An Online Software Program for Tracking Safety Training: The LMS

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January 16, 2019

Resource: Blog Industry: Industrial
Tags: Safety, Vector LMS and Training Management

Tracking Safety Training Completion Image

Frequently, potential customers (or even just safety professionals that we meet in the field, at conferences, or on social media) know that there are online software applications for tracking the completion of safety training. In fact, we often get calls, emails, or online web form submissions asking for more information about software for "tracking safety training completion."

So that part's easy enough.

But sometimes, people don't know there's a name for the kind of web-based computer software that is used for delivering training, including but not limited to safety training, online as well as tracking employee training progress, completion, and expiration--and even more.

In the learning and development industry, the tool that safety professionals would use to track safety training is known as a learning management system, or LMS for short. If you're a safety professional and you're looking for an online software application to help you track safety training completion, it's an LMS that you're looking for.

And even if your initial focus is on tracking safety training completion, you'll soon discover that a learning management system does a lot more than just that, and that you'll be excited to use some of these other LMS tools to improve your overall safety training program.

If you've got a few minutes, read on to find out more about LMSs and how to use them for safety training.

You might also find a LOT of stuff interesting and helpful on your online safety training search in the guide below.

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What Is a Learning Management System (LMS)?

A learning management system is an online software application that can be used to manage and administer a training program. If you're a safety professional, this can mean your safety training program, although an LMS can be used for other types of job training as well.

Watch this quick overview video to get a basic idea of what a learning management system can do.

Read our What Is a Learning Management System (LMS)? article if you'd like to learn more about LMSs in general.

Using an LMS for Safety Training

As you've already read, you can use a learning management system (LMS) for any kind of training, including the safety and health training you do at work.

Many times, potential customers come to us looking for an online tool that will let them:

  • Assign online safety training to employees
  • Deliver that training online so employees can complete it at a desktop or on mobile devices
  • Track which employees have been assigned safety training
  • Track which employees have completed and/or not completed safety training
  • Keep track of cases when employees have completed safety training but that complete status expires after a certain period of time--for example, every year
  • Keep historic records of all that completed safety training over years

And there's no doubt an LMS can do all that for your safety training program. Plus more--our LMSs & Online Courses for Safety Training article tells you even more about this.

LMS Tools You May Not Have Thought of But May Find Useful for Safety Training

Here are just a few of the many other things you can do with a learning management system that may appeal to you as someone who has to manage a safety program (and a safety training program):

  • Import your own self-created training materials in multiple formats, including PDFs, PowerPoints, videos, web pages, elearning courses, and more
  • Import online safety training courses made by multiple different safety training providers
  • Create training materials with tools in the LMS, including safety and operational procedure checklists, online quizzes, surveys, and even your own safety training "courses"
  • Assign, track, and report on "real world" training that doesn't occur online, including classroom-based instructor-led training, training that occurs in the field, training that occurs offsite, conferences, and more
  • Much more

To consider this in more detail, read our LMSs for Online Safety Training article.

Learning Management Systems & Mobile Learning Delivery for Safety Training

These days, people do a LOT on their phone. They expect to be able to do things on their phone, and that includes job training and safety training. Why not give workers this option, so that they can complete safety training on their schedule and where they want to?

Plus, using mobile apps and mobile training delivery for safety materials does something you probably want to do: puts information in the hands of workers at the time and place they need it in order to work safely in the field.

Even better, mobile apps for safety training let you do this like give credit for safety training completed in the field, gather signatures, grant credit for attending classroom training, and even see who's done and not done with safety training without having to run back to your computer.

Check this article to learn more about the benefits of mobile apps and mobile learning for safety training.

Consider Getting an LMS That's Pre-Loaded with Online Safety Training Courses

Speaking of safety training courses, you might want to work with a safety training provider who can set you up with an LMS to handle all the training administration we're talking about but that also comes with online safety training courses created by that same provider. This will really ease a lot of things, including the ability to get your safety training courses updated over time to match regulatory changes.

For example, your LMS for safety training could come preloaded with online safety training courses like the ones shown in the overview video below.

You can see a complete list of our online safety and health training courses here.

Remember, you can always import additional safety training materials into the LMS in addition to the courses it came with, but this is a great head start and will pay dividends over time as well.

To learn more about this, check out our eLearning Courses for Online Safety Training article.

Integrating Your LMS With a Workplace Incident Investigation & Reporting System

Although learning management systems typically have many features in common, no two LMSs are exactly the same. That's good for you, as a safety professional, because it means that some LMSs are made specifically for safety training or have features specific for safety training.

For example, wouldn't it be great to have a LMS you use for safety training that also has a built-in online software application that:

  • Allows employees to report near-misses and incidents
  • Facilitates performance of an incident investigation, including performing a root-cause analysis and assigning corrective actions
  • Tracking the status of those corrective actions to ensure they're completed
  • Performing analytics on accident locations, types, and causes to help your organization further learn from safety incidents
  • Create mandatory recordkeeping forms required by OSHA, MSHA, and the EPA
  • Submit incident data to OSHA's new online submission site

Watch the short video below to get a better idea, and think about how cool it would be to have a single online software application that would handle both your safety training and your incident investigations.

To consider this more, read our Benefits of an Online Incident Management System Software Program article or this article on Using Mobile Apps for Incident Management.

Using an LMS for More Than Just Safety Training

Of course, an LMS can be used for any kind of training, not just safety training.

So you may want to partner with other managers and/or departments in your organization to get your LMS: operations, HR, learning and development, quality, sales, customer service...they may all be looking to improve the efficiency of their training programs and may enjoy being able to partner with you and your safety training efforts on this larger organizational goal.

Remember, although we often think of safety as it's own department, and as distinct from operations, that thought doesn't match reality. Safety IS applied operations, after all, and safety professionals can improve the overall safety and health of a workplace by trying to tear down those organizational silos that arbitrary keep us disconnected.

Read more about safety and the learning organization to consider this more fully, and read about how to use an LMS for training and new employee onboarding at any manufacturing facility.

Conclusion: Track Safety Training Assignments & Completions with a Learning Management System (LMS)

So we hope that helped. If you're the kind of safety professional who knew you wanted to learn about software systems for tracking safety training but didn't know what an LMS is, this puts you one step further down the road of your path of getting this helpful tool for a safer workplace and better safety training. And if you knew what an LMS was and knew you could use one for training, maybe you learned some other new things along the way.

If you'd like to consider using an LMS for online safety training further, you may find some of the articles below helpful:

And before you go, why not read our What to Look for in an LMS for Online Safety Training article?

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