Should forklift refresher training and assessment be done in-house?

FOUR HOURS of disruption to your business is what happens when you send your forklift operators to an external location for an operator’s certificate. You also have no visibility over what is taught, how relevant it is to your workplace and whether the operator understood the training or learned anything new. This creates uncertainty and it does not align with what Work Safe wants a company to achieve from any type of training.

There’s no legal requirement for forklift operator certificate training or refreshers to be done like that and there are better ways that still comply with the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015.

Theory training can be delivered via a website or app using video and multimedia. The practical assessment could be conducted by an external Competenz-accredited assessor, but it could equally be an internal person the PCBU deems as competent. Bear in mind, a supervisor or manager in your company should be monitoring your forklift drivers all the time for the same things that would be checked in an assessment!

This method of online training plus internal practical assessment has huge advantages including flexibility in scheduling, transparency about driver expectations, cost savings and the ability for the operator to learn and be assessed on the equipment they would usually use, lif ting the loads they would usually lif t.

Courses are broken into shorter modules which can be completed over several days or weeks, whenever is convenient. As learning is self- paced, operators that are experienced will be more engaged as they can complete the training quicker whereas operators that need more time won’t inconvenience others or feel embarrassed through not being able to keep up. Online training provides better support for people with learning difficulties and literacy and language issues.

Do you learn and retain more sitting in a stuffy room for four hours or by engaging in shorter blocks of learning where you can immediately apply what’s been learned to your workplace? The second option describes the benefit of online, video- based, interactive learning: if you have forklift operators due to renew their certificates, this option is well worth considering.