Page 13 - Occupational Health & Safety - eDITION, August 2017

TRAINING
DITION
The e-Hazard Safety CycleTM: Training
Cutting and pasting from the OSHA standards or putting an NFPA 70E® standard in front of workers will not ensure learning occurs.
EBY HUGH HOAGLAND
lectrical safety training is an OSHA and an NFPA 70E® requirement. In the case of high voltage work, some training is re- quired annually if the skills are not used
regularly.
Training has to be documented, but a critical
step that is often left off of training is opportu- nity for interaction with a subject matter expert (SME). OSHA criticized most online and DVD training because this critical part (SME interac- tion) is most often missing. IF a worker can’t ask questions of an SME, training may not have oc- curred. Training must be documented and be ef- fective in driving understanding and behavior to meet the OSHA requirements.
So how does your Electrical Safety Training fit into the electrical safety cycle?
Envision:
1. Training should be developed by SMEs with a solid track record and expertise in more than just general safety, such as our Train the Trainer, which provides up-to-date NFPA 70E® and other electrical safety training classes ready for a qualified trainer.1 Accurate training may not be enough to be effective. Cutting and pasting from the OSHA standards or putting an NFPA 70E® standard in front of workers will not ensure learning occurs.
2. Training frequency, content, documenta- tion, and measurement (testing and auditing) must be part of the plan to be most effective.
3. Don’t substitute more frequent training classes for measurement.
4. Keep the training fresh with the most up- to-date standards and company practices.
Documentation and measurement are critical as one step to judge the effectiveness of the training. Training should generate questions, changes, and even pushback.
your company policies differ. Training planning is just the beginning of that part of the e-Hazard Safety CycleTM you will keep improving by adding parts and revising parts with best practices on each step of the way.
Execute:
1. Train the workforce at the level they require for their safety. Include electricians, multi-skilled maintenance technicians, electronic technicians, operators, management, and even affected work- ers who are unqualified to do electrical work.
2. Documentation and measurement are critical as one step to judge the effectiveness of the training. Training should generate questions, changes, and even pushback.
Evaluate:
1. NFPA 70E® requires review of your electri- cal safety policies at a minimum of every three years. This ensures that it meets the current ver- sion of that document and the OSHA standards. When this occurs, also review the training ma- terials to assure they are up-to-date with the ap- plicable standards. OSHA, NESC, NFPA 70E®, IEEE, ASTM, CAN/UL S801, or CSA Z462 training or a combination of other standards could be applicable; just be sure you meet them. Meeting the standards is an important part of the e-Hazard Safety CycleTM.
Evolve:
1. Supervisory work practice audits can in- clude concrete questions to review worker knowledge in practice and by asking. Auditing shows opportunities for improvement before an incident occurs.
a. If you don’t have a supervisory audit, our 7 Electrical Safety Habits Video2 pur- chase comes with our 7 Electrical Safety Habits Supervisory Audit for free. Our auditing class also offers this and more detailed audits.
2. When there is a failure in the system, pre- sented in the form of a near miss, an incident, an internal audit, an external audit, or a change in a reference standard, this is an opportunity to REVISE.
Revise before a failure. You will not see the failure, but rest assured, continuous improvement and continuous change are here to stay.
Hugh Hoagland, senior managing partner of e- Hazard, is one of the most active trainers and re- searchers in electric arc protection. His NFPA 70E and OSHA 1910.269/NESC Training Programs are used by many Fortune 500 companies and gov- ernmental agencies including Alcoa, GM, Toyota, Bechtel, DOE, and hundreds of electric utilities. He has performed and developed testing (by origi- nal research and participation in ASTM, NFPA, ANSI, CSA, IEC and ISO standards groups) for the electric arc since 1994 and has performed more than 50,000 electric arc tests.
REFERENCES
1. https://www.e-hazard.com/arc-flash-training/ train-the-trainer.php
2. https://www.e-hazard.com/arc-flash-store/ dvd-7-electrical-safety-habits.php
5. Customize or add to training packages if
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