Computer Based Training (CBT) is NOT Bad for Your Safety Culture
June 8, 2013
By Michael D. Lawrence, Summit Safety Technologies. mike@SafetyProgramNow.com
Some authors and safety professionals would have you believe that using CBT for safety training will damage your organization’s safety culture. These folks will tell you that CBT isolates workers and that it does not permit interaction like one would see in classroom training, and that it eliminates discussion and collaboration among employees.
First, I think it’s important that we understand what CBT is and what it is not. CBT is one of the tools we find in what is called Distance Learning (or also known as E-Learning). Distance Learning uses other delivery formats as well, including instructor-led, web-delivered courses that can include a great deal of participant discussion and interaction. Even self-paced CBT or WBT can include a good deal of interaction and allow for discussion. It’s all about how the training is designed. To use a blanket statement like “CBT is Bad For Your Safety Culture” does a great disservice to a tremendous learning tool and may steer employers away from something that can improve their safety culture, not destroy it.
When a training course is designed and developed properly, it will include the ability for participants to learn and share best practices and to get real questions answered about how the training can be applied in the workplace. CBT is only a lonely process when it is not developed properly or if it is meant to not include interaction between participants and between participants and instructor.
Do you have any thoughts? Please share them below