Who, What, Where, and How of the Training

If your company is in this situation, you need to consider making some adjustments. There are usually ways to make even minor adjustments so that even if the basic information is changed, the viewpoint or approach can be different. If we look at the HAZWOPER content cited in the previous section, we see at least six different modules. Your company training person can be more of a course coordinator and bring in some guest speakers for different segments or modules of the training. 

For instance, if the subject is respiratory protection, it is usually not difficult to find a manufacturer s representative to provide training on this subject. If you have a section on instrumentation, a manufacturer s representative might also be considered for this module. Some type of rotation should be used so that at least most of the material does not get stale or old. You could also consider changing the way in which the material is 

In the real world, due to budget and logistical constraints, this rarely occurs. In fact, many excellent courses lasting eight hours have only one person as an instructor for the entire length of the class. But even if the instructor is fantastic, I believe it is an improvement to rotate instructors every hour or two, or as often as possible. 

If your company uses an outside source for training services, the who part of this equation is a relative unknown. Consider doing as much in-house training as possible and keeping this training as relevant to the work as possible. Sometimes occasions, however, will warrant using an outside source. 

This who, along with the where and how, needs to be considered. All this takes upfront planning. A determination must be made of which vendors are available, who they use for instructors, where they perform the training, and how they will accomplish the training objectives we have determined. 

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