Competency Check
The 5-Minute Competency Check: Could You Prove Who's Trained for What, Today?
Most health and safety managers find out their training records are wrong at the worst possible time. An auditor asks for them, or someone gets hurt. These five questions take about a minute each.
Score yourself
The five questions
1. Can you pull one worker's current training record in under 2 minutes?
Pick anyone on site today. Time yourself.
Bad answer: you have to check a spreadsheet, a folder and someone's inbox. If it takes you 20 minutes on a quiet day, it'll take longer when an auditor is waiting.
2. Do all your roles have a defined set of competencies?
Operator, supervisor, site manager. Each role should have a written list of what it must be competent in.
Bad answer: "the supervisor knows", or only some roles have one. If it lives in one person's head, you can't show it when it matters.
3. Are contractors held to the same standard, and checked before they start?
Bad answer: you check your own staff but take the contractor's word for it. On a multi-site job, that's often most of the people on site.
4. How long from a paper assessment in the field to it being on the record?
Bad answer: days or weeks. Until it's uploaded, the record says that person isn't competent, or worse, it says they still are when they aren't.
5. Who keeps it current, and are the other managers accountable for it?
Bad answer: it's on you, and the site managers see it as your job. This is the one that quietly breaks everything else.
Count your bad answers
What your score means
"Bad answers" | Where you are |
|---|---|
0 to 1 | In good shape. |
2 or more | You couldn't prove who's trained for what today. Most teams we talk to land here. |
Scored 2 or more?
If you scored 2 or more, reply to my email, or book a time here, and I'll show you what your five answers would look like on CheckSafe.
Kevin Wall, Managing Director, CheckSafe
