How to implement an Upskill training program and have easy safety compliance

Upskill Training in pandemic times

Change is a basic fact of life. As industries and different business sectors grow and mature,  new technologies get introduced.  Adding to this is the COVID19 pandemic which has forced new constraints on many business.

At the same time, it has also generated many opportunities for existing businesses to take advantage of the new situation and in a very constructive way.One of the opportunities is to implement an upskill training program for your employees and associates (such as contractors). Read on below, to know how this will save costs, reduce co-ordination headaches and also make safety and regulatory compliance easier.

Forced Digitalization

One of the changes that one sees everywhere, is the digitalization of many business processes. Is this a new technology? Actually not-several digital tools already existed a long time before the pandemic hit, but not many businesses used them, as there was no compulsion. Now with the prospect of less travel and more social distancing, with a work from home culture finally becoming the norm, these digital tools are suddenly being used. If your business is not using them, then you may get left behind by more agile competitors, who do use them.

What is Digitalization? Is it the same as Digitization?

Digitalization is more than just conversion of offline hard material to digital copies. So just converting your printed material into a pdf that is posted online, does not mean  your training is now digitalized- it is just digitized.

Digitalization means having a complete digital experience of your process with a superior user experience that was never possible before with the old system. In the above case this means creating an interactive digital training program with animations, videos, games, exercises and so, not just a pdf which is an exact replica of your printed material.

Upskill Training Program Abhisam

Upskill training programs for everybody

To survive and thrive in such a dynamic economic environment, it becomes critical to have an upskill training program, not only for your employees and workers, but also for your own self. Up to now, most employees, even in the so called hi-technology companies, used to think of training or skill upgradation as happening only in a physical classroom environment. The technology to implement e-learning and specifically automated learning existed for a long time, but either it was not implemented correctly or not used at all, because the status quo prevailed.

Now that the pandemic has hit and newer waves come again and again, many business are forced to implement these technologies such as having mass scale Learning Management Systems, where all employees can access their upskill training programs on the go.

Here’s an easy way to implement a fully digital, hands-off training program for your employees. Simply access the Abhisam Learning Portal at https://prettygoodcourses.com and take care of all your training needs, especially related to Industrial Safety related topics that include Hazardous Areas, Process Safety, Functional Safety, Occupational Health and Safety, Chemical Safety and Industrial Cybersecurity.

You can see all the e-learning courses that are currently available as off the shelf courses here.

An Enterprise Platinum membership subscription grants you unlimited use for all your employees and contractors to take all these courses on the go, accessible from any smart device at any location worldwide with an internet connection.

Real time learning dashboards

Not just the courses, your managers can have a real-time learning dashboard that shows you learner engagement, with very granular data that shows what learners are doing at any time. Whether they just logged in, or they accessed a particular module of a course, or they viewed a video, or took a test, which question was answered with what option-everything can be recorded and documented. This is great to demonstrate compliance to any rules that mandate continuous training and learning for all employees. Show this to any factory inspector who shows up or any safety auditor-they will be impressed!

Reduce safety compliance costs now

A major benefit of this digitalization initiative is to reduce your safety compliance costs. How? Remember that safety compliance has several steps.

      1. Know about the subject in detail. For example, if tomorrow it becomes mandatory to implement IEC 62443 but you not know what Industrial Cybersecurity means, it will be difficult to start implementing it immediately.
      2. Understand the exact rules related to the directive.
      3. Modify your existing procedures and processes to comply with the new regulation.
      4. Train your employees in the subject, as well as in your new procedures
      5. Demonstrate to third parties that you have done all the above.

A large part of 1, 4 and 5 can be done easily, cheaply and fast if you have a digital cloud based Learning Management System (LMS), similar to the Abhisam LMS.

No co-ordination headaches or Zoom Fatigue

If you decide otherwise to implement the above steps using the traditional physical training processes, where you hire experts who will either move from location to location OR stream  their lecture online via something like Microsoft Teams, you still have to co-ordinate with group leaders, team members, bosses and others. You may have many headaches.

Happy Employees are more productive

Not so with a system like the Abhisam LMS where you have  self paced training courses available off the shelf and ready to be deployed instantly. Your employees will also not be under pressure to attend yet another Zoom call, leaving aside their regular work. Your employees will be happier that they can schedule their own learning.

Subscribe once, deploy instantly and comply always.

The Abhisam Learning Portal not only enables your employees to upskill themselves with the latest training programs that are available off the shelf, you can also ask us to customize them to suit your own audience. So if you are having some in house procedures that need to be followed, simply ask us to add them in your course list. That way your employees not only learn about these topics in general, they also learn your own organizational processes concerning them.

Because everything is documented and monitored, an automated audit trail is available. No rushing around at the last minute to dig up training records when some inspector shows up at your gate in the morning! Everything is available in real time.

How will individuals who wish to upskill themselves?

We have the Abhisam GOLD membership available for individual professionals to upskill themselves at a low cost. Find out more here.

Need more information?

We are there to help you. Move your training to the Abhisam Cloud based learning system, easily have an upskill training program for your employees and also comply with the rules. All in one out of the box solution!