The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires that all workers be properly trained. For some job duties, OSHA requires employers to “certify” that an employee has been properly trained and evaluated. As a rule, OSHA is not in the business of certifying, accrediting or even approving trainers or training programs, whether they’re delivered in a classroom or online. The lone exception to this rule is OSHA’s 10- and 30-hour outreach programs, which are heavily regulated. Outside of the OSHA-10 and OSHA-30 certifications, your employees cannot receive official OSHA certifications for any topic from any online vendor.

Employers are completely responsible for training, evaluating and self-certifying their employees.  No outside training content provider, online or in-person, can certify your employees. They can guarantee that their training meets OSHA standards, and can verify that an employee completed the training, but only the employer can “certify” that the employee has received all necessary training for their particular job duties, is practicing what they were taught properly, and is competent to perform their job safely.

All SafetySkills courses are OSHA-, EPA- and DOT-compliant, but our training is designed to be a starting point for your company’s needs. In some cases, our training will need to be supplemented with in-person practical training. This additional training can include:

  • Hands-on instruction
  • Live demonstration
  • Practice exercises
  • Site-specific hazards
  • Company policies
  • Evaluation or certification

A SafetySkills course can teach your employees generalized safety information, but you’ll need to fill in the gaps with practical experience and site-specific training. Let’s say that you need to certify employees to use forklifts. SafetySkills can provide formal, online training that teaches them forklift safety basics. However, this doesn’t mean that your employees are ready to get to work right away. You would then have to give them in-person training on the specific type of forklift that they’ll use and any site-specific hazards in your workplace. You’ll need to formally test and evaluate your employees’ performance before you certify them to use forklifts on the job.

Why do my employees need additional training?

Your employees often need hands-on experience and evaluations to be able to safely do their jobs. Imagine if we only required young drivers to read the DMV handbook before they got their licenses, instead of requiring hands-on practice and an in-person test. They may have learned plenty of information from the handbook, but they wouldn’t actually know how to drive and would pose a serious danger to others.

SafetySkills courses offer formal, classroom-style training. By teaching your employees the basics before they begin hands-on training and evaluation, our courses save your company time and effort. This also gives you the opportunity to train your employees on your company policies and any site-specific hazards in your workplace. Ultimately, it’s up to you as an employer to decide who in your workplace is certified to work with or around potentially dangerous equipment or environments.