How to keep track of employee read-only training

racglobal

Involved In Discussions
Hi everyone,

I work for a startup company with very few people (under 12). What is the best way to keep track of read-only training by employees? We have group-training whereby the applicable employees sign a group training sheet with the trainer evaluating effectiveness of training signing off at the end to confirm effectiveness. This is normally done on a piece of paper (a hard copy). What about for online read-only training? Where evaluation of effectiveness is self-assessment (for those employees who only need to be aware of the SOP because their work does not require them to apply the process). What program can we use to keep track of people's read-only training? For each employee, I would like to print out a record with their training on each SOP that they received for read-only training. Is there a simple online program that I can use for this purpose?
 

John Broomfield

Leader
Super Moderator
Your read only training could end with a quiz to verify understanding. One of the benefits of doing this online with an LMS is that your software keeps the record. So, invest in a so-called Learning Management System.

If you are not verifying understanding are you just going through the motions and undermining the importance of the management system in the minds of your employees?

As always the bottom line is employee awareness and competence for which you’ll have separate controls such as supervision, monitoring, recording, analysis or evaluation and acting on the results.
 

Golfman25

Trusted Information Resource
With just 12 people, you best bet is probably excel. Just have the employees post their training as it's completed. Then you can sort and print as needed.
 

Marc

Fully vaccinated are you?
Leader
If you are not verifying understanding are you just going through the motions and undermining the importance of the management system in the minds of your employees?
I fully agree. I used to do a lot of training and every course had an "exam" at the end to show evidence that each attendee understood the material. In addition, auditing and internal auditing courses included a day of monitored auditing in their facility.
 

Watchcat

Trusted Information Resource
Hi everyone,

employees who only need to be aware of the SOP because their work does not require them to apply the process

Do all employees have to be aware of all SOPs? If not, what criteria are used to determine whether an employee needs to be aware of an SOP, even though their work does not require them to apply the process?
 

Marc

Fully vaccinated are you?
Leader
Do all employees have to be aware of all SOPs? If not, what criteria are used to determine whether an employee needs to be aware of an SOP, even though their work does not require them to apply the process?
No. Every employee needs to know what documents affect them. What document(s) affect each employee are determined by the job description and related aspects.
 

Watchcat

Trusted Information Resource
Marc, agreed. What I'm trying to understand is, if an employee's job doesn't include applying the process in the SOP, in what way might the SOP affect them, that they would still need to be trained on it? Or at least "be aware of" it?
 

Marc

Fully vaccinated are you?
Leader
Example: Train engineer has an SOP which instructs him/her to notify the conductor if the train engineer believes there is a problem developing with the engine so that the conductor can notify the passengers that the train might arrive late at the destination (one of, or part of one of the conductor's SOP(s)). The engineer's SOP applies to the engineer as it is part of his/her job tasks/responsibilities. The engineer's SOP, in part, has to be known/understood by the conductor (it affects the conductor in that it triggers one of the actions in a conductor SOP {IF engineer tells conductor engine trouble, THEN conductor shall notify passengers and...} ) yet the conductor him/herself doesn't actually do anything in the engineer's SOP. In that way at least part of one of the engineer's SOP(s) affects the conductor.

This is essentially part of what is known as the Interaction Of Processes.

E.g.: Process Mapping - Process Flow and Interactions of Processes - ISO 9001
Process Interaction Chart example as required by ISO 13485 2003
How do I show the Interaction of Processes in the Quality Manual referring to 4.1(b)?
Interaction of Processes for both ISO 9001 & ISO 14001 Combined
Process Mapping - Process Flow and Interactions of Processes - ISO 9001

This long predates ISO 9001:2000, but the 2000 version made a big deal out of it as if it was something new. While the date on the slides is 2004 (the date it was rendered/printed), I actually wrote it around 1998 or earlier: The Organization as a System, Subsystems, and Processes - It is relatively basic, admittedly. It was part of a course I gave, as primitive as it was 20 years ago, so a lot of explanations were in the discussion.
 
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racglobal

Involved In Discussions
Marc, agreed. What I'm trying to understand is, if an employee's job doesn't include applying the process in the SOP, in what way might the SOP affect them, that they would still need to be trained on it? Or at least "be aware of" it?

Hi Watchcat

Here is my experience at a very small startup company. Training should also be risk-based. We have two tiers of training in this company, the first level of training is attending a classroom session where the trainer explains the requirements of the SOP/QMS process and have them take an evaluation (quizzes, tests, or Q&A session). The second level is read-only training for those who are not directly involved in the QMS process, they would only need to have read-only training to be aware of the SOP. For example, while the Management Responsibility SOP doesn't directly involve the production employee, being in a small company of 10 people, they would still need to be aware of their responsibility to be in charge of their own area of the QMS and any corrective actions should be reported to management for purpose of management review. In this sense, while they are not directly involved in management responsibility and hence do not have to be tested, it makes sense for them to be aware of this. After all, the standard calls for risk-based thinking. At my previous company, everyone from CEO down to the maintenance worker had to take a quiz on design control, which didn't make sense to me if the maintenance person was never gonna be involved in design reviews. Nor does read-only training apply to them either.

If anyone else has thoughts, I would like to hear them.
 

Watchcat

Trusted Information Resource
Sorry we are drifting so far from your "simple" question, but I think this is a good discussion, so I'm going to persevere.

I think Marc's example is how it should be. I think small device startups tend to be textbook examples of the opposite. Risk-based, yes, I think that's the way to go, and also 'bout the best you can hope for. The problem is, even risk-based requires resources, to assess the risks and then apply the results.

I was thinking they might be overtraining on the one hand (everyone gets "trained" on every SOP) and undertraining on the other, by not documenting the limited amount of training that some employees need ("aware of"). I think the former approach is often adopted as an alternative to investing the effort needed for a risk-based approach (or a process-mapping approach).

As for your original question, if your goal is to be able to print out training records for individual employees, would you plan to incorporate the group training that is currently documented on paper into the electronic system? Or would each employee's training record have two different types of records...paper records (perhaps scanned) for group training and electronic for each individual's online reading?
 
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