Analyzing Evaluating Treating Monitoring Reviewing We’ll look more closely at several of these aspects below-especially risk identification, risk analysis, risk evaluation, and risk treatment. Risk, Risk Management, and Safety As noted above, risk and risk management apply to many different parts of a business or organization. For example, risk management is big in finance, and if you read up on the Enron scandal or the recent Great Recession, you’ll run into references to the risk management departments of the companies involved. Likewise, pharmaceutical industries take great interest in risk management, and when a class of drugs called NSAIDs (this include ibuprofen) were found to elevate the risk of cardiac problems, the risk management departments at these companies sprung into action. But in this article, we’re primarily interested in risk management and how it applies to EHS and safety. In particular, to risks with a possible negative effect-pretty much what OSHA calls a hazard. Here’s OSHA’s definition of a hazard drawn from an OSHA guide to the job hazard analysis: "A hazard is the potential for harm. In practical terms, a hazard often is associated with a condition or activity that, if left uncontrolled, can result in an injury or illness. " So in the context of safety or EHS, risk management is primarily concerned with identifying, analyzing, evaluating, and "treating" the risk to avoid, control, reduce, accept, or transfer the risk. That’s what we’ll focus on for the rest of this post. Identify the Risk Risk management begins with risk identification. Let’s begin by seeing how ISO 31000 explains this phase (we’ll do the same thing with the other phases listed below too). Risk identification is "process of finding, recognizing and describing risks….it involves the identification of risk sources, events, their causes, and their potential consequences."  And since we’re talking about safety and hazards, let’s see what ISO 31000 has to say about hazards: A hazard is "a source of potential harm" and a hazard "can be a risk source." How does a safety expert identify risks (what we’re calling hazards in this safety-specific example)? The job hazard analysis is a good place to start. Read our earlier blog post about the job hazard analysis or check out this OSHA guide to the job hazard analysis for more information on that. Analyze the Risk Once you’ve identified a risk, it’s time to analyze it. Here’s the description from ISO 31000 : Risk analysis is a process undertaken to "comprehend the nature of risk and to determine the level of risk." 31000 also states that "risk is often expressed in terms of a combination of the consequences of an event…and the associated likelihood of occurrence." To put that into every day language, once you’ve identified a risk, analysis includes the process of determining: What are the chances that the risk or hazard will cause some kind of problem (an injury or illness in safety and health terms, a leak or release or expose in environmental terms)? This is often referred to as the probability or likelihood that the hazard will lead to a negative effect. If the risk DID create a problem, how big of a problem would that be? This is often referred to as the consequence or severity. These two ideas-the likeliness that the risk or hazard could cause cause harm and the severity of the consequences-are often displayed in a risk matrix. Risk Matrix You can create a risk matrix to represent the likelihood and severity of a given risk (or hazard). The matrix is typically set up to allow you to analyze two different characteristics of the risk. These are the risk’s likelihood (or probability) and its severity (or consequences). Each can be categorized from lesser to greater, as shown below. Likelihood or probability (these go in order from least likely to most likely) Rare Unlikely Possible Probable Very likely Severity or consequence (these go in order from least severe to most severe) Minor Serious Major Catastrophic/critical The risk matrix is often presented in a table, as shown below. Minor Serious Major Catastrophic/Critical Very Likely Probable Possible Unlikely Rare As you’d guess, for each risk (or hazard), you’d determine the likelihood and the severity and check the appropriate box in the table. For example, here’s risk that’s happens only rarely and would lead to only minor harm. Minor Serious Major Catastrophic/Critical Very Likely Probable Possible Unlikely Rare X And, here’s a risk that is very likely to occur and would lead to a catastrophe. Minor Serious Major Catastrophic/Critical Very Likely X Probable Possible Unlikely Rare The risk matrices shown above are just one example of how you can do this. You and/or your organization may make your own, and here are a few others to consider: US Department of Defense Risk Matrix (see page 11) ISO 17666: 2003 Space Systems: Risk Management Evaluate the Risk Once you’ve analyzed the risk, perhaps putting it into your risk matrix, it’s time to evaluate. Here’s how ISO 31000  explains evaluation: Risk evaluation is the "process of comparing the results of risk analysis with risk criteria to determine whether the risk and/or its magnitude is acceptable or tolerable." In other words-once you’ve analyzed the risk to determine its likelihood and its severity, are you willing to "live with it" or do you want to do something to address the risk? Risk evaluation includes a process of ranking the risks in terms of their magnitude-the biggest risks to the smallest risk-and comparing them against a set of risk criteria to determine which risks should be addressed. Here’s what ISO 31000 has to say about risk criteria: Risk criteria are "terms of reference against which the significance of a risk is evaluated…risk criteria are based on organizational objectives and external and internal context…risk criteria can be derived from standards, laws, policies, and other requirements." Considering our two examples above, a risk that’s a near certainty to cause harm and that would lead to catastrophic consequences is something you wouldn’t find acceptable or tolerable. By contrast, if something’s very unlikely to happen and would cause only a minor issue if it did occur, you probably would find that risk acceptable or tolerable. Treat the Risk With the risk identified, analyzed, and evaluated, it’s time to consider treating the risk. What does that mean? Here’s how ISO 31000  states explains risk treatment: Risk treatment is a "process to modify risk…risk treatment can involve avoiding the risk by deciding not to start or continue with the activity that gives risk to the risk, taking or increasing risk to pursue an opportunity, removing the risk source, changing the likelihood, changing the consequences, sharing the risk with another party or parties, and retaining the risk by informed decision." Let’s look at a few of those treatment options in the context of safety. First, consider "retaining the risk by informed decision." This would be a situation in which you’ve decided you’re willing to accept the risk and do nothing to modify it. This would probably be something like a risk that happens only rarely and that leads to minor consequences. Next, consider "sharing the risk with another party." An example would be getting an insurance policy to cover your building in the event of fire. Finally, consider "avoiding the risk by deciding not to start or continue with the activity that gives rise to the risk." An example of this would be recognizing that a production process results in dangerous off-gassing and halting production. Since you’re presumably a safety expert if you’ve read this far, we assume you can think of your own examples for "removing the risk source," "changing the likelihood," and "changing the consequences." As a group, the risk treatments that deal with negative consequences are often referred to as risk mitigation, risk elimination, risk prevention, and/or risk reduction. We discuss those in further detail in the next section. Risk Treatments for Safety: The Hierarchy of Controls In safety, there ARE some risks that you’re willing to tolerate, but there are lots that you’ll want to "treat" by controlling them. One standard way to select a control (or several controls) for a specific hazard is by working through the hierarchy of controls. The idea behind the hierarchy of controls is to work though different classes or types of controls when you’re trying to figure out how to control a specific hazard. Those types of controls are listed in order within a hierarchy. You should try the first type of controls-shown at the top of the list below-before you go on to the second, third, and fourth type of controls. With that said, here’s the hierarchy of controls: Elimination or Substitution Engineering Controls Administrative Controls Personal Protective Equipment So, for every hazard you’re trying to control, you’d consider elimination or substitution first, engineering controls next, administrative controls after that, and then finally personal protective equipment (PPE). In some cases, you’ll use more than one type of control, and PPE should be considered only a last means of controlling a hazard. Here’s a helpful OSHA document if you want more information on the hierarchy of controls. And keep your eyes on our blog for an upcoming article on the hierarchy of controls. Risk Management Standards and Guides We’ve referenced ISO 31000 throughout this article, but there are several different risk management standards. Here are a few: ISO 31000 Risk Management - Practices and Guidelines  OCEG "Red Book" 2.0 GRC Capability Model BS 31100 Code of Practice for Risk Management COSO Enterprise Risk Management-Integrated Framework Ferma 2002: A Risk Management Standard Solvency II: 2012 Risk Management for the Insurance Industry To top that off, here’s a nice comparison of the risk management standards above. Risk Management and Safety: Your Experiences and Thoughts? We’d be curious to know your own exposure and experience with risk management. If you’re involved in safety at work, does your company have a risk management program? Either way, do you use some or all of these techniques described above at work? What are your experiences with them?   The post Risk Management and Safety appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

Baby, it’s cold outside. (I like that version, don’t you?) Cold weather has arrived once again, and it’s a good idea to consider how well prepared you and your workforce are for the lower temperatures. Dealing with the cold may seem like common knowledge that we’ve all got under our belts, but the fact is that every year people suffer from hypothermia, frostbite, trench foot, and other cold-related problems. So, we’ve pulled together some helpful resources about cold stress, frostbite, working in the cold, and generally keeping safe in the cold. They’re drawn from various sources, including OSHA, the Department of Labor, AAA, National Public Radio, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and more. Hopefully you’ll find one or more of these helpful. Stay safe and stay warm! Need some help with your safety training solutions? Convergence Training has a series of learning management systems (LMSs) to help you import, create, assign, deliver, and track safety training of any type. And, as part of a "blended learning" solution for safety training, you might want to consider our e-learning safety training courses. OSHA’s Winter Storms Safety & Health Topic Page OSHA’s Cold Stress Guide Tips to Protect Outdoor Workers in the Winter from DOL Tips for Driving in the Snow from AAA Tips for Surviving in Your Snowbound Car in an Emergency Frostbite Tips from NPR More Tips for Keeping Safe in Cold and Snow from the American Academy of Pediatrics The post Cold Stress: Safety Resources for Working in Cold Weather appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

We work with lots of companies who are continually trying to improve the efficiency of their workers, machines, and work processes. This is critical to them because they need to create more product and spend less doing it. Overseas competition has made this need even more pressing, especially since labor costs are often significantly less for companies operating in other nations. As a result, our customers want to help their workers because more knowledgeable, skilled, capable, and efficient. One customer in particular summed up what many different customers have told me when he said "I want to help my machine operators become machine engineers." (If you’re out there, Steve, hello-hope you’re doing well.) When he said he wants his employees to become "machine engineers," one of the things he means is that he wants his employees to be able to recognize and troubleshoot production problems to keep machinery operating at peak efficiency. But how can a company help their employees improve their troubleshooting skills? One way is through process training. Check out our off-the-shelf process training e-learning courses for pulp, paper, tissue, and corrugated manufacturing, and look into our learning management systems (LMS) for delivering, assigning, tracking completion, and running reports on those process training e-learning courses. Improve Troubleshooting Skills with Process Training What is process training, you ask? Process training is training that explains how a process works. For example, I lead training sessions that teach new customers how our Convergence Training learning management systems (LMSs) work, and those sessions include a "process training" component in which we explain how the various smaller parts of the system work together. Or, to give a manufacturing/industrial example, process training would explain the process by which a company creates a product. For example, Convergence Training creates a lot of process training materials for companies in the paper, pulp, tissue, and corrugated industries (click those links to see course lists and samples from each library). These process training materials help employees at these facilities quickly learn how the various processes and machines at their workplace function and interact to create their company’s final product(s). Of course, process training can be valuable in any industry, not just the ones mentioned above, and we create process training for companies in many different industries. How Process Training Helps Employees Improve Troubleshooting Skills There are many benefits to providing process training to employees. One of them is that the process training will help the employee develop troubleshooting skills more rapidly (and those troubleshooting skills will be more effective, too). Providing process training to workers has been shown to improve their troubleshooting skills. This is because it’s easier for a worker to correct a problem (or increase the efficiency of a machine) if the employee knows how the machine works and how it contributes to the production process as a whole. Some Process Training Examples from Convergence Training’s Retail Training Libraries Here’s an example of process training from our paper manufacturing training library: Here’s an example of process training from our pulp manufacturing training library: Here’s an example of process training from our tissue manufacturing training library: Here’s an example of process training from our corrugated manufacturing training library: More to Come On Process Training Keep your eyes on our blog, as we plan on writing more about creating training materials to help teach employees the processes involved at their workplace. It’s our goal to provide some tips and guidelines that will help you create your own effective process training materials and help improve the troubleshooting skills of your employees. Notes:  1. To learn more about how process training can improve troubleshooting, check the following two books by Dr. Ruth Colvin Clark: Building Expertise: Cognitive Methods for Training and Performance Improvement (most notably the chapter titled "Problem-Centered Instruction" and its discussion of the "Sherlock" training program on pages 298 and 299) and Developing Technical Training: A Structured Approach for Developing Classroom and Computer-Based Instructional Materials (most notably the chapter titled How to Teach Processes, where she explains that "if a technician is faced with a problem on some equipment, more effective troubleshooting will result from an understanding of the technical equipment process."). We have a book review of the second of those books here. 2.  As explained in Clark’s book Building Expertise (mentioned above), effective training for troubleshooting should include "(1) an understanding of the device, (2) specific procedures involved in performing tests and interpreting the results, and (3) troubleshooting heuristics." See page 299 of her book.   The post Improve Troubleshooting Skills with Process Training appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

We’ve got a new article over at EHS Today magazine. It discusses the job hazard analysis (JHA) and the job safety analysis (JSA). In particular, it asks if they’re the same thing or are different. Here’s the link if you want to read up on JHAs and JSAs. Hope you find it interesting!  Feel free to comment there or here if you’ve got an opinion on this  barn-burner. If you’re especially interested, check out our previous What is a JHA? article here at the Convergence Training blog and keep your eyes open for our upcoming JHA Guide Checklist. Finally, many thanks to EHS Today editor Sandy Smith. Sandy runs a great magazine over there at EHS Today and we encourage you to check it out.     The post JHA or JSA? Does it Matter? appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

We’re fans of "blended learning" solutions that make use of different types of training activities. This might include written documents, instructor-led training, on-the-job training (OJT), and more. The idea is to pick the type of training activity that best suits each training need. For example, maybe you really need the real-time, spontaneous feedback that instructor-led training can provide for one training need. Or, maybe the hands-on practice in the real work environment with an experienced co-worker fits the bill for another training need. When you’re choosing the right activity type, one thing to think about is "Does this allow me to deliver the same, consistent training message every time?" Something we hear again and again from new customers is that they struggle to deliver the same standard, consistent training message on a given topic to each worker, every time they hear the message. You can see why this is important. For example, you may have a set of policies that you want to make all new employees aware of during their onboarding. Or, maybe you want each employee in the Production department to perform a particular procedure in the exact same way. Or, maybe you want to make sure the message in your yearly refresher training matches the message employees learned the first time they were trained. Need some e-learning courses for your workplace? Check out our e-learning course libraries and our learning management systems (LMSs). Why Instructor-Led Training Doesn’t Always Lead to a Standard, Consistent Training Message As we mentioned earlier, instructor-led training is great for a lot of things. But it’s not always so great for delivering the exact same training message time and time again. That’s true if only one instructor leads each training, and it’s even more true if you have multiple instructors training employees on the same topic. What are some reasons why instructor-led training can lead to inconsistent training messages? Well, we’ll list a few below. And we wouldn’t be shocked if you could add some more on your own (hey, that’s what the "Comments" section at the bottom is for-feel free to add on). Instructor misspeaks during training and accidentally says the wrong thing Instructor forgets to mention something during training Instructor doesn’t actually agree with the training message and goes "off-script" from time to time Different instructors have different understandings of the same training materials and train employees differently as a result We’re guessing at least one of these have happened at your workplace. If not, it’s probably easy enough for you to imagine that they could. Use e-Learning Courses for Standard, Consistent  Training Messages On the other hand, one thing e-learning courses do very well is allow you to deliver the same training message to all of your employees every time they hear it. Let’s list a few reasons why below: You can read, review, edit, and approve the storyboard and script before a custom e-learning course is created for you (click to learn how Convergence Training can create custom e-learning courses for your workplace training needs) You can create your own e-learning courses and control the training messages they contain (click to see an example of how to create your own e-learning course using PowerPoint and an e-learning authoring tool) You can use a learning management system (LMS) to deliver your e-learning course online to your entire workforce, or to selected parts, such as a department (click to learn more about the LMSs available from Convergence Training) If you need to change or update your training message, you can modify your e-learning course and deliver a new version through your learning management system (at least you can with the LMSs from Convergence Training) Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments below. Your Thoughts? What are your experiences? Do you struggle to deliver the same training message to each of your employees? If so, why? And, what have you done to try to fix the problem? Did it work?     The post Use e-Learning for Standard, Consistent Training Messages appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

Convergence Mobile has won a silver medal for "Best Advance in Performance Support Technology" in Brandon Hall’s annual Excellence Awards. Our Convergence Mobile solution debuted in 2012 and has seen continued development of new features designed to arm employees with the knowledge they need to make smart operating decisions quickly. Winning this award validates the hard work our team has put into developing a performance support solution that meets the needs of our industrial and manufacturing clients. All Excellence Award entries were evaluated by a panel of veteran, independent senior industry experts. Brandon Hall senior analysts and executives evaluated the series based on innovation, value proposition, and measurable results. Convergence Mobile can take advantage of built-in mobile optics to immediately access asset-specific content Convergence Mobile was designed to help industrial and manufacturing facilities operate more efficiently by offering instant performance support and digital on-the-job training tools to workers on the floor. Developed according to the requests of some of our key manufacturing customers, Convergence Mobile can help reduce maintenance-related downtime, improve operator performance, and reduce some of the inefficiencies of paper-based maintenance support. Where many "mobile" products are simply cellphone and tablet-formatted versions of existing learning management systems, Convergence Mobile was built from the ground up for the express purpose of delivering training and performance support to industrial and manufacturing employees. Unique features like our video-based Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), scan-accessible training content, mobile on-the-job (OJT) training tools, and offline access, help differentiate Convergence Mobile from competing products and propelled us to success in this award category. To learn more about Convergence Mobile, or to request a live demonstration, visit our website. A full list of the 2015 Brandon Hall Excellence Award winners can be found on the Brandon Hall website. The post Convergence Mobile Wins Brandon Hall Award for "Best Advance in Performance Support Technology" appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.

People like you and I have goals: "I want to be a good parent" or "I want to be healthier." Businesses have goals: "We want to be an industry thought leader" or "We want to be cutting edge" or "we want to be lean." And trainers have training goals for their employee learners: "I want them to be motivated" or "I want them to want to do their jobs well." Of course, the point of having goals is that we want to meet them. But it can be hard to meet a goal if you don’t really know what that goal means. Consider our examples above. How does a person know if she’s a good parent or healthier? How does a business know when it’s an industry thought leader, cutting edge, or lean? And how do trainers know if employees are motivated or want to do their jobs well? These goals are abstractions instead of being concrete. In this post, we’ll show you a method that will help you develop goals that are clearly stated, concrete performances. The reason for doing that is that it makes it easy to tell you’ve reached the goal. And that’s the goal of goals, right? Goal Analysis The book Goal Analysis by Robert Mager is a classic in the field of human performance improvement (HPI) and is one of the six volumes of the famous "Mager Six Pack." Mager’s book does two nice things: Lays out a simple way to identify goals that are abstractions instead of concrete performances (he calls these "fuzzies") Provides a simple, five-step process for creating concrete, performance-based goals We’ll use Mager’s book and his methods as a source for this article. If the article catches your interest, we definitely recommend the book. Identifying "Fuzzy" Goals (Abstractions) Many times, a person, business, or trainer will develop a goal that’s really an abstraction-what Mager calls a "fuzzy." They’re abstractions (or fuzzies) because it’s hard or impossible to agree when they’ve been reached. When a person wants to be "healthy," when a company wants to be "lean," and when a trainer wants employees to "have positive attitudes about their work," they’re expressing abstract, fuzzy goals. That’s because there’s no visible action that we can observe to see if someone is healthy, if a company is lean, or if a worker has a positive attitude. Or, as Mager puts it in discussing his own examples: "Intents to develop such states as "favorable attitudes," "deep appreciation," or "sense of pride" are examples of abstractions; they do not tell you what a person would be doing when demonstrating the state or condition, nor do they suggest the behavior that would indicate how you can tell that he or she has done it. On the other hand, items such as "writing," "decanting," and "hopping" are examples of performances; they do tell you what a person would be doing when demonstrating his or her ability to do it." So this is the first thing to do when you are creating or evaluating goals. Ask yourself if it’s concrete and would lead to an observable performance, or if it’s fuzzy. What To Do When You’ve Got a Fuzzy Goal If all your goals are concrete, performance-based ones, and you can easily tell if the goal is reached through observation, congratulations. You’re done. But, if you’ve got a fuzzy on your hands, you’ve got another question to address: Is this abstract goal really so important? If you ask yourself that question, give it some thought, and come to the conclusion that it SEEMED important when you said it, but in after-thought it’s not that big of a deal, then drop it and you’re done. But maybe you’ll decide that yes, it IS important. Great. In that case, you’ll have to go through some further steps to "unfuzzy" that abstraction. Or, in other words, to figure out the behaviors that someone would have to perform so that you’d be able to recognize those behaviors as a sign that the goal is reached. And that’s what Mager’s five-step method is for. Five Steps of Goal Analysis The book gives a simple, five-step process for analyzing your goals and making them concrete. Those steps are: Write down the goal Write down everything a person would have to do for you to agree that he or she has met the goal Review the items you listed in step 2 and revise Write a complete sentence that describes each of the items on your list after step 3 Test the sentences you wrote in step 4 to make sure they’re complete We’ll take a further look at each of the steps in the sections below. Goal Analysis Step 1: Write Down the Goal Start by putting pen to paper-or, finger to keyboard-and writing down your goal. Don’t worry if it’s a complete sentence or a fragment. Just get it down. You don’t even have to worry-yet-if it’s a performance or a fuzzy. The important thing is to make sure you’ve got it on paper. Mager’s only caution here is this: "Make sure your statement describes an intended outcome rather than a process. That way, you won’t get bogged down with the problem of means and ends before you get started. Once you know what you are trying to attain, then you can think about the best means of getting there. So, make your goals talk about the ends rather than about the means of attaining those ends. Make the statement say "have a favorable attitude toward barnacles" rather than "learn to have a favorable attitude toward barnacles." Make it read "understand foreign trade" rather than "develop an understanding of foreign trade." So that’s it. Write it and make sure it’s an outcome (an end) and not a process (the means to that end). Then move on to step 2. Goal Analysis Step 2: Write Down Everything a Person Would Have to Do for You to Agree He/She Has Met the Goal The next step is to take some time to write down everything you’d have to see in order to know that the goal had been met. The important thing in this step is to just write the ideas down. It’s OK if they’re not all good ideas, and they probably won’t be. But you’ll backtrack in step 3 and take of that. So for now, just write down everything that comes to mind. Mager offers four strategies that can help you do this. They are: Answer the question "What will I take as evidence that my goal has been achieved?" Answer the question "Given a room full of people, what is the basis on which I would separate them into two piles-those who had achieved my goal and those who had not?" Imagine that you’re going to ask someone else to determine who has achieved the goal and who hasn’t. What instructions would you give that person how to tell if the goal has been met? Think of a person who you believe has met the goal and write down why you think they’ve met it. In other words, what does he or she say or do to make you feel this person has achieved this goal? Mager offers one final tip in case you get stuck at some point here. If you can’t think of positive statements that show that someone has met the goal, start by thinking of negative statements that show that someone hasn’t met the goal. For example, if your goal is that a person be "pleasant," you can list "frowns," "complains," and "argues" here. Then, you can revise these negative statements into positive ones. Goal Analysis Step 3: Review the Items You Listed in Step 2 and Revise Step 3 is all about reviewing your list from step 2 and making it better. "Making it better." That sounds kinda fuzzy, doesn’t it? So, to make that more concrete and performance-based, here’s how to start: Cross out and delete any items that are duplicate other items (redundancies) Cross out and delete items that, now that you give it some more thought, aren’t good indications that the goal has been met Place check marks next to items that are fuzzies and/or that represent processes (means) instead of outcomes (ends) Once you’ve done that, it’s time to rework those fuzzies. To do that: Take every checked item and write it down on a separate piece of paper Treat each of those checked items as if they are a goal-meaning, perform steps 2 and 3 as described above for each Eventually, your list (which will be on several pieces of paper) will include nothing but concrete, observable performances. When you’ve gotten that far, you’re done with step 3 and ready for step 4. Goal Analysis Step 4: Write a Complete Sentence That Describes Each of the Items on Your List After Step 3 You’ll begin step 4 with you list of performances from step 3 (things that can be "done" and that you can observe to see that they’re done). The performances listed in step 3 might have been a single word, or a short phrase, or a fragment of a sentence. The trick in step 4 is to take each of those statements of performance and turn them into a complete sentence. That sentence, Mager says, should include: Who does it What that person does How well they do it Let’s take a look at an example from Mager’s book. In Mager’s example, the goal from step 1 was "good reporting." Then, as a result of completing steps 2 and 3, the goal of "good reporting" was broken down into four observable performances: Identifies routing Determines presentation form Writes report Presents report And, in step 4, he rewrites those performances this way: Goal: Good reporting For each report, the scientist can name the members of senior management to whom the report should be directed for decision-making. For each report, the scientist can determine (name) the form of presentation that will most clearly communicate the content to a nonscientific audience. The scientist can prepare a written report that summarizes all the findings, conclusions, and recommendations bearing on the researched issue. The scientist can report (orally) to the appropriate members of senior management, providing them with all the information they need to take effective action. What starts as a fuzzy, becomes a chaotic list, and then is transformed into an ordered list of behaviors is now a nicely written series of steps of action. Goal Analysis Step 5: Test the Sentences You Wrote in Step 4 to Make Sure They’re Complete With luck, you’re done after completing step 4. But relying on luck isn’t good enough. So, step 5 is a built-in double-check. For this step, you’ve got to ask yourself one simple question: "If every item on my list occurs exactly as they’re described, will the goal have been met?" If your answer is yes, then you’ve met you goal-your goal to complete a goal analysis and create a proper goal, that is. Pat yourself on the back and put this one to bed. But if your answer is no, there’s still some work to do. If you answered no to the question above, you’ve got to ask yourself another question. This time, it’s: "What else would have to happen before I’d agree that the goal has been met?" Once you’ve answered that question, add that new item to you list and ask yourself the first question again: "If every item on my list occurs exactly as they’re described, will the goal have been met?" If you can answer yes no, you’re done. If not, you’ve got to keep repeating this cycle until you’re finished. Either way, you’ll have a full set of performances, each described in a complete sentence that explains who, what, and how well, that in total represent full observable evidence that your goal has been met. You’ve finished your goal analysis, and now you can move forward to seeing that the goal is met. What To Do AFTER Your Goal Analysis is Complete Obviously, you’re not done just because you’ve completed your goal analysis. What the goal analysis does is help you create a road map to getting those goals completed. What you’ve still got to do is actually complete those goals. So, here’s what to do depending on the type of goal you were analyzing. New Year’s resolution (we’re throwing this one in since we’re writing this on New Year’s Day): Achieve those goals during this year. A personal goal: Achieve those goals. A business goal: Inform the workers at your company of the goals, determine which employees are responsible for meeting which goals and how they’ll meet them, and then work toward meeting those goals. A training goal for employee learners: Use your goals and the underlying performances to perform a training needs assessment to see if training or some different "intervention" is needed to help reach those goals. If it’s training, create learning objectives (or click here) and then design and deliver the training. Finally, evaluate the training to see if it was effective. Conclusion That’s it-we hope it was helpful. If this post has caught your interest, we remind you that the ideas are drawn from the book Goal Analysis by Robert Mager and we recommend that you check it out. His book has extended descriptions, examples, and practice exercises to help you master the procedure we sketched out above. We’d love to hear your thoughts about the goal analysis procedure listed above and/or about some goals you’ve got. Hey, we’d even be happy to hear about your new year’s resolutions. Would it help you to perform a goal analysis on them? And, of course, we’d welcome if you came back later, after putting this process into action, to let us know how it worked for you.       The post Goal Analysis: How to Analyze Goals (So You Can Meet Them) appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.