Danny Maron, owner/trainer of Ideal Forklift Training in Canada’s national capital, is an independent consultant, providing the education lift truck operators require, to businesses and government, to minimise the chance of incidents in the workplace. Before founding Ideal in 2000, Danny was a trainer at Canada’s largest forklift dealer.
Over the past 21 years as an independent proprietor providing forklift operator safety training to businesses and government, I have always been challenged for the length of time I take to provide safety training to the staff at my clients. This criticism is not necessarily by the staff, but by management and owners.
According to the CSA guidelines, (UL in the USA, CES in Europe), high-lift forklifts require approximately eight hours of training, or a full day. That is what I have always done - to the dismay of management and some staff.
Training takes as long as required
This raises questions over who polices these organisations? In Canada, nobody. I am not going to speak for other countries as I do not know. The provincial governments do not really care how people get trained, just as long as they get trained – be it in-house, worse yet, online, or outside training. Whether it takes two hours, three, four, five or six hours, nobody seems to care. And who is following up to ensure that proper training has taken place? Nobody.
An individual can start the day by telling the staff their life story, pop on a couple of videos, have an open book, group test, or instructor-assisted test, and who is going to say ‘boo’? Nobody. Shortened courses are appreciated by the staff because they cannot sit for more than five minutes, and their businesses because they can get back to work in a shorter period of time. Who is at odds with these people? Me, the instructor. I take as much time as I need to ensure that the staff are professionally trained. Others do as well, and others, do not. I am not here to talk about the ones that fly in and fly out, pick up a cheque after two hours and laugh all the way to the bank.
Often over the years, someone will call up and their first question is how long is your course (sit-down counterbalance propane) and I answer that it is a full day. And their reply is to ask if we can do it in half a day, I just say no and they hang up. Profits before safety.
How long is long enough. Recently, I provided a course for a client who had me come in and provide forklift training on sit-down propane trucks for eight staff. Usually, I tell the client the course will start at 8.00 am, and I will be out in the warehouse by 3.30 pm to review the trainees’ driving and operational abilities. Therefore, we will call it a full day. What time we get out is dependent on the strength of the operators. No guarantees.
The choice for a trainer is to do it quickly or to do it properly. I choose the latter and despite the push-back, I will march on. Nothing will deter me. I will continue to do what I do, regardless.