ONLINE PROS AND CONS
1.) Do NOT tell your employees to get it done nights and weekends.
The best way to go about this is to allot them time during the day just as you would with a live class where a trainer comes in from 8am – 2pm for so many days for example. The most probable outcome of telling them to complete the online course at night or on weekends is that it just won’t happen.
2.) Allot them 35-45 hours to complete.
Just like an OSHA 30-hr training in-person takes more than 30 hours (because of commute, breaks and lunch), so does the online course. More reasons for this are given in next item #3.
3.) There is a possibility of failing the online course.
The online course has a multiple-choice quiz after each topic. You must pass the quiz in order to advance. 7 correct out of 10 is passing. If you fail the quiz (let’s say the topic at hand is electrical safety), then you get bumped back to the beginning of the electrical portion of the training and you must scroll through the entire electrical presentation material before you are presented with the electrical quiz again. But you can’t just click advance quickly, you must spend a minimum amount of time on each page (something like 15 seconds per page). This is what adds time to the 30 hours. It is common to fail a quiz once in a while, so don’t get discouraged or fearful. But if you fail the same quiz 3 times in a row (let’s stick with the electrical safety topic as our example), then you will get locked out of the course and you must take an onsite class. Now, in the over 300 OSHA 10-hour courses I’ve sold, literally 3 people have failed. Two had trouble with English. So I ONLY recommend having someone who is fluent reading and writing English to take an online course. But one guy truly just failed it. So, your chances of failing are minimal, but they still exist.
ONSITE PROS AND CONS
1.) The camaraderie.
There is no online class that can match the benefits of having all or part of your crew in the same training for 10 or 30 hours. The mindset, conversations, group activities, interaction, ideas for improvement, identifying gaps in your safety program, discussions and takeaways that the employees gain from a good trainer who presents challenging materials is unmatched by online training. I created two videos of me training and explaining about my onsite training.
2.) No quiz to pass.
The live training has no pass/fail requirements. There are no quizzes you must pass. The only requirement for a person to obtain or earn their OSHA 10 or 30 hour card on Construction or General Industry is for them to be present for the entire training. This relieves a lot of pressure for some people who are not test takers.
3.) More expensive.
The onsite course will be more expensive than online courses. Typically, if you have one or two people who just can’t find a class, the online version provides a great option. There are other reasons like time constraints or geographical location, but -generally speaking- the benefits to a company of live training with a great trainer cannot be matched by online training.
All my best and until next time,
Steve