Are you Bonified?
Safety Certification, Degrees, and Certificates..... what is the difference?
Before you read this article.... Please read the entire article because it contains references to resources that will save your company money today, keep you out of jail, and it is all free information (the best type).
As a professional in the career field for over 35 years I have many up and coming safety professionals ask me about certification all the time. It is not uncommon for someone to call me up and ask what "one class" do they need to take to become a safety trainer. Therein lays the crux of our profession. A seasoned and well educated safety professional is worth their weight in gold. Unfortunately, there are plenty of individuals out there that want to play at training and are not willing to put in the time and effort to enhance their understanding of the profession. About now, I have a few of you saying "amen brother" with about the same number saying "I've been doing this for 30 years and I know what I am doing... I don't need no fancy degree or certification to prove that". To the second group I would say that there is no substitution for hard-learned experience and I commend you on achieving your level of expertise without having to crack a book or read a reg. This article is written for the rest of us who mix experience and technical learning to further hone our skills and provide industry with the best possible answers to tough questions.
Over the years, I have taught well over 1,000 students in safety, fire, and environmental management for many major agencies, companies, and universities. As a former State Safety and Health inspector and later a Fire Marshal, I used my experiences and knowledge of the regulations to help students understand the materials they were studying. The point of this discussion is that safety professionals must keep current with changing regulations in order to do their job in a professional manner.
I use to tell a joke about a small oil and gas town that I would travel to often. The joke went that all it took to teach safety in this town was a white pickup truck and a magnetic sign. Well I was wrong! I once saw an old brown Dodge pickup with a cardboard sign on it marked in Magic Marker "Safety Training". As I would latter find out, this town of 40,000 people had over 23 safety-training companies with most just offering one or two specialized classes centered on what they had learned in the "oil patch" and not on any industry accepted practices or standards.
So here, we stand at the crossroads of experience and professional instruction and look at what is becoming a smorgasbord of classes, certifications, certificates, and qualifications. It is my hope that you will better understand the process and products that are available after reading this article and are at least well informed in the choices that you make. Before I start I must in all fairness disclose that NCEHSEDU.com and ENMU-Roswell are fully accredited providers of safety, health, fire, and environmental training both in-class and on-line. With that being said I plan on being fair to everyone we discuss regardless of their professional standing or industry acceptance.
What type of classes are there?
In general, most classes many training companies offer are awareness training. OSHA does not certify anything and if you ever hear anyone saying that their classes are OSHA "certified" or "approved" then you should be wary because that is just not the truth. The OSHA 10 and 30-hour classes focus on hazard awareness, avoidance, and mitigation. They do not (by OSHA edit) deal with regulations and generally just skim the top of what really needs to be trained about the subject. For staying awake during the class and possibly taking a quiz at the end, you will receive an OSHA 10 or 30 card that is (currently) good for a lifetime. Now this does not seem like a lot of knowledge and thought went into a course like this but from experience, I will tell you that there are a few other "cards" out there that you must have before they will let you on a drill site that do not meet the technical knowledge that the OSHA 10 and 30 Hour class delivers. If the OSHA 10 and 30 hour card is the minimum allowed training the government believes is sufficient to protect workers. So why do companies do less and charge more for their training? The answer is simple.... advertising and an ill-informed public.
For other types of training, OSHA many times requires that employers teach their employees about the subject and REGULATION. Covering the regulation is where most classes fall short in content and rely on what the instructor has learned over the years and or what they consider important in the training. This is not to say that the class is not first rate. This is only to point out that when it comes to meeting minimum requirements for content, some classes do not meet the mark. The way many training organizations get away with this is through customer ignorance of what is required.
Who's job is it anyway!
About now, I have a few of you mad that I have pulled back the "curtain" and a few of you wondering what can be done about it. The answer is simple; become informed. Now you may say, Mike, I don't have time to read the regulation. I rely on the trainers I hire to provide me with the most up-to-date info out there. Over the past few years, OSHA has developed a philosophy of responsibility and accountability towards worker safety. It is the employer's responsibility to make sure that the training employees receive is applicable to their job/task and is UNDERSTOOD (read... in a language understood by the employee). It is the employer's responsibility to vet trainers that they hire and document their credentials as "proof of ability" on many classes. Well this brings us into a never-ending circle of hiring people. Because we don't know what we need; having to know what we need in order to hire people to teach the class is difficult.
Enter OSHA Pamphlet 2254
Before you run off to the www.OSHA.gov site and download OSHA pamphlet 2254 (Training Requirements in OSHA Standards and Training Guidelines) for free, I feel I should remind you of the story of Pandora's box. Once you open the PDF file and learn that it contains most of the required training along with the regulation references for the training; you can never again claim ignorance of the law (which really isn't a defense anyway). 2254 is straight references to the parts of the regulation that requires essential training. On a slow day, you could read the entire pamphlet in less than an hour. So now when Mike's Safety Training and Bait and Tackle shop writes you a training proposal (required from professionals, but that's another article), you can bounce it off of the requirements and see if they can do what they say.
We're Not Done Yet
Your training provider has told you "trust me... I know what I am doing" and you want to believe them because they are the lowest bidder for the training. You need to ask a few more questions before they deposit your check. Ask if their training is ANSI compliant. If you did not get a "deer in the headlights" look and they answer "yes" then ask them "which part". The main answer you are looking for is ANSI- Z490.1- (Criteria for Accepted Practices in Safety, Health and Environmental Training). This is the who, what, when, and where of safety training design and delivery. If they know what you are talking about, then you may actually be talking to a professional. If they don't, it does not mean that they cannot deliver a great training session, it means that "you need to consider all the facts before you write the check". The worst thing that could happen is that on the occurrence of an audit or OSHA investigation, if OSHA finds out that the training was inadequate, they will just invalidate the training and make you do it all over again for the whole company. "Well there are worst things.... but this is the most probable".
So what is a Certificate?
A certificate of training or attendance means that you attended the training and met the minimum requirements (of that company) to receive the certificate. There may be a test, or the goal of the class was that you are alive at the end of the course. Most of the training done across the nation is at the certificate level. It is simply a document that states (see ANSI for the correct wording) that you have met the requirements, your check has cleared, and you can go forth and make the world a better place. Do not discount certificates, they are documentation that you did something to receive it and many times they come with CEU's (Continuing Education Units) that may be required of your profession. CEU's are generally issued by organizations that cannot or do not offer college credit hours for the course you took. One note on CEU's and certificates, make sure that the contact hours are listed on the certificate. Without the hours listed, if you ever want a college to evaluate the course for possible credit conversion; they will not attempt it without the hours listed.
Certification and Degrees
This is a little bit more confusing. There are agencies, universities, and companies that can and will issue certifications and degrees. We will start with the easiest. Universities and colleges fall into two categories. Those that are accredited through some nationally or regionally accepted body and have process, programs, and practices, that are accepted by all. ENMU-R is nationally accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and a member of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. All state colleges and universities have to undergo scrutiny and are required to follow certain rules and regulations when issuing certificates, certifications, and degrees. The second group of colleges and universities are seeking alternative means of accreditation for the classes they teach. It is important to note that if you spend 4 years at a non-accredited college and then want to apply to one that is accredited, you may not like the answer you discover. This does not mean that the education is any less, it simply means that it may not be recognized by other main stream colleges and universities as being adequate for admission. On the far end of this scale are the diploma mills that will issue you a diploma if you pay for the paper. It's generally not good anywhere, but at least you have a piece of paper that says that you paid for it.
Certificates are proof that you took a course or courses.... nothing else. They are not certification that you have met a requirement that is national or even regionally recognized. There are requirements for issuing certifications while if you want a certificate that you got trained.... those are fairly easy to come by.
I am a certified CHSUOTMP, and DCPSHK!
Everybody in the safety profession wants to be certified in something and wants the letters behind their name. Certification means that you have met a certain criteria and the issuing agency or entity is vouching for the training you have received. There is a few ways that this happens:
Testing for Certification:
Testing for certification is probably the easiest (and most accepted) way to be certified in something. By meeting the minimum requirement to sit for the test, you will be issued a comprehensive test to ascertain what you know about the subject. If you pass, you will receive your certification. If you do not pass then you can retake the test again (after you pay more money).The key to testing for certification is in the acceptance of the certification by industry. Most industry leaders might tell you that they only accept certain certification for their industry but I would say that many of them could not tell you the requirements of the certification. It is a matter of acceptance and advertising.
Certification for Completion of a Series of Courses
Certification of this type hinges on your completion of a series of required classes from the organization issuing the certification. You may or may not have to take a test to complete each course, but once you have successfully finished them all, you get the certification.
Certification from an Accredited Entity
Certifications from accredited entities have to undergo reviews, and must meet criteria for issuance. Colleges, universities, and private organizations fall into these categories. Certifications from colleges like ENMU-R are easy to understand because they have national and regional standards that they have to comply with and they review other entities coursework. Their evaluations require equivalency in rigor and content as well as minimum instructional hours and a comprehensive test. ENMU-R offers 4- certifications and a degree. Students that graduate from their courses know their stuff! Private agencies also offer certification for coursework completed by students from a myriad of training providers. Most of these are 100% legitimate organizations with high standards and good records of accomplishment. There are a few that are questionable so "buyer beware" before you spend your money on a certification that appears "too easy" or is on the BBB watch list.
So what does this all mean?
What this means is that the standard way of becoming a safety professional (by appointment and additional duties) is moving towards a career track profession of education, certification, and lifetime training along with experience. OSHA is requiring more and more from employers and lawsuits are naming supervisors and those with supervisory duties in lawsuits. Safety professionals are becoming an executive position on the company's management team and smart CEO's and managers are making sure that they are surrounding themselves with experienced, educated, and motivated professionals.
Michael O'Berry is the Director of the National Center for EHS Education www.ncehsedu.com and 35 year safety professional. He will be the keynote speaker at the 2016 Executive Safety Conference aboard the "Liberty of the Seas" www.safetycruise.org.
Feel free to contact him with questions on the NCEHSE site Email: [email protected]