Is training the answer to our problems?

摘要

We all recognise the importance of training to ensure employees have the best chance of avoiding death, injury or ill-health at work. Looking back at the time I have been part of the profession, I remember when there was almost a feeling that the necessary knowledge would be absorbed through a process of osmosis. Fortunately this is now a thing of the past but do we get the health and safety training we really need? Another problem that seems to have arisen is that training has changed from being something which was ignored - in some cases through ignorance and in some through intent - into the automatic solution to most health and safety problems. To some extent it has almost become a solution looking for a problem (or at least a knee jerk reaction to a problem). While acknowledging the important role that training plays, we have to ask whether it is being used to avoid developing a more robust and appropriate result.