Chesterfield County is a local government nestled in the heart of the Commonwealth of Virginia, adjacent to the Capital City of Richmond, encompassing 446 square miles. The School of Health, Environment, Safety, and Security manages the compliance training needs of the county and regularly offers courses required by employees, including CPR, Fire Extinguisher Training, and Hazard Communications.
In March 2012, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) revised its Hazard Communication Standard to align with the United Nations’ global chemical labeling system and was renamed the Globally Harmonized System or GHS. This change occurred to reduce confusion regarding chemical hazards in the workplace, facilitate safety training, and improve the understanding of hazards internationally. This new system will be fully implemented in 2016 and requires organizations to prepare and educate employees on the new Globally Harmonized System.
Chesterfield County realized that all 4,100-plus county employees needed to be trained on the new label elements and safety data sheet (SDS) format by December 1, 2013, because Hazard Communication is a required course on all departments’ Safety Training Matrix. In search of a cost-effective, rapid deployment learning solution, the county’s Risk Management department partnered with the Center for Organizational Excellence to create a custom online learning experience through the use of Skillport to deploy this required learning.
Program Details
The county’s safety officer partnered with the Center’s safety trainers and curriculum development staff to custom design and develop a 30-minute online course authored in Adobe Captivate to educate employees on the new symbols, terminology, and hazard expectations. Using a phased deployment model, the course was hosted through SkillPort to a different division of employees every month beginning in March, continuing through October 2013. Systematic exception reporting was used to generate e-mail reminders to employees in non-compliance to ensure this mandatory training was completed by all employees prior to the deadline.
Results
More than 2,500 employees completed the online course by September 2013 with an average Level 2 post-test score of 88.8 percent. An additional 256 employees who did not have access to computers attended a classroom-based synchronous online course. Additionally, nearly 200 new employees participated in a synchronous online course during New Employee Orientation. These typically were offered as instructor-led classes to intact workgroups on a regularly scheduled basis.
For Chesterfield County, this was a unique and groundbreaking experience as it was the first enterprise-wide deployment of a mandated online course to all employees. Because a full third of the county’s employees do not use computers on the job, it was necessary to establish online accounts in Skillport for all employees, as well as provide basic computer skill development as needed. While many lessons were learned in the early months from issues related to hardware, software, browsers, and the user learning experience in general, the implementation has been a success to date and the county’s Level 4 ROI analysis validates a $8,162 savings in comparison to the costs that would have been incurred had it opted for a full instructor-led solution.
